 Once upon a time, once upon a time a group of citizens and Corinth met Jesus and fell in love. And they weren't particularly wise or influential, not many of them were of noble birth, but they were full of faith. They shared meals and music and sometimes even money, and resurrection hope, and their neighbors who were hungering for new life were eager to join their small band. But it wasn't long before fissures began to appear. Questions of style and standard devolved into clashes around leadership. Some were fiercely loyal to Paul as the founder of the church. Others argued that Apollos was quite clearly the better preacher. Not to mention, less prone to emotional outbursts and calling his church members fools. To some, Peter represented the firm rock of tradition. To others, Paul stood for a radical break that befitted a new move of God. Character, charisma, license, liberty, the spirit's guiding, the Torah's grounding. Hungry neighbors who still dared to join the church for dinner left with their ears burning and their appetites lost. Once upon a time, once upon a time a group of reformers opened the Bible heard it sing. Not many of them were wise or influential and not many played golf with the Pope. But they were full of passion. They experienced liberating grace and they heard God speak through unauthorized lips. And many people who'd been enslaved to self-serving religion found themselves set free. But once the old answers had been deconstructed, finding new ones proved difficult. Even the greatest spiritual minds couldn't seem to agree that some followed Luther, some Calvin, some Zwingli. One upstart little group of rebels claimed they'd follow nobody but Christ. The Pope said, damn them all and did his best to try. But after centuries of trying and failing to kill each other off, they finally reached a tacit truth. The Catholics would get the schools, the Wesleyans would get the halls of government, the Calvinists would get the Bible Belt, and the Anabaptists would get the coldest corner of Siberia. And they'd all go about writing their own VBS curriculum and training their pastors in verse to verse combat. And meanwhile, while they were perfecting this system, the rest of the world discovered there are other books out there and quietly departed to read them once upon a time. Once upon a time, a group of radicals studied the Gospels and caught a vision of the radical kingdom of God. They were particularly wise or influential. Most of them, in fact, were peasants, but they were full of courage. And they carried the flame of this kingdom faith across the centuries, defying at the cost of their own lives all the powers that sought to snuff it out. But then at last a day came when they didn't have to hide. And some people were so weary from the weight of the torch they carried that they dropped it and walked away. Others decided to use their newfound leisure to coral over buttons. And to embrace technology just in time to use its forums to call each other ugly names. Nobody expected that at this precise moment the flame would start to spread. They just suddenly looked up one day and there it was, burning all over the place. And it was exhilarating and it was alarming and nobody knew who had control. And suddenly the air was filled with quiet murmurings. No one with a working ear or brain could worship to music like that. Why are Boyd's getting all the credit for what Roth's have been saying for years? I'm not sure I want our flame on a stand that looks like that. It might come to blows if they hadn't all been pacifists, restricted in their methods to the silent treatment. The bad news, Anabaptist friends, is that we have a problem. The good news is we aren't the first ones to have it. The Bible addresses exactly this situation and it doesn't have to end this way. The spirit is ready to show us another way back home. I grew up in the Mennonite church but I left the denomination at 18. And my main reason was I felt like the Mennonites I knew were more in love with their culture than they were with their faith. And for years I had these incredible experiences with churches from a variety of traditions. But since I still hadn't really settled on what was going to be my new home, by the time I went to seminary, when they asked me what they should print on my orientation name tag, I went ahead and said Mennonite, most for lack of other options. And so imagine my surprise when the first day of orientation, they had this nice social mixer and the very first person to introduce himself to me took one look at my name tag and shouted across the room, hey Brett get over here, this girl's a Mennonite. And I was immediately mobbed by a dozen people who were eager for conversation. And I thought, I've only been gone a few years, when did Mennonites become the new Britney Spears? So this was not a fluke. Over the next few years I got used to total strangers approaching me in the hallway saying, someone told me you're a Mennonite, can you tell me how to be an abaptist? People from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences and traditions of faith were encountering Jesus in a way that upended their world. And most of them felt vaguely crazy and heretical until someone said to them, I think there's a word for Christians like you. I've heard stories like this everywhere I've traveled in the church. God is on the move and it seems like that move looks a whole lot like an abaptism. The flame of this kingdom vision is spreading. But the flame is spreading at precisely the moment it appears to be flickering in historic