St. Aidan’s Sermons
Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Rev. Canon Dr. Brett Cane, September 27, 2009
17th Sunday after Pentecost; 8:30 Holy Communion and 10:00 a.m.
Issues Facing Christians Today #3: “Discernment and Discipline”
1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 6:1-8; Mark 9:38-50
Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you have called us to be your body, the Church; help us now, by your Holy Spirit, to grasp how we can
exercise discernment and discipline amongst ourselves and so live out the fullness of that calling to the glory of
God our Father. Amen.
Introduction
There are two extremes when it comes to discernment and discipline in the Church – overly lax or overly zealous –
we don’t seem to be able to address these issues in a balanced way! Some people are quick to point out any and
every flaw and cite the moral law – the legalists; others are quick to excuse any and every behaviour and cite the
law of love – the sentimentalists. In today’s cultural climate, we tend to err on the sentimental side – if we really
love people, then we can’t criticize anyone’s behaviour. Then, there is the age-old problem of avoiding
confrontation – I certainly don’t like confrontation; I don’t want to be rejected. Apparently clergy aim at having a
95% approval ratio – to have 95% of the people like what we are doing – and yet, in the business world, if you
reach 65%, you are doing well! Jesus had no such qualms – he spoke and acted without consideration of his
“approval rating.” He was willing to confront. In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he tells him that he must
“correct, rebuke, and encourage” (2 Timothy 4:2). We need to hear the bad news as well as the good.
In our sermon series on “Issues Facing Christians Today” from 1 Corinthians, we have come to two passages where
Paul addresses the issue of discernment and discipline. On the one hand, the Corinthian Christians had not dealt
with a matter of major moral failure; on the other, they were overly eager to settle personal and economic disputes
by taking each other before the secular courts. Two weeks ago we saw that the problem underlying the faults of the
Corinthian church was that they had allowed their values to be shaped by the wisdom of the world rather than the
wisdom of God. Last week, we saw how following the world’s practice of forming cliques around leadership
preferences was causing division in the church. This week, we will see how following the ways of the world in
matters of discernment and discipline was affecting the health of both the Church and the individuals involved.
The Health of the Church – Right Discernment
Paul begins: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do
not tolerate: A man has his father’s wife” (verse 1). A member of the church was in an incestuous relationship with
his “father’s wife;” the father was either dead or had divorced her. The step-mother was undoubtedly a nonbeliever,
otherwise she would have been addressed, but the erring man was a member of the congregation. Paul
doesn’t even argue the point that such behaviour is unacceptable – not only was it forbidden in the Old Testament
“Cursed be anyone who lies with his father’s wife” (Deuteronomy 27:20 and see Leviticus 18:8; 20:11), such
activity was also condemned in otherwise morally lax Roman and Greek society.
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Now it is interesting that Paul does not chide the individual about this situation but the Church! Paul scolds the
community as a whole for being so blasé about the matter: “And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone
into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?…Your boasting is not good”
(verses 2, 6). What were they boasting about? Probably their new-found freedom in Christ – as they later assert in
Chapter 6, “Everything is permissible for me” (6:12). Knowing Christ had freed them from the penalty of lawbreaking,
they thought they had been liberated from the limits of law-keeping – and not only Biblical law but
societal mores as well. For some, there was also a sort of “super-spirituality” that said, “Now we are Christians, we
are spiritual; what we do in the flesh doesn’t matter.” Or, if they were here today, they might say, “We are not
Victorians, bound by legalism, we operate on the law of love – if two people love one another, why should we
object to what they do together?” There is a spiritual arrogance in that these folk thought they could disregard
Paul’s authority (see 4:18-19), and even the Old Testament Scriptures, through the “special knowledge” or insights
they alone claimed to have as Paul says in chapter 8: “Those who think they know something do not yet know as
they ought to know” (8:2). This attitude is often taken with regards to sexual issues in the wider Church today.
