June 4, 2016

“And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”  1 Corinthians 3:1-11

One of my favorite finds in the dollar spot section is the collection of balls you can usually find. There usually are at least three or four kinds of balls – bouncy balls, inflatable balls, balls with logos, etc. The ball I found today is a ball, a bouncy ball from the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” collection. It is the best of two worlds – a ball, and a cartoon with ninjas. First of all, everyone needs a lot of bouncy balls in their collection of stuff. Often when my wife and I go for a walk, I will take a bouncy ball along and bounce it as we go. It gives me something to do while I walk. And, all of the balls we have in our home are instant cat toys. Our cats love to play with any ball they can find.

In our reading for today, Paul is not playing around with the people from the church in Corinth. Paul is mad. The church in Corinth is just a mess with people bouncing all around in their thinking – and with their loyalty. Some are saying they are followers of Paul. Others are saying they are followers of Apollos. Paul has had enough. He tells them that all he has done is planted the seed of Jesus Christ, and Apollos has watered that seed – but what has given everything growth is G-d, and the foundation of growth in every church is Christ, and him crucified. There is no need to bounce around from loyalty to loyalty – believe in Christ. You see this in our churches today. People leave a church because the beloved pastor has left or retired and the one who follows is not “just like them”. Or others leave because there are quarrels and dissentions among the people.

My friends, Christ does not want a church of people who bounce around from church to church or pastor to pastor like a bouncy ball. How can you build the foundation of any church upon Jesus if the next layer is bouncy and unpredictable. Christ is the foundation. Let’s start there, building our faith and our churches on Jesus – the sure foundation.

Pastor Dave