Most of us today are highly aware of the harmful differences in the life of the Universal Christian Church. We look around and see how differences have driven Christian people apart and kept them apart.

The Church at Corinth is a good example of a sad but familiar story that has been repeated again and again in history. The only reason Paul wrote the Corinthian Letters is because the Church is racked from top to bottom with dissension. Some of the members prefer Paul and his modern ideas. Others prefer Peter and his “old-fashioned” religion. Still others prefer the more sophisticated “New Age” spirituality of Apollos. And there is a fourth group who pride themselves on being just, plain Christians. When the other members say: “We are of Paul” or “We are of Peter” or “We are of Apollos,” they respond with a smirk and a smug, “But we are of Christ.” My professor of New Testament, Rodney Branton, used to say this last group was the worst of the bunch!

Each group in the Corinthian Church was convinced that it, alone, has the truth. The others are wrong. There is bitter competition among the members for power and prestige. Naturally, this is all cloaked under the mask of self-righteousness. Each group maintains that what it is doing is in the best interests of all. But underneath all the self-justification flows a deep current of selfishness.

And, as usually happens, the differences in the Corinthian Church were social as well as theological. Some of the members liked to think of themselves as coming from the upper crust of society. Some of you may be old enough to remember how Fibber Magee used to say that the upper crust is just a bunch of crumbs held together by dough! Others in the Corinthian Church see themselves as an intellectual elite. These are those tiresome people who have a great deal of intelligence but almost no wisdom. And, of course, there are those blue collar, dirt-under-the-fingernails people who pride themselves on being just plain folks. They may be humble in property but hardly in person.

Paul quite rightly sees these kinds of differences in the Christian Church as harmful. These differences build walls of animosity dividing person from person. As time goes on, the Church is filled with bickering and back-biting. Christian work and witness grind to a shuddering halt because the energies of the members are being diverted to their internal squabbling. The institution that is supposed to be the model of a new kind of community where human diversity is blended into unity becomes, instead, one more sad example of our human inability to get along with others who are different than we are.

In frustration at these differences Paul asks a powerful question: “If all of you are claiming to be the true followers of Jesus Christ, has Christ been divided?” Of course not, but to listen to some churches and some Christians today it seems as though we have all cut out our own piece of Christ. Worst of all that doesn’t seem to bother us. I wonder what would happen if during a heated church quarrel, someone would take out a picture of Christ like this and cut it up into pieces. (Here the preacher cuts up a picture of Christ.) Does that offend you? How much more should we be offended when we tear apart the Body of Christ, the Christian Church, by claiming to be the only people God in Christ loves?

Divided Christian churches mirror a society that is rent from top to bottom with theological and sociological and political and economic differences. We live in the most racially and ethnically diverse place in the world and yet 11 a.m. on Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America. As someone has commented, “If I could take a look at the make and model of the cars in the church parking lot, I could tell you the denomination of the church.” Sad, but probably true. The saddest thing of all though, are those who attempt to justify this sort of thing. From time to time, I hear folk say that differences and the competition it engenders is good because it keeps us all on our toes. To me, that sounds more like capitalism than Christianity.

Against all such harmful differences, Paul affirms that in the Church there should be "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Galatians 3:28) What a wonderful vision of Christian unity! When we experience and live out the reality of Christian commitment every harmful difference vanishes, whether it be of denominational background, racial or ethnic identity, social and economic status, even sexuality orientation. Christ has broken down every wall that divides the human family. We are all brothers and sisters. Christian unity is God’s gift through Christ to the Church. As an earlier generation of Christians liked to put it: “We all stand equal at the foot of the cross.”

The story is told that President Woodrow Wilson, a devout Christian, would some Sundays go incognito and unnoticed to a small Presbyterian Church near the White House. Eventually reporters discovered what President Wilson was doing and they asked the minister, “How does it feel to have the President of the United States worshipping here?” To which the pastor replied, “He is as welcome here as any other sinner.” Naturally, the next day the newspapers carried the headline: “Preacher calls President a Sinner!” A few days later the minister received a letter from the White House: “Reverend Sir: I agree with your doctrine. Sincerely, Woodrow Wilson.” Woodrow Wilson would have agreed with Paul: there are to be no harmful differences in the Christian Church.

I have to be honest with you: I don’t remember more than a dozen sermons I have heard in my life. One I do recall was delivered by the President of Colgate Rochester Divinity School when I was a student there. Dr. Wilber Eddy Saunders was coming to the end of a distinguished career. This chapel address was his valedictory. He preached on the text: “We are fools for Christ’s sake…” (I Corinthians 4:10). I will never forget how he concluded that message. Dr. Saunders leaned over the pulpit and said, “Sometimes, late at night, I wake up and wonder if I have been enough of a fool.” Those words have haunted me all my ministry. Have I been enough of a fool for Christ? That is what it means to be a Christian: to live in a way that will seem foolish to many of the people around us.

When I was a college chaplain in Geneseo, New York, one of the fine young students in my church told his parents he was volunteering for the Peace Corps in one of the worst of the Third World countries. His parents tried to talk him out of this using every argument they could think of. Finally – all other arguments failing – his mother said to him: “But son, if you go there you won’t even have a flush toilet!” The young man respectfully but lovingly kept his commitment to go. He was a fool for Christ. I want to be that kind of fool and I hope you do, too. Only fools like that can unite a divided church.