The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

Trinity Church, Staunton

Sermon: Growing up in the Faith

I Corinthians 3:1-9

The life of a priest has some strange joys in it. One joy is witnessing or participating in what we consider a “great” funeral. This is the kind of thing priests actually sit around and talk about when they get together. I know it probably sounds pretty weird. And you might think us a bit strange---and most of us are—a bit strange. One might ask, “What makes for a ‘great’ funeral?” I am sure you would get a great variety of answers depending on the person you asked, but I would offer you an observation from having been a part of some great funerals. At a “great” funeral the person who has died and for whom we are offering our prayers is mature in his or her life of faith. The person has lived fully into the unique gifts God has given. And the person has continued to learn and to grow up right up until the very end. And he/she has loved well. When people have fully lived, we bury them, we give them back to God, even in the midst of our sorrow, with an abounding joy.

In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the apostle is addressing followers in Corinth who are not growing, not maturing, not behaving in a way that reflects their connectedness to the Spirit. They are not growing up in the faith. Paul says, “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 with solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh.” Paul speaks to them as being “of the flesh” as opposed to being “of the Spirit.” He points out their worldliness in their jealousy and quarreling and essentially tells them they do not have a clue. And he thinks they ought to have a clue! Paul stresses that they are acting like ordinary people, not believers. They seem to have forgotten who they are as spiritual people. We see in this passage Paul has no qualms about direct confrontation!

I came across a remarkable story the other day about a high school football game that was played in Grapevine, Texas. The game to be played was between a Christian School, Grapevine Faith Academy and Gainesville State School, which is located within a maximum security correctional facility. Here is how some of the story goes:

“Gainesville State School has 14 players. They play every game on the  road. Their record was 0-8. They've only scored twice. Their 14 players  are teenagers who have been convicted of crimes ranging from drugs to assault to robbery. Most had families who had disowned them.  They wore  outdated, used shoulder pads and helmets. Faith Academy was 7-2. They  had 70 players, 11 coaches, and the latest equipment.

Chris Hogan, the head coach at Faith Academy , knew the Gainesville team  would have no fans and it would be no contest, so he thought, “What if half of our fans and half of our cheerleaders, for one night only,  cheered for the other team?”  He sent out an email to the faithful asking them to do just that. “Here’s the message I want you to send,”  Hogan wrote. “You’re just as valuable as any other person on the   planet.”

Some folks were confused and thought he was nuts. One player said,  “Coach, why are we doing this?” Hogan said, “Imagine you don’t have a home life, no one to love you, no one pulling for you. Imagine that everyone pretty much had given up on you. Now, imagine what it would  feel like and mean to you for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”

The idea took root. On the night of the game, imagine the surprise of  those 14 players when they took the field and there was a banner the  cheerleaders had made for them to crash through. The visitors’ stands were full. The cheerleaders were leading cheers for them. The fans were  calling them by their names. Isaiah, the quarterback-middle linebacker said, “I never in my life thought I would hear parents cheering to  tackle and hit their kid. Most of the time, when we come out, people are  afraid of us. You can see it in their eyes, but these people are yelling  for us. They knew our names.”

Faith Academy won the game, and after the game the teams gathered at the 50-yard  line to pray. That’s when Isaiah, the teenage convict-quarterback surprised everybody and asked if he could pray.  He prayed, ‘Lord, I  don’t know what just happened so I don’t know how or who to say thank  you to, but I never knew there were so many people in the world who cared about us.’” 

Football sure seems like a game of the flesh! And there do not seem to be many football players, coaches or parents who relish the idea of treating the other side as friends, of giving the other side their loyalties, even for a single play much less an entire game. But this coach was on to something big. Chris Hogan showed signs of the Spirit as he put the need to win aside (Yes, they did end up winning but that is not the point!) and gave priority of showing love to the unloved. He showed that even in this fleshy game the Spirit is present. Through his own spiritual maturity this coach brought an entire school community to a new place in their faith. Chris Hogan showed spiritual connectedness and a growing up in the faith. His act was anything but ordinary. It was surely the act of one mature in Christ.

In one of the apostle Paul’s other letters, a letter to the Philippians, Paul uses the Greek word teleios to describe what he means by maturity in Christ. Teleios can mean “perfect”, “complete”, “mature”,” adult” or “fully developed.” It can refer to one who has reached the end or a goal. What will it take for you and me to be fully developed and to be able to grow up in our faith? Are we still able only to drink milk? If so, when will we be ready for solid food? Perhaps we need to examine the state our prayer life is in, where we put God in our list of priorities, where we tend to judge others, where we fall short in being unified with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Where are we sitting on our gifts, failing to share, failing to let God’s divine being dwell in us?

Perhaps thinking about our own funerals is not a bad place to start, strange as it may seem, to consider how grown up we actually are. Physical age has little to do with our spiritual maturity. Can we imagine ourselves at that place of teleios that Paul speaks of, one who is complete, fully developed, fully grown up? Can we so trust God that we begin moving into the gifts he has uniquely given us? Can we picture ourselves as mature in our life of faith and then actually, with God’s help, move into living that life –right now, right now?