It’s A Calling
(1 Corinthians 1: 1-9)
I foolishly thought I wanted to be a doctor after graduating high school but a pair of Fs in Biology and Chemistry in my freshman year at college killed that dream. It was then that I realized that all I ever really wanted to be was a police officer. It was a calling and I reasoned I would no doubt kill or hurt fewer people as a police officer than as a doctor. I switched my major to Criminal Justice and found a college in Texas that was ranked number one in the field of Police Science. I took to the curriculum like a duck to water and soon more than tripled my freshman year GPA if you know what I mean. Eventually, after passing all of the background checks and psychological exams I was admitted into Class 75 of the Houston Police Department in September of 1976. I loved it and did well in everything but marching in step. Sixteen weeks and one new-born baby later I graduated and hit the streets ready and anxious to protect and serve, to answer my call.
I had some very good training officers and couldn’t believe they were paying me to do this job. After I got off probation and was paired with another like-minded officer who also was an academy classmate, the fun really began as we grew into our jobs, becoming true road warriors. It wasn’t long before Bill and I realized that many of our fellow officers did not share our enthusiasm and had developed poor attitudes at best. They weren’t burnt out. They had just become jaded reasoning the city and the citizens owed them more than just a paycheck. They wouldn’t quit because that would entail getting a real job so they became disgruntled, divisive, arrogant, begrudgingly answering their radio only when called, waiting for that goofy Rosekrans to take the call for them, which he would.
They had forgotten that they had been chosen above hundreds of other applicants to do a very important job, a calling to serve the citizens, those who needed someone to respond to their calls for help and render the aid necessary to address their issues whether it was taking a report, resolving a dispute, or making an arrest. They had forgotten their calling to serve rather than be served. And that’s what the Apostle Paul is writing about in his letter to the church in Corinth, a church that had been planted in a challenging part of the world that could only be brought into God’s creation by those who had answered his call.
John Wesley, in his sermon on The Mystery of Iniquity, said of the Corinthian Church: But how early did the iniquity work and how powerfully, in the church at Corinth! Not only schism and heresies, animosities, fierce and bitter contentions were among them, but open, actual sins; yea, such fornication as was not named among the heathens. Nay, there was need to remind them that neither adulterers, nor thieves, nor drunkards could enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ouch! According to Wesley, if any church needed a refresher course on the Good News of Jesus Christ, it was Corinth.
Paul had spent at least eighteen months in Corinth organizing several house-churches that would periodically assemble as a whole community in a wealthy believer’s house to eat the Lord’s Supper and worship. It was a community made up of mostly Gentile converts. What was challenging for the believers in Corinth was that it was a major cosmopolitan city, a seaport and major trade center. It was also filled with idolatry and immorality. It was a community that really needed a strong church in an atmosphere that would test the best of churches. They were struggling with their environment, surrounded by corruption and every conceivable sin and felt pressure to adapt, to fit in and not stick out. Paul had gotten a letter from several concerned members of the church regarding these divisive issues, so he wrote this letter from Ephesus in hopes of encouraging them to return to their true calling.
He starts out by reminding them that he was called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and that he is addressing those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, who are called to be God’s people. He says: Together with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place—he’s their Lord and ours! A not-so-subtle reminder that we are all in this together and all have the same calling in Jesus Christ, so listen up. He then thanks God for them because of God’s grace that was given to them in Christ Jesus. Again, a reminder of whose they are and the great responsibilities that come with being followers of Jesus Christ. He reminds them that they were made right through him in everything, in all their communication and every kind of knowledge. God has been gracious to them giving them everything they need so they lack for nothing in living their lives according to his plan. The testimony about Christ was confirmed in their salvation and changed lives. And he reminds them that they’ve been given these great spiritual gifts to use for the greater good while they wait for their Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He reassures them that God will confirm their testimony about Christ right up to the last day so that they won’t be left blameless on the day of Christ’s return. He says: God is faithful, and you were called by him to partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is some pretty flowery language and some might misinterpret it as the beginning of a letter commending and praising them for all the good work they have been doing and, no doubt, there were many in the Corinthian church who truly believed they were doing good work or were engaged in a fight for control of the church so they could advance their own agenda thinking Christ would approve in the end. And some, those who know all is not right, may see this as the set up to a great reckoning.
The Corinthian church members had all the spiritual gifts they needed to live the Christian life; to witness for Christ, and to stand against the paganism and immorality of Corinth. But instead of using what God had given them, they were arguing over which gifts were more important, forgetting their true calling. Seeing what was going on, it was Paul’s intent to reform them into a people who would live their daily lives together as a community in the shape of the cross by doing everything in self-giving, status-sacrificing love, fueled by the hope of their future resurrection, when they will fully bear the image of the cruciform, risen Christ. In other words, they will get their acts together and live according to the grace given them. He’s writing to shape and equip the church to better understand and live into its identity as holy, sanctified people, those whom God has set apart and called to reflect God’s holy character revealed most fully in Jesus’ faithfulness to God and love for others on the cross. Paul, the eternal optimist, is convinced that God will continue working in and on this community so that they won’t have any charges leveled at them when Christ returns, but there is much work to do in getting them back on course and focused upon their original calling.
This letter confronts the Corinthians about their sins and shortcomings, something we can all relate to. First Corinthians calls upon all Christians to be careful not to blend in with the world and accept its values and lifestyles. It’s a reminder that we must live Christ-centered, blameless, loving lives that make a difference for God. It’s those divisions between Christians, many that we see today throughout our world, that fractures that fellowship with others and thus endangers that partnership with the Lord Jesus, betraying their very identity as God’s holy people. It gives our detractors ammunition to attack us and to call our commitment into question undermining our most important calling, our calling to bring the light of Jesus Christ into the darkness of this world.
Today’s struggles, difficulties, and failures don’t tell the whole story. It’s how we come out on the other side of our trials and temptations that counts. We have to keep the big picture in mind, first and foremost, and show to all the world that being a follower of Jesus Christ is a calling and not merely a label.
Let us pray.
I know not why God’s wondrous grace to me he hath made known, nor why, unworthy, Christ in love redeemed me for this own. Yes, gracious and all-forgiving God, how grateful we are that you have chosen us to be your children and, like all children, we long to grow into the kind of adults that make you proud. Move us by your Spirit so that we may learn your ways and your will. Guide us in all that we do so that we may live into our calling as followers of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
1/18/26
It’s A Calling
First Corinthians calls upon all Christians to be careful not to blend in with the world and accept its values and lifestyles.