Paul’s primary concern is not the sin of the individual but the health and integrity of the Church as a corporate
body. When we sin, we not only do damage to ourselves, but to the community – therefore the community must act
to preserve its identity as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Paul uses the
celebration of the Passover to make his point. “Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of
dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch – as you really are. For Christ, our
Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice
and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (verses 6-8). It is quite possible that Paul
may have been writing at Passover time – when Jews recall their deliverance out of slavery in the land of Egypt. It
is also called the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” to commemorate the fact that the Jews had to leave Egypt in haste
and did not have time to bake bread with yeast. An important feature of the celebration became the solemn search
for and cleansing of each house of leaven. Leaven’s fermenting action came to stand for an evil influence such as
when Jesus tells his disciples to “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod” (Mark 8:15). Paul is
saying that just as the Israelites were delivered from the bondage of evil in Egypt, so Christ’s sacrifice has delivered
us from the bondage of sin – therefore we need to get rid of every sin in our lives and the life of the Church – we
must be ruthless! If there is evil influence in the Church, it can corrupt the whole fellowship, just as a little leaven
permeates the whole lump of dough. Shutting our eyes to offences may damage everyone else. We can be so
easily led back into harmful behaviour that characterizes life without Christ – “malice and wickedness.”
Instead, Paul says we are to move into a celebration: “Let us keep the Festival” (verse 
– Paul is perhaps now
thinking of Easter which has replaced Passover for the Christian. But he does not say we are to keep it in “holiness
and purity” – as if the rest of us have all “arrived” at perfection – but with “sincerity and truth.” Sincerity means
purity of motive and truth means agreeing with God about what is right. Tom Wright points out that “At the heart
of all misbehaviour there is a lie: the lie that says God doesn’t mind, the lie that pretends this one time doesn’t
matter, the easy but deadly lie that imagines that this was after all how humans were supposed to behave.”1 Christ
“our Passover Lamb” has been sacrificed to free us from all that would enslave and dehumanize us – so this is not a
time for mourning as if restrictions have been imposed upon us but for celebrating because we have been given the
freedom to do what is right. Right discernment leads to the health of the church.
The Health of the Individual – Right Discipline
Now we turn to the health of the individual – and how right discipline is to lead to that. Paul says that the church
should “Put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this” (verse 2) and then spells out how to do it: “So
when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over
to Satan for the destruction of the sinful nature so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (verses 4-5).
Yes, this is excommunication, ejection from the community.
1 N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone – I Corinthians. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pg. 61.
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Now, with our 21st century sensitivities, most of us would think this too harsh – but we need to look more closely.
There are some key points to note:
a. The situation to be dealt with is not occasional sinful behaviour but a chosen lifestyle.
b. This action is not solely to punish but to awaken. It is designed to humiliate the man, to bring him back, to
restore him.
c. Finally, this is to be the action of the church as a whole. Discipline is not a personal decision of any one
individual nor for satisfaction of the one exercising it.
Church discipline is never to be vengeful but always curative and preventative.
But what about the specific wording Paul uses – “handing the man over to Satan”? In the New Testament, the
world is seen as the domain of Satan (e.g. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Corinthians
4:4); see also John 12:31; 16:11; Acts 26:18; Colossians 1:13) and the Church is seen as the domain of God. By
excluding the man from the community, he was being placed outside the sphere of God’s protection. Returning to
the metaphor of the Passover event mentioned two verses later – on the night before they left Egypt, the Israelites
were to apply the blood a sacrificed lamb on their doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over. Those
outside were exposed to the “angel of death.” By the man being exposed to the reality of life without God, in
whatever form that might take, he was hopefully going to be brought back to his senses and return home like the
prodigal son to the loving Father. This indeed seems to be what happened as Paul refers to the restoration of a
repentant sinner in 2 Corinthians 2:5-11.
But you might ask, how could that work out today? I have a true story that I like to tell of a disciplinary action I
once had to invoke which resulted in great healing and restoration. In one of my previous parishes, a member was
living with his wife but having an ongoing affair. I admonished him about it; he was a real believer and I said that
he should abstain from communion until the situation was resolved. In the Prayer Book, it says that you must
consult the bishop before excommunicating anyone so I asked the man if he wanted me to approach the bishop or
would he abstain voluntarily – he agreed to abstain voluntarily. He then went on a tour to England with his
mistress but every time he went into a cathedral and stood in the Lady Chapel, where the reserved communion
elements are kept, knowing he could not receive, he knew that he was being cut off from his Saviour through his
actions. When he returned, he gave up his mistress, was reconciled with his wife and their marriage and faith were
greatly renewed. The discipline had worked!
You still might have a question – didn’t Jesus tell us “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”? (Matthew 7:1).
