BE NOT CONCEITED IN CHRIST

1 Corinthians 10: 1-13

It has been shown on several occasions that fishermen have been known to stretch the truth. Size matters to these men who show how big the fish was that got away. And sometimes they take drastic measures to save face. A man stopped at a fish market on his way home from a day of having no luck fishing. He asked for six trout. “Do you want them wrapped sir?” the clerk asked. “No thank you,” the fisherman said, “But could you do me a favor? Could you gently throw them to me one by one? I haven’t caught anything all day and when I get home I want to honestly tell me wife I caught six trout.” In football and other sports, it is called “bragging rights” when one rival beats another and the next match up is a year away. Around town this week, there were many bragging contests I am sure, but the one that made the papers was between the Harley’s and the so called “foreign” brands of bikes that are now known as “metrics.” Two weeks ago it was cars as NASCAR let Toyotas race (which confusingly are made in Kentucky while the Fords were made in Mexico and the Chevy’s and Dodges in Canada. Even some of the “Metric” motorcycles are made in the USA. The world is changing, and bragging rights and national identity is getting blurred. Columnist Thomas Friedman has taken note of that in his eye-opening book “THE WORLD IS FLAT: A Brief History of the 21^st Century.” In Dalian, China, for example, he found a city that rivals our Silicon Valley. With its wide boulevards, beautiful green spaces, and nexus of universities, technical colleges, and massive software park, Dalian is an hour northwest of Beijing, and the signs on the gleaming buildings say it all: GE, Microsoft, Dell, SAP, HP, Sony, and others. While Americans have held the top billing in the world for income and standards of living for a long time, honors may soon shift to pockets in India or Asia. Detroit automakers, American manufacturers of other products, and even our service industry have all suffered while well- trained and motivated international students are finding work. Young men and women in India eagerly staff call centers for major companies, get an education and health coverage, and learn how to speak fluent English and Japanese to make themselves marketable. They become fluent in technology, business, and foreign language. How are we doing in America when some of our kids have a passion for recreation? Is there pride behind the slogan “Made in America,” when international companies surpass us consistently in sales and quality?

In the same way, the times when Israel became morally and militarily weak were when they were unrealistically sure that God would protect and save them no matter what. They became complacent with a sense of entitlement concerning their land. That hits close to home! The faith in God became compromised, polluted if you will, by people “buying” blessings through purchased idols, icons, and services that honored other countries’ gods. The Northern Kingdom of Israel collapsed under the brutal hands of the Assyrians, thanks to a nation that had forgotten how to honor and revere the Lord God; the same happened with the Southern Kingdom when Babylon sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. God tried and tried to get people to wake and tune up their lives, but they were so sure that they were Yahweh’s favored child, even if they compromised their faith or withdrew their gratitude. That history must surely have been in the mind of the Apostle Paul, once the religious Jew named, Saul, when he was grieved by the squabbles in the Corinthian Church. Church members started taking sides, bragging, in a matter of speaking, about following Paul’s teachings or Apollos’ teachings or Cephas’ teachings, splintering the cross of Christ in the process. Their smugness about their stand before God was fast becoming their undoing. So Paul addresses them repeatedly in his letters, including the text today. To paraphrase his actions, Paul reminds them that their forefathers had all claimed the salvation of the Exodus, all heralded Moses as a great prophet, all ate the manna that fell from heaven and drank the waters that poured forth from a rock. Then Paul lowers the boom with these words: “God was not pleased with them; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things are warnings for us not to desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, when 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put the Lord to the test as some of them did who were destroyed by tempters, nor grumble as some of them did, and were destroyed. These things happened to them as a warning, but they are instruction for us.” In our community, known to the world the past month for having a house wired with cameras and police to trap people trying to hook up with young girls and boys, known for flashing skin and outlaw mentalities, there are still many on our roads today, in our homes, and in our churches who love Jesus and live virtuous lives. Not all have flung caution to the wind. But we cannot think that by having a baptism or a membership certificate tucked in a file or matted in a frame will automatically make God pleased, nor will it amount to anything of value if others in the world see us a short tempered, irate, condescending, or as outrageous Christians who, at times, take the judgment seat that rightly belongs to the Lord and turn it into our own. On the other hand, God DOES put on the hearts of ministers and church educators, church leaders and church workers the prophetic license to encourage, implore, and even slightly agitate one another (the Biblical word is provoke one another) to higher standards of unpretentious living. How proud I am to have people of all walks of life in this congregation who share their talents to further the Kingdom of God, who still study Scripture as mature adults, who care for children so the next generation will know Jesus, who reach out to those who are hungry or homeless, maybe one day helping Jesus himself, or sharing their talents. The other side of Christianity is what might be called the “Corinthian Trap,” a counterfeit Christianity that competes with other Christians about who is the most righteous, who has the correct baptism, who is the most spiritual. Such people offer words said without love and develop Christian portfolios that make Jesus as a marketing tool instead of the Savior and teacher he came to be. That is the Jesus we need; it leaves conceit and puffed-up attitudes behind and acknowledges the humble spirit that God longs to hear confessed. So, as the words of the anthem from first Corinthians said it a few minutes ago, so you will be able to offer now as well, not in a counterfeit way that God can spot as easily as a fish story, but in true genuineness that will warm the heart of the Almighty. Let us sing these words by Hal Hopson that beautifully capture the terrible state of the Conceited Christian and ask for forgiveness and redirection:

Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire,

but have not love, my words are vain as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.

Though I may give all I possess, and striving so my love profess,

but not be given by love within, the profit soon turns strangely thin.

Come Spirit, come, our hearts control; our spirits long to be made whole;

Let inward love guide every deed, by this we worship and are freed.

Jeffrey A. Sumner March 11, 2007