“THE COMMON GOOD”
Noel K. Anderson 10.11.20
PAUL’S HOMONIA
As we said in week one of this series, Paul’s letter to Corinth is his homonia to the church. A homonia was a speech delivered to a city, addressing the entire city as though it were a single body. It was a kind of health report—a collective prescription—instructing a city to act in ways that can serve the common good and the well-being of all. Similarly, Paul addresses the church of Corinth that had fallen into many divisions, and he writes to encourage them to act and function like a single body, which in Christ they are. The key issue for Corinth was division—and today in 2o2o, division is something with which we Americans are only far too familiar. I’m suggesting that as we hear Paul’s prescription for the church at Corinth, we can also hear God’s Word and will speaking to us in our situation.
The upshot of this text is that Paul acknowledges their great diversity, and I’ll remind you that the ancient city of Corinth, the first city of Greece, was diverse, pluralistic, wealthy with a large slave population, and a home for ancient elites. As such, it was fiercely classist, and the one church of Corinth soon suffered division as sub-groups formed exclusive cliques and fell into criticizing each other. Paul writes to them saying, in effect, “You’re all very different, but you all belong. You’ve got to accept, value, and honor one another because you are all part of the one body of Christ, and you are all needed in order to function and flourish.”
IRREDUCIBLE COMMUNITY
In the mid 90s, Lehigh University biochemist and intelligent design advocate Michael Behe wrote a book called Darwin's Black Box. The book's central thesis is that many biological systems are “irreducibly complex" at the molecular level. Irreducible complexity means that there is a system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that make something work. Without any one of these parts in the assembly, the whole system fails to function. Take one, tiny mechanism out of your watch and what do you have? Something that looks like a watch, but doesn’t work. It doesn’t tick, it doesn’t move, and it doesn’t tell time. Without all the parts working together in unison, the watch is worthless. Maybe it works a little—the second may still move, or the hour hand—but overall, you have a busted timepiece.
Now I’m not going to wade into the waters of biochemistry—at one inch deep I’m out of my depth—but I think we take the basic idea of irreducible complexity an apply it to our community. We are something when we are all together—all of us—that we can never be when some people—any people—are missing. We might be perfectly happy just hanging out with our friends and people we like, but we are not the same as we would be when connected with the whole community—with people outside of our group very different from us.
In fact, a big part of our fallenness is acted out by wanting to associate with people like ourselves. It is natural, but fallen, because in loving those who love us, we are only learning to love ourselves. We need people who are very different from us—even people who don’t like us—if we are to exercise real community and learn real love of neighbor.
Like that watch, in order for the body—be it the church or nation—to function as it should, all the pieces have to be in place, connected, and functioning for the total function to occur.
THE COMMON GOOD
Back in 1787, Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Supreme Court Justice John Jay—under the collective pseudonym Publius—wrote a collection of 85 essays to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. One of the terms haunting the writing—as well as the founding philosophy—is “the common good.” The idea of the common good is again and again elevated, even as it weighs in the balance with individual freedoms.
The founders knew what people are really like; namely, flawed, fallen, prone to sin and self-interest (thank you, Apostle Paul, John Calvin, and Adam Smith).
In essay number 10, James Madison shows this awareness of how people tend to divide into cliques and subgroups:
“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man ... human passions have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.”
—James Madison, Essay No. 10, The Federalist Papers
The Common Good was not a phrase to be taken lightly; It was that thing that stood at the middle of all America’s hopes and aspirations—that thing that was important to every individual but also much more important than any individual. The common good is another name for that American core to which the founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
Here is an idea to reinforce today—the Common Good—that which benefits everyone equally, or that which does everyone good, not just some.
CALIFORNIA, USA
Has it been slipping away from us—this idea of the common good? Sometimes the division seems to leave nothing in common. We see polarization, the extremes becoming more extreme, Balkanization, fragmentation, and politics, politics, politics. Antifa riots, Black Lives Matter protests, MAGA rallies, Proud Boys, nasty politics and a panoply of fake news sources pouring bile out of every digital device and screen. Division is the song of the day.
