Maddie texted last night. She was accepted for the semester abroad next year. Sometime in January she is going with a group of other students from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio to Wittenberg Germany in ... Germany. Europe. Across an ocean. Half a world away. Good for her. Really. I’m excited for her. Excited that she is excited, as she indicated in her text and in her Facebook post. And Twitter feed. And Snapchat ... chat. She’ll be fine. I know. It will help her grow in ways that are hard to define. Living overseas, in a different culture, with a different perspective on life, broadens one’s vision and opens one’s eyes. I am who I am, in part because of the travel I have done, the countries I’ve called home, even for a short time. So, good for her.
But then, I’m only human. So I’m nervous. A three hour drive is plenty far away. Oceans and national boundaries and language divisions and a whole heap of history seems way too much, way too distant. Ripe for danger or disappointment, I get suspicious of local unrest and volatile political environments. So, I’m worried. I’m only human.
Do you notice how we trot that phrase out to excuse all sorts of things? Only human. It’s our nature, we argue. Don’t expect too much. Don’t expect perfection, for heaven’s sake. I’m only human. Don’t ask for too much. Don’t look at me as the hero, I’m not Superman from another planet with powers and abilities beyond that of mortal men. I’m only human.
It’s about being realistic, right? About know what is within our capabilities and what is beyond us. Hey, we’re only human. No since claiming too much, wanting too much. There are limitations, gravity holds us in place, we are shaped by the laws of physics, by the laws of psychology, we’re only human after all.
Well, Paul is having none of it. Our humanness is not an excuse for bad behavior, he argues. Because we have an antidote to being human.
1 Corinthians 3:1-17 NRS And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," are you not merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.
9 For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- 13 the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14 If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
“Are you not merely human?” When you are being divisive? When you are choosing up sides, determining insiders and outsiders? When you are dabbling in surface stuff instead of the deeper more meaningful, more sustaining and more demanding stuff? Are you not merely human? Paul gets a little testy here in the third chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians.
Actually, it isn’t the first letter. It is probably the second. Maybe third, there is some considerable debate. What happened is that Paul launched this church in Corinth and now has moved on to other things, other places. But he gets word that there is trouble back in Corinth. It is a church mired in dysfunction. There are fights and factions, there is behavior that is causing unrest and wagging fingers and mass exodus. There is trouble in River City. And the trouble is they’re too human.
What he really means is “you’re acting like everybody else!” You’ve got the same priorities, the same self-centeredness, the same suspicion of the other as everyone else around you. And you are supposed to be different. You are supposed to be more. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
But, careful here, this isn’t about the glory of every person. This is about the potential of the community of faith. About the witness of the body as a whole. This is why he is so upset about the choosing up of sides. Because the temple is whole body. That “you” in verse sixteen is plural. It’s a you all. Do you not know that you all are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you all? Or y’all. Except that those with Southern connections will know that sometimes y’all is singular. Better to say “all y’all.” All y’all are God’s temple, the Spirit dwells in all y’all.
You need each other, that’s part of what Paul is trying to tell them. And us. We need the whole body to work together. We need to be on the same page, sharing the same vision, pulling in the same direction. That’s how this Spirit thing works, he argues. It works on us and not as much on each. We have so individualized our faith, turned it into a commodity, a thing we can come and get checked out and tuned up and then go out each week a little bit brighter and a little bit more ready for whatever comes our way. We are consumers who come to get what we need to prosper, or to get by week by week.
That’s baby food, says Paul. That’s infant thinking. Instead come and be a part of the whole, of the field that is planted and tended and grown for the benefit of all. Be a part of the building that is constructed to shelter the whole body of faith. What are you contributing, Paul would ask, and he doesn’t just mean donations. But how are you teaching the children? How are you comforting the lost? How are you being the sign and light of the presence of Christ in our world, in our neighborhood?
To be human, in this way of thinking, is to be concerned about self-preservation, suspicious of the other, afraid of the stranger. But, Paul says, on the foundation of Christ we want to be more than merely human. We want to be Spirit driven, we want to be the sign and signal that God is at work in the world. That the Spirit equips and sends and unites.
That’s the key to this passage, to this dimension of the life in the Spirit. It unites. It creates relationships. It builds community. It makes us one. We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord. Remember that song? We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand. We will work with each other, we will work side by side. That’s the sign of the Spirit’s presence. Harmony, community, unity. We won’t get there, Paul tells us by being merely human. It takes something more. Some One more. We are One in the Spirit.
I’m excited about Germany. I really am. Because I know the Spirit is there as much as here. I can trust in that. Even as I struggle to be more than merely human. In Christ all things are possible.
Shalom,
Derek
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