Challenging Tribalism - 1 Corinthians 3:109

Uniting Heart and Soul Sermon

There’s a long running joke that when you meet a newborn baby in Melbourne, the first question you ask is ‘what’s their football team’ and the second question you ask is ‘and what’s their name’. The passion and the tribalism with which Melbournians follow their AFL Teams runs deep. It is very much their religion and you dare not cross sectarian divides. It’s generational and loyalties are passed down from generation to generation with the hallowed team scarf lovingly draped over both the cradle and the coffin. Jokes aside, the passion is a wonderful thing.

We don’t quite have that same level of passion and tribalism here in Sydney when it comes to our sporting teams. True we care deeply about the teams that we follow, but it doesn’t quite run as fanatical as it does south of the boarder.

I think the closest we come to sectarian divides in our fair city is when we talk about suburbs and postcodes. People from interstate and overseas are often bemused to find how deeply entrenched our suburban divides are. Often a dinner party conversation will start with I’m from the North Shore, or I’m from the Western Suburbs, he’s from the Shire or she’s from the Beaches, we’re from the Eastern Suburbs. We get labelled by where we live and that in turn comes to almost define our personality. In such a sprawling city like ours we tend to sick to our own patches, fearful of crossing a bridge or river unsure of what might lie in that other territory.

Yes, we can look at it as a caricature, but we do find ourselves being defined by where we live, whether consciously or subconsciously. As someone who grew up in the Northern Suburbs, was schooled on the Upper North Shore and now works in the Inner West I know all too well how those labels come with certain baggage and how people assume certain things about you because of your postcode.

This tribalism is the very thing that Paul is challenging in todays reading. We get the sense from Paul’s two letters that the Corinthians were a bit of a rabble and bit naughty. Paul often seems to be reprimanding them for doing something wrong and you can often get a sese of his frustrations in his voice. This reading from Chapter 3 is one of those occasions.

You can hear Paul’s frustrations leaking through his pen in this passage, it’s as if he’s saying ‘seriously guys, you don’t get this Christianity thing. After all I’ve don’t for you, still you’re messing it up.’

We often hear this same frustration when Jesus is speaking with his disciples and they say something stupid to him. You can almost see them hitting their heads against a brick wall because their followers and friends are not getting it.

But then, this is the challenge of faith. It goes against our natural instincts for tribalism. We are pack animals and so we will naturally retreat to the pack that we feel most comfortable in. Yet Jesus’ message, and Paul’s teaching, calls us out of that and into something different.

In this reading Paul is frustrated by the sectarian divides of the Church in Corinth. Some in the Church are saying ‘I belong to Paul’ whereas others are saying ‘I belong to Apollos’. You have two camps which have sprung up and it’s causing conflict. Some in Corinth are saying the follow Paul’s teachings whereas others are saying they’re following Apollos, another teacher and missionary of the early Church. Each group believes they are right and that their chosen leader holds the insight to truth. They’re both convinced that theirs is the right and true way to follow God.

Yet Paul calls them out and tells them how silly that assertion is. He says that both he, Paul, and Apollos, are merely servants of God through which the Corinthians came to follow Christ. Neither Paul nor Apollos deserve their devotion, God does.

Paul goes on to use a beautiful metaphor of gardening to illustrate his point. He says I, Paul, planted and Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. Both he and Apollos played different roles, but the growth and flourishing came from God. Neither of them made the community grow, only God can bring that life. Both were just servants in God’s garden, carefully tending to the new spouts, providing the fertiliser when needed and watching the shoots flourish. Yet in it all God is the source of that new life.

Now I love the natural world, but I’m not much of a gardener. I have a few indoor plants that I’ve managed to keep alive by sheer dumb luck and a regime of careful neglect and a bit of water once a week. But I certainly don’t have a green thumb. My Dad was a great gardener and kept a beautiful garden. But just before he died, he entrusted his prized roses to a friend to look after knowing full well that his son wouldn’t manage the task!

Although I don’t quite have a green thumb, I’ve always taken solace in the image of seeds and growth when I reflect on ministry and the Church. The Parable of the Mustard seed reminds us that even small measures can lead to flourishing growth. And the Prayer of Oscar Romero has always given me great comfort in my ministry journey. In part of his prayer he says this,

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,

and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

This prayer has given me great solace in my ministry, reminding me that I don’t have to have it all worked out. I just have to do something, and do it as well as I can, God will do the rest. Sometimes we plant seeds, sometimes we water. We might see the spouts but other times someone else will come in and harvest and that’s ok. Yet through it all God’ nurtures it all.

I wonder what it might mean to let go of our tribalism and our divisions but rather take on the attitude of a gardener. What might it look like if we put off our sectarian assumptions or tribal loyalties and rather worked for the flourishing of God’s garden throughout God’s community.

I think this reading from Corinthians is calling us to let go of those things that divide us, but rather strive for something deeper, richer. Rather than be defined by our loyalties to a place or a people, be defined by our loyalties to God. Because it’s through that that we can do the good work of tending to God’s garden. It’s then that we might see the new shoots of life come through in our communities and God’s love and grace growing in new places.