An Open Table where Love knows no borders

Riding them home as one

A sermon on 2 Corinthians 1: 18-22 by Nathan Nettleton

It is quite quirky how often you can read the scripture readings for the given Sunday — readings that were decided on by some committee some years ago on the other side of the world — and they seem to have been chosen just for us on just this week. Tonight’s reading from one of Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth speaks, in part, about the relationship between the congregation and its pastoral leaders. And in speaking of the pastoral leaders, including himself, he names them, and there are three of them. And tonight we are inducting two new pastors to make a team of three, although I’m not going to try to make any claim that we’ll be in the same league as Paul, Timothy and Silas!

Whether or not we are in the same league, we are in the same boat when it comes to how and why we are here, and how we pastors are related to you as the congregation. Paul argues strongly that we — pastors and people — are in Christ together, and we are in Christ together because God has put us together, in Christ. We are partners, bound to one another, and we are not given the choice of being in Christ any other way. We are united to Christ, as his body, in the way that God decides to put us, and God has decided that we shall be put together, bound together.

Yesterday at Rachel and Liam’s wedding, the preacher picked up the image from the book of Ecclesiastes of the three stranded rope, which by virtue of its three woven together strands is not easily broken. It is a commonly employed image to describe the three-stranded relationship of a couple and God, but it might also describe the relationship between pastors, people and God. Indeed, this too is a vowed relationship, for in a few moments Jill and Garry will commit themselves to being faithful pastors to you, their congregation; and you will be asked to complete a covenant with them by committing yourselves to honouring them, caring for them, and listening for the voice of God coming through them. We bind ourselves to one another, and together God binds us to Christ, to form the three stranded rope that is not easily broken; or to stick with Paul’s metaphor, to form the bodily presence of Christ in this place and time.

There is a subtle distinction in what Paul is saying concerning how we get to be in on what God is doing in Christ. Firstly he acknowledges that we volunteer ourselves. He speaks of us giving our “Amen” to the glory of God, that is to say “Right On!” or “Count me in!” We see what is going on and voice our affirmation of it, our desire to be associated with it. But then he is quite clear that it is God who establishes us, together, in Christ. It is all God’s doing. These two ideas have sometimes been pitted against each other as incompatible opposites, and perhaps if we merely think about them too long, they begin to look that way. But if we reflect on our own experience of encounter with Christ, it seems little more than a statement of the obvious. There is nothing we can do to make God unite us in Christ — we can’t force God’s hand — but God won’t force ours either. God calls for and waits for our expression of willingness before taking over and making us into the body of Christ.

At that point, it is all or nothing, though. Once we allow God to take over, we are obliged to go along with what God is doing. Paul is quite clear that we can’t have our cake and eat it too. We can’t have a bet each way on Jesus, because God was not having a bet each way in sending him. If we say “Count me in!” to God, we cross a line of no return. Paul says that God puts a seal of ownership on us and anoints us to a task. The image comes from the slave markets of the day. Perhaps the closest image in our day would be that of branding cattle or horses. We are indelibly marked with the name of the one to whom we belong, with the name of our God, and set to work in the common task that God has assigned to us.

Now being children of an age that likes to keep all its options open and to change tacks frequently, that might sound like an impossibly daunting thing to do. It is daunting indeed, but there is an even more enormous promise involved here. Paul tells us that all God’s promises are made good in Christ. In racing language, you can afford to bet everything on this, because every promise God has made rides home a winner on the back of Jesus.

And perhaps I can push the racing imagery a little further for this occasion. Have you noticed when you are watching the Melbourne Cup, how often they use the metaphor of everyone in the stands riding home on the back of the one horse? It was especially strong last year as Damien Oliver rode to victory wearing his recently killed brother’s colours. The commentators spoke as though the whole Australian public was riding down that final strait with him. And in that moment, it doesn’t matter whether you are the owner, the trainer, the strapper, or one of the ordinary punters in the crowd; you are all one, and all riding home on the one horse, your fortunes riding together.

And isn’t that exactly what we are saying here about our relationships to one another in Christ. Sure, at moments like the one we are about to share, we can notice the distinctions that exist between us. We all have different gifts and different roles. Some are apostles and some are bishops and some are pastors and some are teachers and some are strappers and some are jockeys. We can recognise that and affirm the gifts and even give special honour to those whose roles within the community are dependent on the “Amen” of the whole community. But all of that is mere detail in a much bigger picture. We eagerly await the day when the bigger picture is all we can see, but even now the bigger picture is our ultimate reality, although from our limited vantage point within it we struggle to see it past the close-at-hand detail. And that bigger picture is Christ — and all of us one in Christ — Christ the cosmic thoroughbred, risen from the dead and racing to ultimate victory with all the nations bound up with all the promises of God, riding to victory in him, and on him, to the glory of God. Amen? Amen!

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