25^th February 2014

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 26 January 2014

Lessons - Psalm 27:1-6; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:17-22

The Corinthians were a fractious mob. They formed cliques around strong leaders with those who shared their 'values'. Dissension was wide-spread and 'back-biting' common. You would not have wanted to be their minister!
Faced with disharmony, Paul appeals to all parties to seek 'consensus'.

His advice has a contemporary ring. Consensus is thought to be the way to overcome conflict, disunity and intolerance and to establish local, national and international harmony. On Australia Day, our civic leaders rightly appeal to what unites, rather than what divides us. In worship we sing that we may 'think and speak the same, and cordially agree'
(Australian Hymn Book 367).

This is a very attractive approach to resolving conflict. It is very important to talk things over with those with whom we disagree and try to find helpful compromises to complex issues. Many disagreements between individuals, family members, employers and workers, ethnic groups and suchlike can be sorted out in this way.

Paul, however, does not appeal to the general idea of consensus. He urges the squabbling factions to resolve their differences in the light of their common faith in God's redeeming love embodied in his Son and their Lord, Jesus Christ (vv 9,10). They were not simply to put up with each other because they belong to the same church.

Factional loyalties have no place because they have been 'called' to witness to the glory of God. Like the disciples in Matthew, they have been called together by an act of sheer grace to declare and embody the Good News of God's reconciling love for the broken and strife-torn world.

Consensus in the Christian community involves much more than tolerating each other's beliefs, opinions and behaviour. It springs from the heart of the Gospel. That is why Paul focuses on baptism and crucifixion.

Baptism is the sacrament of grace which unites all Christians. Our identity does not depend on belonging to 'conservative', 'evangelical' or 'progressive' groups within the church. We belong to the 'Body of Christ'
only because God has called us to bear witness to his glory in Christ.
This is expressed in our baptismal liturgy when we say, 'In baptism the word of the apostle is fulfilled; "We love because God first loved us."'

When Paul speaks of baptism he is not referring to a religious naming ceremony (as some may think). It is the occasion that marks people becoming part of the Body of Christ to confess God's redemptive grace in his crucified body and commit themselves to be his disciples (vv 13,17,18).

Thus, consensus in the Christian community is centred on the crucifixion of the incarnate-and-risen Christ. Our unity is grounded in an event in which God's judgment on our fractious or factional behaviour is laid bare and God's redeeming grace for us is displayed.

Paradoxically, therefore, consensus in the Church is centred on a Person whose transforming love caused unprecedented conflict in public life.
Clergy, politicians and the public had to decide where they stood in relation to the crucified-risen Jesus. Some were appalled - others delighted! Many agreed that, for the sake of social harmony, this troublemaker must be eliminated. The consensus amongst the grateful was that what God had done in him must be acknowledged in the whole of life.

Despite this, the earliest Christian communities were beset by conflicts that threatened this new and liberating reality. That is why Paul recalls the fractious Corinthians to their foundation. Remember your calling. Do not be swayed by popular leaders who cause trouble. You have been baptised into the Body of Christ. So show it in your relationships with each other!

We need to keep this in mind today. In the community and the Church, 'consensus' is often used to stifle debate on vital but controversial public issues. This is true in totalitarian societies such as China, Egypt, Syria or Iran, where dissent from inhumane policies of unelected leaders is harshly punished by torture, imprisonment or death.

However, it is also true of democratic societies such as the UK, USA or Australia, where dissent from inhumane policies of elected politicians can be harshly punished in the court of public opinion. We should be grateful that democracies are more 'liberal' or 'libertarian' than 'authoritarian'
regimes. However, it is no guarantee that in them consensus will express the common good as revealed in Christ.

It is vital therefore that Christians in every age should heed what Paul says to our fractious forebears. The Church is always tempted to adopt the ideologies and practices of societies into which she has been called.
Today, the Church's concern to find 'consensus' in society - and in her own life - on the critical issues facing us all is easily detached from 'consensus' that is firmly fixed to the crucified-and-risen Jesus.

We will do well to consider whether popular consensus on issues concerning indigenous relations, refugees, euthanasia, abortion, freedom of religion, marriage, et al., is consistent with Christ-centred unity.

The Church must resist the temptation to promote the type of consensus that is at odds with what God has revealed in Christ. Our life together is not to be shaped by a general commitment to social harmony and personal niceness but by our specific - and unexpected - calling into a fellowship of grace to declare before the world the glory of God's redeeming love in and for the world.

Despite our fallible faith and many differences, we are called to be the community of the crucified-and-risen Lord. Therefore we must not let party interests divide us. Factional language - conservative, progressive, evangelical - is to be avoided. Our consensus is grounded in God's costly grace-and-righteousness in Christ. Our disputes with each other are not to be resolved by finding the middle ground but by a deeper appreciation on all sides of our calling.

We urgently need to recover this Christ-centred consensus in the Church, particularly when the libertarian concept is often used to stifle dissent
on vital public debates over faith, theology and ethics.

This will not be easy. Consensus that prizes social harmony, based purely on diversity of beliefs, desires and life-styles, is in the ascendancy.
Despite the undoubted social benefits of this kind of consensus, it has no place for harmony that is grounded in the costly, self-giving love of Christ for our broken world.

In view of the increasing hostility to the Christian consensus today our internal factional squabbles are very petty. If we care about the truth of the Christ-centred Gospel, we will have disagreements. But we must not try to resolve them by looking for the middle ground to satisfy our conservative, progressive or evangelical identities!

Our goal is to re-affirm the consensus of grace: to weigh the issues, not according to the beliefs and practices of 'our group', but in the light of the consensus grounded in God's embodied grace in Christ.

Where, in Church and society, that consensus is denied in faith and practice, protest is necessary. This little community of fractious, self- willed men and women, like you and me, is called to be a beacon of hope in a darkened world shining a light on the miracle of grace in Christ, crucified-and-risen.

So may our unity (as Charles Wesley puts it) be 'concentred all,
through Jesus' name' because 'our redeeming Lord joins us by his
grace' (AHB 367), that in all things we may glorify God.

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Rev Dr Max Champion is the minister of St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is a member of the Council of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.