Anabaptist churches in North America. Outside there's the sense of intrigue and discovery and adventure and inside it feels like the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. I mean there's grief at all these losses that cultural changes have made all but inevitable. There's this pressing sense of anxiety about the future of our churches and even of the kingdom itself. And there's this deep-seated sense of suspicion about what all of this movement in and out the Anabaptist door might let accidentally slide out or unseen slip in. I mean I think if we could press beneath all of these churning emotions we would find that they're deeply tied and embedded in our own history. I mean in some ways that are totally legitimate and important. And in some ways that are understandable if problematic. And in some ways that and I think we need to be honest here are just flat out sinful. I mean one of the really important things that 500 years as carriers has taught us is that this flame is sort of innately precarious. I mean some truths are so unexpected by all the rules of human logic that some truths are so deeply against the grain of human ambition and greed that some truths are so threatening to the powers that claim the world that their existence always has to hang on the edge of a breath. I mean they can be easily overwhelmed by tidal waves of dominant thinking that they can be sweetly seduced out of the hands of people who are unwary. We are a precarious people and our faith is a precarious faith. It's a candle burning in a deluge defiant and vulnerable and that's a fact. And the spiritual vigilance that's taught us by awareness of that fact is one of the gifts that we offer to the wider church. That's the important part. But on the other hand centuries of guarding this flame against all of these powers, religious and secular, seemingly determined to squash its rebellion has left us with this understandable but problematic sense of what I think of as ecclesial PTSD. I mean every loud noise or sudden movement feels like a threat to life. I mean we are tightly coiled as springs locked down in this permanent defensive posture constantly in the mindset of combat. I mean we have trouble trusting our own friends. We're suspicious of our family members. We can't even recognize anymore when we're among kin. Or if you prefer a different metaphor, we are like parents of an 18 year old who after years of defending something precious and vulnerable are one day in May suddenly asked to set it free on the world. It is hard to let a word grow up and make its way in a wide risky world. And I think there's one more aspect of our present reality that's the hardest one to name but since we're all among friends here today I think we just need to put it on the table. I mean Anabaptists, historic Anabaptists have had a long road and paid some high costs for their witness. And you can call it pride or you can name it for the insecurity beneath it. But the fact is we would like some credit for once darn it. I mean we want just a few minutes to stand in the spotlight and hear everyone say we were right. We think we've earned the right to at least a little control over the outcome of what we've stewarded so faithfully for so many years. And the truth is it makes us a little bit crazy with jealousy to see newcomers getting the glory and calling the shots that we may or may not like for something that we've been waiting half a millennium to publicly claim. So about those pesky Corinthians. I mean the Corinthians Christians are holding on to this precarious flame of their faith in a city that is widely known for its corruption and debauchery. And they are anxious. They're anxious that they might lose this precarious truth that's given their lives meaning. And they're jealous. They are jealous for a chance to define this gospel's future. And each faction in Corinth is clutching this gospel flame to their chest trying to protect it from everybody else. And Paul opens by saying to them in this sweet loving way that Paul has. You know what guys and girls the time has come for all of you to grow up and start getting over yourselves. I don't care who you think you're representing me or Apollos or Peter or God forbid the arrogance even Christ himself. It's not your flame. It's God's flame. It's always been God's flame. God was the one who lit it among you and God is the one who's lighting it among your neighbors as well. Jesus Christ will not be a weapon of your factionalism. He belongs to himself now and forever and you are servants of his flame. Nothing less and nothing more. You almost don't have to preach this text. I mean it's a word that stings a little bit. But when you think about it this is a blessed relief. Jesus is the kingdom's past and Jesus is the kingdom's future. God is the giver of what has been and God is the guarantor of what will be. The ending is a given before we begin. The kingdom will triumph. God's truth will reign and no slick talking Apollos and no stuck in the mud old Peter is ever going to put the flame out. This flame may be precarious but it can't be extinguished. Which means we don't have to live our lives in a defense mode anymore. We don't have to live in fear. God's grace is sufficient for all of us to stand. And it also means that we don't have any ground for jealousy because all we've got is gift. And we don't have any ground for jealousy because nobody is dropping an exclusivity clause on us. If we can really realize that God and not we are the center of this story. It leaves us with this incredible new freedom. We can