"Exceptional" (2 Corinthians 8:7-15)

"Exceptional" (2 Corinthians 8:7-15)

Preached by Sam Locke on 7/1/18 at St. Peters United Church of Christ (Carmel, IN)
Audio File

2 Corinthians 8:7-15 7 Now as you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you — so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others.9For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.10 And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something — 11now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means.12 For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has — not according to what one does not have.13 I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between 14your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.15As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little."

I’m going to do two things this morning I don’t like doing - I’m going to preach from Paul and I’m going to agree with former Vice President Dick Cheney on an important topic. Buckle up.

In his book, Exceptional, the former Vice President says of the United States, “We have guaranteed freedom, security, and peace for a larger share of humanity than has any other nation in all of history. There is no other like us. There never has been. We are, as a matter of empirical fact and undeniable history, the greatest force for good the world has ever known.”

Former Vice-President Cheney is embracing the idea of American exceptionalism. I’m going to distance myself from many of my pastoral and seminarian colleagues when I say that I don’t have a problem with this statement. As an Air Force veteran from a family of veterans in this week where we celebrate our independence, I can affirm that our country has been the driving force behind many good things. That said, this passage is on the first page and the first paragraph of the book. For those of you keeping score at home, he loses me in the second paragraph for the remainder of the book, but indulge me this short moment of inclusiveness. While I don’t have a problem with American exceptionalism as defined a moment ago, I do have a problem with bad American exceptionalism. Vice President Cheney lifted up the values of freedom, security, and peace. While I suspect that the former Vice President and I have very different ideas on how to bring these values to fruition, I think the idea of ensuring freedom, security and peace isn’t an original American idea, it is a Christian idea. There is a Christian way to make these values a part of our identity as Americans.

We’ve grown to romanticize the idea originated by Thomas Jefferson of there being a separation of church and state. Jefferson, however, saw the separation of church and state a little differently than we do today. Jefferson idealized what he called a wall between church and state. The idea of this wall stood out to me. Yes, Jefferson means that neither the church nor the state should exert too much influence over the other, but I think he means something much deeper too. Jefferson is calling on the church to be one more check and balance in our complex democratic republic, which my Presbyterian family takes credit for inventing. The church, then, is a wall against bad American exceptionalism. The church - through our collective voices - stands as a wall against government overreach and missteps. When our government creates policies that run against Christ’s call for radical love and reconciliation, those policies should meet an insurmountable wall in the church that says “NO,” this isn’t who we are and we won’t let you take us there. The church isn’t always fast, but at its best has played a storied part of American history in being this wall. The revolution itself was born out of leaders from our reformed faith tradition, the church stood against slavery before the government did, the church led the implementation of civil rights, and has been a voice for the other - the immigrant, the poor person, and the oppressed. The church has been a wall against bad government and should continue to be into the future. Now, that’s a wall I can support.

On to the second thing I don’t like doing, preaching from Paul, specifically today Paul’s writing in his second letter to the church in Corinth. Or, as the President says, 2 Corinthians.I don’t like preaching from the Pauline letters for a variety of reasons. Paul is often taken out of context and used to do some damaging things to minority members of the Christian community. His words have been used as justification to keep women in submissive roles and to continue the misinformed belief that the LGBTQ community isn’t a part of God’s beloved community.  His theology, when viewed holistically, redeems these concerns, with Paul serving as a constant voice on how to live out our values - advising us on how to be an exceptional Christian community. The problem is that Paul often isn’t understood holistically and is regularly taken out of context. We can avoid this by considering our passage this morning in three ways.