Jesus also said, “Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment” (John 7:24). In the first instance,
he is referring to the kind of judgement which we would consider condemnation. The second is discernment of
what is right and wrong. Jesus himself showed the difference between the two when he told the woman caught in
the act of adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (John 8:11). He did not leave her under the
weight of sin but was clear about what sin was and told her to avoid it! It is attitudes that count – the old adage is
very appropriate – “Hate the sin but love the sinner.” It is the difference between judging and judgementalism.
Unfortunately, the Corinthians might have got this mixed up, too. When Paul says, “I wrote to you in my letter not
to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the
greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world …What business is it of mine to
judge those outside the church?” (verses 9-10, 12) he seems to imply that the church people were very eager to pass
judge-ment on those outside the fellowship when they should have turned their sights inside the community. This
is not absent from our church circles today. Scripture is clear – we have no business passing judgement on those
outside but we do with those within. Paul concludes with a quotation from the book of Deuteronomy, “Expel the
wicked person from among you” (e.g. Deuteronomy 13:5; 17:7, 24: 7, etc.). That phrase is used repeatedly to
purify God’s people from the very sins Paul has listed here which include not just sexual immorality, but covetousness,
slander, false religion, etc. The Church is to deal with all habitual major sinful behaviour that makes it
merely a reflection of the culture from which it has come. We are called to be living examples of God’s alternative
society. This includes exercising right discipline for the health of the individual as well as for the Church.
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The Church is Called to Be the Church
Before we close, though, Paul has one more thing about judgement to address that was affecting the health of both
the church and individuals – their resorting to the secular law courts to pass judgement on one another in personal
and economic matters. “If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for
judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?…one brother goes to law against another – and this in front of
unbelievers!” (6:1, 6). Here was yet one more example where the Corinthians were allowing the ways of the world
to unduly influence the Church. William Barclay describes how Greek society was very litigious, with law courts
as one of the chief entertainments – everyone got involved! “In a Greek city every man was more or less a lawyer
and spent a great part of his time either deciding or listening to law cases. The Greeks were in fact famous, or
notorious, for their love of going to law.”2 These litigious tendencies had been brought into the Christian Church in
Corinth. However, in Jewish tradition, people did not ordinarily go to law in the public law courts at all – things
were settled before the elders of the village or synagogue. More like our native justice circles, matters were settled
in a family rather than a legal spirit. The issue here is that just like the incest situation, the Corinthian Christians
were failing to act as a community and take responsibility for one another. In the case of the incestuous man, they
had taken no action; in the case of issues before the courts, they were allowing outsiders to take action. Both
situations were the “failure of the church to be the church.”3
Paul makes two seemingly contradictory points as to why this is not how church members should act. Both points
refer back to God’s wisdom – seeing things from his perspective and not the world’s. The first has to do with who
they are. “Do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you
not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of
this life!” (verses 2-3). Back in chapter 1, Paul spoke about how most of the Corinthians were nobodies when they
were called to follow Jesus and his way. “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were
influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God
chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (1:26-27). God has turned you – nobodies – into
somebodies. So claim your inheritance and start acting like the people God has called you to be – people capable
of settling disputes internally, within the family.
The second point has to do with God’s wisdom and God’s way as being “cross-shaped.” “The very fact that you
have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not
rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters” (6:7-
8). Back in chapter 1, Paul spoke about “Christ crucified…the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:23-24).
Here in chapter six, he is saying that it is far better to give up your rights and be defrauded economically or suffer
some other wrong if that ends up being the more Christ-like thing to do.
Paul says that holding the these two things in tension – acting like the somebodies God has called us to be at the
same time as being willing to forgo our rights will allow the Church to be what it is called to be. This doesn’t make
sense in the world’s eyes – but it does in God’s!
Conclusion
These are difficult situations we have looked at today – and they are going to get worse in the weeks to come! But
no one said the Christian life would be easy. Our hope lies in one little phrase hidden in these verses – “Assembled
in the name of our Lord Jesus…and the power of our Lord Jesus is present” (5:4). We are not in this issue of
discernment and discipline alone – we have one another and together we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
2 William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, Letters to the Corinthians, Rev. ed. (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1975), pg.
50.
3 Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, pg. 230, quoted by Richard Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation
Commentary. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), pg. 93.
