It’s About Jesus 1st Corinthians 1:10-17

About a month ago, I taught y’all the answer to any question you are ever asked—a lesson I learned afterwards, Davey made popular in his Sunday School Class.  If you ever don’t know the answer to a question, remember that you really do.  The answer to any question is always, _______.  Yes, the answer to any question, as far as we are concerned, is Jesus.  Why?  Because for those of us in the church, it is supposed to always be about Jesus.
The trouble is, though, my brothers and sisters, that we often forget that.
Sometimes we try to make it about us.  We want things done our way.  If they are not done our way, we either get angry and complain, argue, or even fight about it, or we decided to hitch up our little red wagon, gather up all our toys, and head home.  Maybe it is not about having things done our way.  Maybe the “me” side of things is based on the fact that we want recognition.  We want a pat on the back.  We want a certificate or an award.  Maybe we just want power.  We want to be in control.  We want to be able to tell everyone else what to do. We want folks to look up to us.  We want folks to respect us.  It is all about us.
Jesus had a couple of men like that.  These men, as they were walking toward Capernaum began arguing with one another.  Suddenly their entourage had come to the city…Jesus could probably feel the tension hanging in the air. They came to the house in Capernaum that they were traveling to reach—a room in which they would soon prepare to celebrate the Passover.  Already knowing the answer, Jesus asked them a question, but he asked it in order to teach them a lesson that they would never truly forget.  Jesus called out the disciples who had been disagreeing, “What in the world were y’all arguing about on the way here?”  Those that had been arguing hung their heads in silence.  Jesus continued, “I know y’all were arguing about which of you are the greatest.  Let me tell you something.  You will never find out that way.  In fact, the more important you think you are, the further down on the list of those who are important you will fall.  If you want to be among the greatest, then you must place yourself behind everyone else, as far as importance goes.  “Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all. ”   In other words, Jesus says, “If you want to be considered important, then you’ve got to stop worrying about being important, you have to become servant of all.”  When we make ourselves the servant of all, it means that there are no people we consider below us—we are ready to serve our brothers and sisters, and everyone we encounter, regardless of whether they are male or female; black, white, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American, regardless of whether they are educated or high school drop outs; regardless of whether they are wealthy or poor; regardless of their age; regardless of their status;  in following Jesus words, we place ourselves below them and seek to serve them—to seek out what needs they might have and then seek to serve them, with no benefit for ourselves whatsoever.  In other words, Jesus was tell his disciples, “It’s not about you!  It’s about everyone else.”  In another encounter Jesus will remind them, “Whatever you have done (or not done) for the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done (or not done) for me.”
Sometimes, we don’t make our life in the church about ourselves, but we make it about someone else in the church.  We know what the right thing to do is.  We know the right decisions.  We know what Jesus would have us do…but then we don’t, because we are afraid of upsetting someone.  We are afraid that we might make one of the charter members of the church upset and they will leave.  We are afraid that we might upset the family we know puts the most money in the collection plate and they might withhold those funds that help keep the lights on.  We are afraid that we might hurt someone’s feelings if we speak the truth to them or recommend they not serve because they aren’t fulfilling their responsibilities.  I know of another congregation that literally split over a Sunday School teacher.  This particular teacher had declared that the idea of Jesus being resurrected was mythical—that he did not believe in the literal resurrection of Christ.  Now mind you, the pastor did not ask that this gentleman be removed from the church, but simply insisted that he step down from teaching Sunday School and his other positions.  Some understood the pastor’s reasoning and agreed.  Others felt like the teacher was a nice man, and they didn’t want to hurt his feelings by asking him to step down after all his years of service.
Paul and Peter, while they may have had their disagreements over some things, this was not an area where they disagreed.  When Peter and others were being arrested and persecuted because they would not listen to the people in charge telling them to stop proclaiming the name of Jesus, told them, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”   Paul wrote to the Galatian congregation, “Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval?  Or am I trying to please people?  If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”   It is always about Jesus.
It is not even about the pastor, which is the point this morning’s passage from 1st Corinthians is trying to make.
Paul writes the church in Corinth, upset that he has heard the congregation has divided itself based on the teachers/preachers/pastors they have experienced.  Some were saying “I belong to Paul,” others saying “I belong to Apollos,” others claiming “I belong to Cephas,” and finally a group that says, “I belong to Christ.”  According to Paul, though he doesn’t say it this way, only that last group had it right.  Paul questions this division, and asks them, “Was I crucified for you?  Were you baptized in my name?”  The answer to both of those is, of course, “no.”
We don’t hear a lot of folks saying, “I belong” to a particular pastor, but all too often the sentiment is there.  A new pastor comes into a congregation and all too often, as she or he is trying to faithfully lead the congregation in following Christ hears, “That’s not how Pastor Terry did it,” or, “You know, Skip, directed the choir, coached softball, visited me in the hospital every day, and preached a good sermon,” or “Reverend Stanley always wore a tie, even changing the oil in his car, and he would break into song at the end of almost every sermon.”  Some of it may never be an intentional criticism of the new or current pastor, but it can come across that way.  And then sometimes, it can lead to a church dividing as it had in Corinth.  They were still one congregation, but some were saying, “you can do what you want, and believe what you want, but I’m not going to have anything to do with it, “I follow Paul,” because he baptized me.  They had divided themselves over which of those who proclaimed God’s Kingdom and the crucified and resurrected Christ they like the most.
My brother and sisters, I pray that that will not happen here.  God has blessed us with an amazingly long season of life in ministry together.  Thirteen years.  I have not only been with y’all through some of your life’s most difficult and celebratory events, y’all have been with my family and I through ours as well.  It would be easy for us to make everything about each other, but that is not what we are called to do…that is not where we are called to place our hope, our trust, our faith.
Although it had nothing to do with this change, that is one reason when it was suggested that we move the huge pulpit and open up the chancel area, that I agreed.  It enabled us to put The Table of our Lord as the sole center of our chancel.  The Table, upon which we receive the meal that Christ has prepared for us in Communion.  The Table, which holds the candles that remind us that Christ is the Light of the World.  The Table, which holds the Bible, God’s Word, reminding us that Christ is God’s Word made Flesh.  The Table, upon which we often place God’s tithes, and our gifts and offerings, remembering that all that we have and all that we are belongs to God already and are to be used in service to Christ.  Having this table central and not the pulpit overshadowing it, reminds us that this, our worship and our life as the church, is what we are about, it is not about us, not about the preacher, we are all simply vessels that are to point to Christ.  In our years of ministry together, I hope that I have conveyed that it is always about Christ, and all that we do is an effort to follow Christ and share the love of Christ with the world.
My prayer is this, my brothers and sisters, that as we move forward from today, as I move to a new congregation at Harkers Island, and as y’all receive Rev. Trey Harris as your new pastor, that Christ may remain central.  I pray that y’all will welcome and embrace Pastor Trey with all the love and acceptance that each of you have offered me.  I am not asking any of you to follow Pastor Trey, just as I hope none of you would ever say, “I follow Pastor Lee,” but I am asking that together, with Pastor Trey, as we have done together this last thirteen years, that y’all walk with each other and simply proclaim the Gospel, and make all disciples of Jesus Christ through love and service…for our faith is in Christ, and Christ alone.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.