First, before even looking at our passage, we should have a firm understanding of why Paul was writing to the Corinthians in the first place. The Corinthians were a testy group of early Gentile Christians. Unlike sects of Christians with a Jewish heritage, they really didn’t know what a church should like - not visually but in its outward manifestation to the world. Paul spent about a year working with the Corinthian church and then continues his ministry to them via letters with advice on how pastors should relate to the community, the way the bible should be interpreted, and how Christians should interact with one another. Paul’s message is constant in that he is advocating for the Christian community to heal internal factions, actively showing Christ’s love to one another. The New Interpreter’s Study Bible says: “[Paul] continues to value the distinctiveness of each Corinthian; yet he affirms a unity that incorporates that diversity.” A unity that incorporates diversity. If only. Building a new community is hard enough, but remember too the Corinthians were doing so under the thumb of an oppressive regime still hostile to Christians in the Roman Empire.

Second, we have to remember the format of Paul’s writing. It is a letter to a specific group of people, intended to incite a specific response at a specific point in time. Letters aren’t written for us to pick a couple of sentences out as our marching orders. Letters are intended to be read and understood in their entirety. One of my most prized possessions is a set of letters my late grandmother wrote to me nearly everyday while I was at Air Force field training. If you were to just lift out a sentence in one of these letters, you might get the wrong idea. You might surmise that she didn’t like what he preacher was talking about that week or something the neighbor might have done to annoy her, but it misses the entire point of the letters: that she loved her grandson. Paul should be read the same way. What point is he trying to convey … is there an overall story we miss when we just pick out a few verses?

The third reason Paul is misunderstood is that he has a unique writing style, not really found elsewhere in the Bible. You can hear Paul holding back, as though his reluctance might somehow motivate the Corinthians to action. Paul is a fan of rhetorical flattery, which we see in our passage today. He tells the Corinthians “Now as you excel at everything” when the whole point of the letter is that they aren’t excelling at everything. His second line is, “I don’t say this as a command” when that is exactly what he is doing, the same way a parent might say, “I’m sure you weren’t fighting with your brother.” Paul, unlike the gospel writers, writes in a way that requires deduction. He wants his readers to think they got the right answer all on their own.

So, how do we mesh this statement from Dick Cheney with Paul’s writing in this section of his letter to the Corinthians? We have to look for the main point of our passage this morning. Paul isn’t just talking about money to the Corinthians, he is calling on them to be an exceptional Christian community. To live out their values in the public square as witnesses to the love and grace offered by Jesus Christ. He specifically admonishes them to create a fair balance in all things. That the one that has much doesn’t have TOO much and the one that has little doesn’t have TOO little. This is subjective, of course, but he is hoping the relatively affluent Corinthians use their resources in service of Christ, in making sure that those who have little, don’t have too little.

We are in a Corinthian moment in our society today. How will we ensure freedom, security and peace for all of our brothers and sisters around the globe? How, as a country that has much ensure we don’t have too much? How do we make sure that the many in need around us don’t have too little?  It sure seems like a daunting task. Paul tells the Corinthian community that they secure these values by giving generously. Not just giving out of our abundance, but also out of our poverty. And, again, he’s not just talking about money - it’s even more daunting than that - Paul is talking about giving every aspect of our being to help bring about Christ’s new covenant community, where love reigns supreme.

We are living out our Corinthian moment here at St. Peter’s. You’ve responded to calls to do more financially. You are bringing bold and innovative ideas for ministry to the pastoral team and church leadership. You, like Paul, affirm a community that recognizes that unity is built in diversity. The Corinthians did this work under the shadow of an oppressive Empire. Some of you may feel like that is where we find ourselves today. Whether that’s true or not, we are undoubtedly a community of privilege, also like the Corinthians. We live in a point in history where that privilege is often demonized because of the ease at which we can afford to ignore important causes. That privilege can be used another way, to be exceptional - the good kind. Leveraged privilege can reinvigorate our reformed heritage of being a wall against government actions that would run counter to our values of peace, security and freedom defined in the way Jesus would - radical love for everyone, no exceptions.

Paul can also be a little bossy, but he sandwiches it into his writing so we only subliminally notice it. He did so in our text today. In the middle, he says: “now finish doing it.” We, as an exceptional Christian community blessed with an exceptional place to call home, continue the work Paul first asked the Corinthians to do. We’ve started, now finish doing it. Amen.