Synergy

Synergy

Text:  I Corinthians 3:1-9

(Gary W. Charles, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, 2-12-2017)

 Synergy is a term in vogue in businesses today. Most English dictionaries define synergy as “the interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects.” True faith, says Paul, is to live in synergy, to work together to carry out God’s good purpose.

Paul writes letters to the church in Corinth precisely because they are NOT living in synergy, NOT working together. The sin eroding community in Corinth is the same sin that erodes community in churches today and not just churches. It is also ripping apart our country. The sin is the appalling lack of synergy.

Rather than celebrating the diversity of people and gifts and perspectives alive in any congregation, church people far too easily rush to their particular interest corner. Some say:  “I don’t care much for preaching, I come just for the music.” Others say, “I am not a big fan of church music; I’m just here for the mission.” Still others say, “I don’t get much out of worship; I’m just here for the community.”  

When Christians divide into special interest groups, inevitably, community erodes. Paul fears that is happening in Corinth, so he reminds them: “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe . . . I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth . . . For we are God’s servants, working together, synergia.” A church is as healthy, says Paul, as its commitment to live into God’s synergy.

 True synergy happens whenever the community celebrates every gift-giver working together, whenever it honors the member who gives up a Saturday to hammer and sheetrock at the local Habitat House as well as the member who fills all the trays for communion as well as the member who sits on the preschool board as well as the member who sends out notes of consolation to those who are grieving as well as well as those who produce the Sunday bulletin as well as those who stand up to sing every Sunday, as well as those who protest and advocate on behalf of the most vulnerable, as well as those, who, like Sharon and Jessica, accept the call to serve as ruling elders, and the list goes on.

In the early years of the church, Irenaeus of Lyons commented on this text from Paul:  “The church has been planted in the world as a paradise.” For those of us who have lived in, worshiped in, worked in, battled in, and sometimes have been scarred by the church, it seems that Irenaeus was exercising some serious poetic license here.

Most spouses who have been together for many years can quickly point out all the bothersome habits and annoying tendencies of their partner. Usually, the list is rather long and grows longer whenever tension arises. The same is true for churches of every size.

Maybe, though, Irenaeus was not talking about the church he saw but about the church God was calling into being. Maybe Irenaeus was calling the church to a greater vision, not unlike the vision offered by the Apostle Paul to the Church in Corinth, a vision of true synergy alive within the church, where all gifts are valued and every gift giver is treasured, a church able to rise above petty annoyances, to set its sights higher, to celebrate what is right and invaluable and precious about each person in the body of Christ.

When we live into God’s synergy, something special happens, as Scott Peck illustrates in his marvelous parable, “The Rabbi’s Gift.” Peck writes: “The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of antimonastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth . . . it [the monastery] had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.

“In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. . . As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

“The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. ‘I know how it is’, he exclaimed. ‘The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore’. So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things.

“The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. ‘It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years’," the abbot said, ‘but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?’

"’No, I am sorry’, the rabbi responded. ‘I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you’.

“When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, ‘Well what did the rabbi say?’ ‘He couldn't help’," the abbot answered. ‘We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving --it was something cryptic-- was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant’.

“In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that is the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light.

“Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?

“As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

“Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

“Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.”

When synergy happens, amazing things like a revitalized monastery, a revitalized church, happens. When Presbyterians are at their very best, they lean on each other, count on each other, celebrate each other’s gifts, debate respectfully, and they learn that working together takes longer than simply working with those of like mind, but it is so much more satisfying, so much more life-giving.

I do not need to tell you this, because Cove could teach courses on synergy for churches of every size. Maybe, though, I need to remind you of your gifts, because maybe synergy is our calling in 2017. Maybe God is calling Cove to demonstrate to a fractured society and a divided church the amazing things that can happen when we work together despite our differences and sometimes because of our differences.

To live into this calling will require the cooperation of every last one of us. I’m in. How about you?

AMEN