Keith Olbermann, a once-respectable journalist, lately proclaimed that “Trump and his supporters must be expunged....His enablers...the Mike Lee’s, the William Barr’s and the Sean Hannity’s and the Mike Pence’s...and the Amy Coney Barrett’s must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society.” Sounds more like Joseph Goebbels than James Madison.
So where is the devotion to a common good? Where is there any acknowledgement of the irreducible complexity of our American community? The kind that says everyone belongs. The kind the rises above the small-minded view that says, “The only good is the good of our side!”?
Well, I for one don’t think things are as bad as the sides would tell us. And even though the sides are not as devoted to the common good as they are to their own empowerment, no sane person wants civil war. Those who predict civil war are dangerous, for they will inwardly commit to make it happen, if only to prove their prediction accurate.
We, Christians all—Americans all—rightly rebuke the idea and stand adamant against it. Because we all need each other. We are a unified complexity, and we all belong.
CHILDREN, ETC.
Today we are in the final stretch of the elections. We can expect a half dozen or more so-called October Surprises from all sides, all of these launched not for the common good but to weaken the opposition. We must remember that we can be opponents without being enemies.
When we were children, would we disown a friend because we lost a game of ping pong? Of course not. If you played team sports, did you not scrimmage—dividing your team to play against itself so that everyone got stronger? Were our opponents enemies? No, they were our teammates, just playing a role so that the whole team improved.
Do you remember that kid who, when losing at checkers or Monopoly, overturned the board and went stomping off in a huff? What should they do? Accept a little bit of defeat, come back to the table with some dignity and prepare for the next game.
Are we becoming a nation of pouting children? Sore losers, whiners, and crybabies because we are not having our way? Do the politics feel that way?
Are people cheating—stealing Monopoly money from the bank or changing the rules in the middle of the game? That should not happen.
Christian brothers and sisters, please reassure me that not one of us plans to stomp our feet and hold our breath in selfish anger if we do not get our way. Tell me we will never do that. Whichever way the voting goes, whichever way America leans next, we stay at the table, catch our breath, and ready ourselves for the next game. We can and should play hard, but play fair, refuse to accept dishonest gains, and refuse to confuse our opponents with our enemies.
America needs some adults in the room. It needs to be us, for a start—and as we start in love, we begin by recognizing that whoever we are, whoever we think ourselves to be, and whatever we personally want—all we are willing to set aside in service of the common good—that which helps and serves everyone.
It is for this that god has given us gifts from His Spirit: for the common good—for service to the world in His name—for the unity of the Church as a sign of His coming kingdom, where there will be no opposition and no enmity, and every one of us will know that we are made to belong.
PRAY FOR USA, ETC.
I entreat you all to join me in praying for California and America with increased frequency over the next few weeks. As Paul and the other Apostles prayed for the Corinthian church, let us pray for the church in America. Let us pray that all our brothers and sisters in Christ would prove themselves salt and light—adults—in a room of children.
And let us pray that America may repent of its many sins, turn to God, and return to serving the common good.
And may we never take for granted the many blessings with which God has blessed us, lest he remove His hand of protection entirely, and give us what we deserve rather than his grace, mercy, and peace.
QUESTIONS
- 1. What is the good of affirming community members who dislike us or whom we dislike?
- 2. What are some problems with the “everyone belongs” attitude? Does it have its limits?
- 3. How does this text apply to criticisms of denominations toward other denominations?
- 4. Can Anti-classism be as bad as Classism itself?
- 5. What is the connection between our spiritual gifts and the unity of the Church?
- 6. How can the naming of our spiritual gifts become a source of disunity?
- 7. Are our spiritual gifts for the good of the Church alone or for the good of society in general?
- 8. Are there legitimate grounds for marginalizing some Christians? Has Paul already addressed this?