The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low
In Paul’s letter to the Galatian church chapter 3 verses 26 to 28 he reminds them of their new identity as a community in Christ.
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
All the power distinctions of the culture in which the Galatian church existed are being denied their reality. Through baptism they have become part of a new political structure that does not recognize their status as citizens of the world.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low
This is the nature of rebirth into Christian life.
All things are new in Christ. We are no longer employer and employee, landlord and tenant, customer and salesperson...
We are new, equal, and one in Christ.
And this new identity is characterized by service.
We are all now children of God and servants to one another.
Mark 9:35 says:
If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Christ showed us this new existence when he stooped down with basin and towel and washed his disciples feet.
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (John 13
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low
It is in light of this new identity in Christ, that Paul addresses and rebukes the self-understanding of the Corinthian church in today’s epistle reading.
The people have a wrong understanding of their relationship to one another and a wrong understanding of their relationship to their leaders.
We read Paul’s diagnosis of the Corinthian problem in verse 3
For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
The Corinthians have forgotten or ignored their new identity as Christians -- they have forgotten that as a new community in Christ they are one with another -- neither more nor less important than one another --
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low
Christ has levelled the playing field -- neither jealousy nor strife, neither factions, denominations, nor party loyalties have any reality in the Church that Christ has made. These are human divisions that are only real because we perceive them to be real.
The true reality is Christ’s reality.
All have been made one.
All has been made new.
The former things have ended, a new community has been created; a community where striving against one another, competition with one another, must now cease.
For in Corinth, there were some who waved their Paul flag in the faces of others who waved their Apollos flag -- emphasizing the superiority of their respective differences.
Seeking to be in the right they put themselves in the wrong -- because following factions they lost the true spirit of the new life they had been called to -- the spirit of Christ who became servant of all.
They neglected to see that the only status a leader can claim is the status of servant.
What then is Apollos?
What is Paul?
Servants through whom you believed,
as the Lord assigned to each.
Paul and Apollos were not leaders seeking a following, but were merely servants of the kingdom of God --making known the new reality that has entered the world in Christ.
Paul and Apollos were the means by which the church believed -- but God was the power through them who caused the growth, who caused the belief.
In a later letter written to the same church, Paul speaks of ministers as clay pots
2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
The role of any leader in the church is to serve -- not to be served, to draw attention to Christ -- to remind people of their new identity as Christians -- not gain fame or power.
But the Corinthian church in their refrains: “I follow Paul, I follow Apollos” were forgetting that leaders are servants not celebrities --
God is the one who works -- Paul and Apollos were merely Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each -- fulfilling an assignment given by God and carried out by God -- using Paul and Apollos like we use pots and pans to make dinner -- the important thing is the meal not the cookware.
And in verses 6-9 we get the heart of Paul’s message:
recognizing that neither Paul nor Apollos are anything but servants of the message, he likens this service to gardenwork (which I’m sure we can all appreciate).
I planted,
Apollos watered,
but God gave the growth.
So neither he who plants
nor he who waters
is anything,
but only God
who gives the growth.
When you plant a garden you can rarely take credit for the results.
Sometimes the greatest growth takes place with the littlest attention from the gardener
and sometimes the garden will yield nothing despite our greatest attention.
The earth is beyond our control -- we merely work it and trust God to give rain and sun with the right proportions to yield pleasant edible produce.
Paul uses the gardening metaphor to point to the unimportance of the servant in the efficacy of the growth of God’s kingdom.
Paul may have planted, Apollos may have attentively watered -- but the only reason anything grew was because of the Spirit of God.
So neither he who plants
nor he who waters
is anything,
but only God
who gives the growth.
Let’s remember that God is the one who builds his church.
God is the one who grows a congregation.
He uses people -- but the power is God’s not ours.
He who plants
and he who waters
are one,
and each will receive
his wages
according to his labor.
Those who carried Paul flags were no doubt criticizing Apollos and those who carried Apollos flags, closely identifying themselves with the man were no doubt criticizing Paul.
“Paul didn’t have my kind of theology...
Apollos didn’t do enough --”
But Paul stresses that it is not for the people of God to be critics or judges of the ministers.
That is God’s job alone.
All gardeners are part of the same mission and will be judged by God and him alone -- for he is the only one who knows the hearts of the ministers and what they truly accomplished despite all appearances.
For we are God’s fellow workers.
You are God’s field,
God’s building.
The minister is not autonomous -- the minister is not powerful -- the minister is neither effective nor ineffective.
The minister is God’s fellow worker -- performing the tasks given to him by God -- serving the field that God has planted through other ministers by the power of the Spirit not by human power.
And God’s building will stay strong and his field will be fruitful by the power of the Holy Spirit not by any confidence, efficiency, charisma, energy, or brilliance in any of his workers.
And God’s field will be bountiful and his building maintained by His grace alone and will not be destroyed by any weakness, inefficiency, insecurity, exhaustion, or simpleness in any of his workers.
Let us remember our new identity in Christ.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low
We are no longer to think of ourselves as belonging to factions, classes, denominations primarily
but as belonging to Christ and his church.
It is here that we find God’s Spirit working through all of us as we serve one another to build up this building and bring fruit from this field.
Let us not trust human power, personality, procedure, or plan or disdain any for their shortcomings.
Let us rather trust God and remember:
neither he who plants
nor he who waters
is anything,
but only God
who gives the growth.
Amen.
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