Saying Hard Things

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!  7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

–1 Corinthians 5.9-6.11 (NIV)

In today’s culture where anything goes and where love has been distorted to mean allowing the beloved to do whatever he/she pleases, reading passages like the one above comes as a shock to us. “How judgmental of you Paul!” we are tempted to exclaim in self-righteous indignation. “Get with the program. Get enlightened and stop acting like an old fuddy-duddy. You claim to know Jesus and to follow him. Don’t you know that Jesus said for us not to judge others?”

You don’t have to go very far to hear comments like that, both inside the Christian community and outside of it. We just don’t want to be accused of being “judgmental” because that has become the new unforgivable sin in our culture. But this distorts the original meaning and context of Jesus’ teaching about being judgmental and Paul is being quite consistent with Jesus in his application of judging here.

The precipitating issue that Paul is addressing is a misunderstanding the Corinthian Christians had about Christian freedom. They had a member in their church who was having sex with his step-mother and no one had told this man to stop. Apparently most of those Christians interpreted Christian freedom as freedom to do whatever feels good. After all, aren’t we all forgiven by the blood of the lamb? So what’s the big deal?

But this badly distorts the Gospel and I do not have time or space to fully engage in that argument. Suffice it to say here that Paul was reminding the church at Corinth about Whose they were. You see, Christ didn’t die for us so that we could keep on being the broken people we are. He died to set us free from our sins and brokenness. But we have to do our part in response. We have to start practicing the Christian virtues so that we can learn to be fully human and prepare ourselves to live as such in the promised New Creation that Jesus’ resurrection previews for us.

Practicing the Christian virtues at first will feel odd because we are such broken people. For example, when I was a young man, I wanted to learn to play guitar and I had to practice for hours and hours (and hours) to learn how to produce the right chords. It wasn’t easy and the fingering was terribly awkward for me. Likewise with practicing the Christian virtues. Paul is reminding the Corinthians and us that God wants everyone to be part of his promised New Creation but we have to learn how to behave so that we can live there comfortably. So we have to avoid those behaviors that dehumanize us and that will serve to keep us from the Kingdom, not because we aren’t “following the rules” but because these behaviors (of which Paul names a few in today’s passage) tend to reinforce our brokenness and don’t get us ready to live in God’s presence forever.

This line of thinking is not popular. In fact, it leads to charges of hate-mongering and bigotry. But nothing is farther from the truth. Paul is not being judgmental. To the contrary, he reminds the Corinthians that they are not to judge non-believers. God will do that, thank you. What they are to do is to work on practicing the Christians virtues of faith, hope, and love, virtues that will help equip them to live in God’s New Creation. These are behaviors that help them become more human and these are what the any Christian ought to be pursuing seriously because they lead to life. Paul also reminds the Corinthians that part of loving each other is to hold each other accountable for practicing the Christian virtues. Why? Because we are all so broken that it is difficult to practice these virtues, at least initially.

That is why Paul scolds the Corinthians so severely about engaging in civil lawsuits against one another. They should know better. Because they are Christ’s and because they should imitate him, they should be willing and able to bear wrongs that fellow believers might happen to bring to bear on them. There should be a willingness to forgive and not to be haughty or proud. It’s about practicing humility and extending grace. Doing so will help the Corinthians be the humans God created and intends for them to be so that they will be able to fulfill their God-given duty of being stewards of God’s new creation. When we understand this, Paul’s remarkable statement about humans judging angels and the world start to make sense.

But none of this is automatic. We have to work on it and be changed by the grace of God and by his Spirit living among us. If we don’t, we really don’t have faith in Christ and his cross because we are unwilling to be changed into his image. Our behavior always reflects our faith (or lack thereof). What Paul is reminding us here is the sad fact that not everyone will enter God’s promised New Creation and we can tell that because of their behaviors. It is a hard thing to hear but if you want to know what real love looks like, here it is. Paul doesn’t want anyone to die and be excluded from God’s Kingdom. He wants everyone to have faith in Christ, to be changed by that faith and live. So he has outlined for us the promises and benefits of living a Christian life. And he has also warned us that faith in Christ is more than just lip service. It certainly isn’t living a life of libertinism where we can do as we please because our desires have gotten badly distorted and broken.

Paul certainly will not win any popularity contests over what he has written here. He didn’t in his day and he still doesn’t in ours. Many read this and are scornful. In fact, the Daily Office for the Episcopal Church omits verses 9-11 from it’s assigned readings! They apparently are just too “unenlightened” and “unloving” and so should be avoided. That is tantamount to a person not going to the doctor when symptoms of cancer appear. The thinking goes something like this: If I ignore or avoid it, it might go away. But true love always desires the best for the beloved and eternal destruction is not something we should desire for anyone, especially those we claim to love most.

Being Christian is hard work and it sometimes requires hard things from us. When that happens, we must be careful to ask the Spirit living in us to guide us and give us the proper attitude and humility to speak the truth in love to others. We do so because we realize that we are just like them in our brokenness, and just as much in need of Christ’s healing love as the other. We also must remember that it is not our job to “fix” other people. We don’t have that in our power because we are as badly broken as they are. What we do have in our power is to introduce others to the One who can fix them and to be ready to offer good reasons why others might want to develop a relationship with Jesus.

It’s not about following a bunch of arbitrary rules. Nobody is very good at doing that. Rather it’s about learning to develop the behaviors (the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love and the attendant fruit of the Spirit) that will allow the Spirit to shape us into real human beings. We do this because we believe in (and want to obey and become like) the One who loved us and gave himself for us so that we might live. Without that costly act, what we do is really irrelevant.