I belong to...
Acts 18:1-4
1 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together -- by trade they were tentmakers. 4 Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
I’ve enjoyed discovering new things in the odd space this pandemic has created - new podcasts, new skills, new music, new memes and silly videos that bring out belly laughs, new routes to ride my bike that keep me off crowded trails, new awareness of things that have been close by but now I can notice in detail, new discoveries about all of you as you share more of what is most important to you and what you love to do with this space of time. But then I also find myself leaning on the familiar and revisiting things that feel well-known, things that feel so worn into my being that I don’t even have to think about them – like riding a bike, or breathing, or digging in the garden, or oma’s recipes. It’s a constant dance between taking in all the newness that seems to be flooding in and grounding myself on the tried and true ways that bring me peace and joy – like Disney. Always Disney.
Friday night we watched Mulan, which was pretty formative for my pre-teen tomboy self. I still know every word of Lion King and The Little Mermaid, and I feel pretty passionately that Oliver and Company is one of the most underappreciated classics. Fantasia was the one our school teachers could get away with showing us in class because it’s very clearly musical education. Not that Billy Joel as a street dog in New York City isn’t incredible musical education…
And Fantasia has such a unique sense of whimsy and wonder with hippopotamus ballerinas in ruffle skirts and graceful gators with feathers in their caps; a visual and emotional feast of creation that is both epic and earthy. And, of course, there’s the wordless tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice with an iconic Mickey wearing a droopy red robe who is eager to move from observer to practitioner. Plus, it would solve the problem of hauling heavy buckets of wash water all on his own. So when the teacher leaves the room, he tries on for himself the tall and pointy deep blue hat with moon and stars, and waves his arms as he has seen the master do. He must have heard the wondrous words enough times to feel acquainted. He has watched and seen the incredible possibilities. Perhaps he has even mirrored and mimicked the movements of miracles he witnessed...
When the usual guides are gone, and we’re left with the simple elements of wonder, seemingly anxious to come to life through us, what does it look like when we move to hold that wonder for our own?
For Mickey, it starts off well-enough until he slips into sleep and the thoughts and ways of Mickey that lie just below his consciousness, just beyond his awareness…begin to run the show. For the church at Corinth, it’s not so different.
After spending significant time together, discovering the newness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, growing through conversation and mentorship, and laying a foundational rhythm for a new kind of faithful community…Paul travels on and is physically distant from them as they try on the wonder of this Word for themselves. Now they must navigate how the Gospel of resurrection plays out in the rhythms of their own day to day life.
Apparently they discover that there’s a lot that wasn’t explicitly covered in the manual because Paul writes in a way that is obviously a response to questions he’s been sent. He speaks to their wonder and wrestling with that place between how we are growing and where we still are. And while I think he gets a little sassy, it’s not shame but encouragement fosters change through the cross.
It is a natural a necessary part of growth and maturity in any matter including spirituality that we should move from theory to practice, to try on the wonder for ourselves and give voice to the Word with our own words. And like anyone learning to ride a bike, it will naturally and necessarily include stumbles and struggles and missing the mark. For the way of the cross makes us look foolish, unpolished, and thus dismissible to those who worship prestige and perfection over process, but to us who are being saved it is where God is most certainly at work.
Paul writes of “being saved,” an active saving, perhaps to remind us that God’s work in us and the world is still ongoing, so do not lose heart.
Among the Corinthians, within one faith community, there have developed divisions and segmentations, the elements of hierarchy and allegiances shaped by and in service to something other than God or the Gospel. It didn’t happen because anyone sat and thought to themselves, “I am going to divide the people of God.” More likely, it is a symptom of the societal residue. It is the result of all that newness of the Gospel colliding with the familiar and ingrained-to-the-point-of-unconscious ways of life within the Roman Empire.
