Jesus is my homeboy?

Have you read 1 & 2 Corinthians lately? What did the church at Corinth look like? I know you have had the illusion that Corinth was a super spiritual church filled with fire breathing believers doing miraculous things. For some strange reason we have concluded that if this church is mentioned in the Bible it must be a model for behavior. Truth is Corinth was a far cry from a spiritual Meca. One indication is almost every chapter of both letters we have that Paul wrote to this church contains a rebuke of some sort. These charges range from people denying the resurrection to discrediting the Apostle himself as being a good source for guidance! At one point Paul has to point out that a man sleeping with his dad’s wife isn’t something to brag about. Corinth was more like a bar filled with drunk patrons trying to figure out the Bible. It would be like waiting until happy hour at your local bar and starting a Bible study then and there. To put this church in contemporary terms, on any give Sunday if you were to visit you might be greeted by a biker dude with a beer in his hand in an insulated sleeve that reads “Jesus is my homeboy,” or you could be met at the door by one of the community prostitutes brandishing a cross tattoo on the massive amount of chest showing from her low cut top. At this point you might be thinking that I am about to drop the judgment hammer on this community of excons and alcoholics. You would be wrong. I admire this church, and the bold vision of its pastor. Imagine presenting Jesus among those who you would expect least likely to respond to Him only to discover that they are ready for life change. Corinth is a place where people didn’t have to change to attend but were allowed to come as they were and change after they belonged.

Paul spends the bulk of his written words correcting the broken behavior of these people but you can tell from every stroke of his pen and every sigh of his spirit he loved them. They are rebels, cowboys, and renegades but they are also people who God loves. It is no accident that in this community so many spiritual abilities are spoken of, after all God was entrenched in a serious battle where Satan had a great strong hold. If this gang of brutes were captured by the Truth it would make any place unsafe for the enemy.

Corinth seems to have a knack for taking the sacred and making it into a party. What they didn’t know about religion they tried to fill in with revelry. I don’t mean to down play the seriousness of sin but it is almost humorous to think that you are going to have to tell people that the Lord’s Supper isn’t an excuse to get drunk. Amazingly enough it is in the eleventh chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul has to do just that. Not only does he have to let them know that the Lord’s Supper isn’t a tailgate party but that the people who are in need are something we can’t ignore. It is refreshing to consider a church that isn’t locked in a battle till the death over paving the parking lot, or choosing paint colors for the lobby. I think it is very cool to consider having to tell the people you are reaching that fellowship doesn’t mean bringing a keg.

This weekend we are going to learn from the Pastor of this mob how we should observe The Lord's Supper. It is going to be interesting.

Times, directions, Podcast? mercyscross.com