The way of empire is a pyramid where your value and belonging funnels from your patron. You’re only as good as your societal line of succession. Your identity and influence as well as your very livelihood and safety come from your tribe, your clan, your crew, or your gated community and so you strengthen and serve that name above all else, whether or not you realize that what you’ve committed to. It makes you think you’re strengthening your particular community, when doing so really just separates people against one another and strengthens the control of the most powerful. It’s a system not so different from my high school where freshman and sophomores were “adopted” by upperclassmen, but there were echelons of popularity and social power. The elite circles “belonged” to seniors, and the second tier “belonged” to the juniors. It was a clearly BS system, but you were considered lucky to belong anywhere at all. It was all very Dazed & Confused but listen, as bad as it sounds; it seemed a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
The world of ancient Corinth is not so different from our modern divisions of tribalism, or partisanship, or ideological purity that define our sense of belonging and in return demand our ultimate and complete allegiance and lambastes any deviation as dangerous, diminishing, and downright treasonous.
I belong to…
the progressives, or the moderates, or the conservatives,
the hipsters, or the traditionalists,
the greatest generation, or the forgotten generation, or the emerging generations
the Catholics, or the protestants, or the evangelicals
Stand for something or fall for anything. Pick a team or be abandoned as factionless.
Perhaps we’re aware of at least some of the ways we are steeped in this way of being. Perhaps we know it’s there and want it to be different, but can’t seem to shake it. Perhaps it lies just beneath the surface of our notice. But left unacknowledged, unevaluated, and unchecked it will inevitably end up with subconscious Mickey driving the bus until we find ourselves in high water.
This tribalistic sense of belonging is a house of cards so fragile that its boundaries, when challenged, require violent enforcement. It’s the kind that leads people to spit at Asian folks in falsely-perceived retribution.
It’s the kind that ultimately lead a white father and son to be convinced that they have probable cause and sufficient authority to murder Ahmaud Arbery while out for a jog because his black skin is “other” and so suspicious and so threatening and so his life must be sacrificed on the altar of their supremacy. It’s the kind that makes another black mother plead for months for her loss to be noticed, for her baby to at least see some kind of belated justice. And lest we keep ourselves at a safe distance, we must admit that this is not so different from any of our own neighborhoods where any quick viewing of NextDoor will tell you the same sentiments are at work here, where we have the space to speak and act, even if we’re not sure we’ll do it quite right while we’re learning.
This is the pervasive-and-insidious-to-the-point-of-subconscious lie that empires steep you in – that your status of belonging is fragile, tenuous, and conditional, and if you don’t buy in, and you don’t defend it even at the expense of others, you’re doomed. And when that has controlled everything you’ve ever known, it seeps into everything you do…even church, and often we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
That’s not to say that our connection and relationships with people aren’t deeply important. When Paul first comes to Corinth he stays with Aquilla and Priscilla because they share things in common. There is sacred solace and holy healing in the way we are held and challenged in mutual relationship. The way I hear folks talk about their drag families or street families or school friends or colleagues or neighbors can surely echo a different kind of belonging and divine care. Our relationships are indeed a part and a reflection of God’s promises for a different way of being and of being loved. Belonging to people, in the intimacy of shared knowing, is much different than belonging to a patron or a camp or and ideology.
It is part of the larger liberation that Paul speaks to. When the proclamation of “this is just the way the world is” creeps into the driver seat and seems like the most powerful word, we need the Gospel of Jesus to shake us free and remind us that the world is actually still a creation of love and connection and care. We need the liberating truth that above all our hustle and our attempts at manufactured or contingent belonging, we find our rest in our belonging unconditionally to the one who knows us in our fullness. The pieces of ourselves we had to hide in order to fit the facade, are embraced in God’s wide welcome. The ways we thought impossible to escape, God has already overcome. The redeeming cross of Christ, of perceived weakness, of vulnerability, of intimacy, stands more powerful than blustering empire, and violence, and “every one for themselves”. When we fear we can not shake the ways of empire, fear it simply can not be done, when we feel stuck in that place between how we are growing and where we are…the Gospel reminds us that something different is not only possible, it is probable and, in fact, already risen among us. Amen.
And here’s the only musical meditation that felt right in response.