finally get over our endless self preoccupation and get on with the work of the kingdom. And this is where Paul takes up the metaphor of building and he instructs these divided believers to gather up the best materials that they know of. And get on with the work of building something that is worthy of the foundation sitting beneath them. And he says to his church don't even waste your time looking over your neighbor's shoulders. Obsessing over what you think of their building and tearing their nails back out of the wall. Your opinion of their craftsmanship matters not a bit because this is God's house. And God will be the one to test their work by fire just as God will be the one to test the quality of yours. So realizing that you'd best be saving all the strength you've got for building on the foundation of Jesus. The best thing you are capable of. And Paul is really explicit in this talk about fire and judgment. This is not about salvation. This is not about that. God is more than capable of bringing all of us safely through the fire. This is about our work. And specifically about our participation in the kingdom vision. It's our work that's going to stand or fall. And Paul is truly concerned that there are some Christians in Corinth who are putting so much more effort into destroying than into building. That in the end all they're going to be left with is a pile of rubble. And God won't be laughing then. I mean let me just speak frankly as one man and I hate to many others. My great fear for the church as a young pastor is that we are setting ourselves on exactly that course. As Mennonites as Anabaptists and as the broader Christian church. We are living a gospel of defense and putting the best of our strength into deconstructing everybody else's work. We've gotten so much better at pointing out the flaws in other people's bricks. Than at building a strong and creative frame for the next generation of builders. And if we go on the way we've been going. I fear that we are in real danger of coming through this with nothing to show for it. But our own singed skin. And God intends and God has dreamed so much more for us than that. I mean let's just agree together today that if there is an enemy out there it is not our fellow Anabaptists who love a rocking drum. And it is not other Christians who vote the wrong way. If there is an enemy out there it is secularism itself. A world all around us constantly growing that is truly convinced that God can't speak. That hate can't change. That the dead can't live and that a cross can't triumph. If we have anything to say to the world as Anabaptists it's that the world is wrong about these things. And that our purposeful existence as believers is proof of that fact. I have my fears for the church but I also have my hopes. Because I truly believe that the Anabaptist church is staring at a rapidly closing window of opportunity to play a unique and powerful role. I believe that we have a chance to help midwife the next great movement of God. And we need to be really clear on this from the beginning. The midwife doesn't own the baby. This is a delusion that historical Anabaptists just need to be getting over. We have no right to name or to claim or to control the next age of the church. The spirit is giving something birth here. And it's not going to take our name and it's not going to look a thing like us. And it's not going to behave in the ways that we wish it would. But it's going to be beautiful because it's going to look like Christ. And if we can get over ourselves enough to celebrate that fact what joy awaits us as a community. Because we had the chance to take what we have learned in 500 years of loving this kingdom. And help usher in its next face into the world. We have a chance to take all of our resources financial and human. All of our experience. All of our knowledge. And share it with those who are nervously and excitedly and creatively preparing for this baby's birth. We have a chance to serve as the best kind of elders. The kind that every nervous parent hopes for. To courageously help draw this new life from the womb. And to pass it on to the hands that are eagerly waiting for it. And I am absolutely convinced that the way we choose or not to give away this child. This kingdom flame will say far more about who we are as a community of believers than anything we have done in 500 years of stewarding it. We have said that we are a community about gloss and height. Yieldedness to God. We have told people that we are a community of people defined by the life-giving sacrifice of the cross. And now we come to our test. Are we really such a people? Can we lay down our own interests to help give this new life birth? Will we use the strength that we have to fan that flame wherever it starts burning? Will we lend our seas and hands to help build a house whose form and shape we may not recognize? We are so fearful, so jealous, so anxious, but the truth is all things are ours. All things in the world and in life and in death and in the present and in the unknown future. Those things are given to us in Christ. We have nothing to prove and we have nothing to protect. I mean all the resources of heaven and earth are at our disposal. God's spirit dwells in our midst and by God's grace the kingdom is ours. Our place is held secure by Christ and he will keep that flame burning. So enough with fear, enough with defense, enough with just surviving. The time has come for us as a people to live. To sow kingdom seeds like God the sower sowed seeds wildly, recklessly, foolishly. The next chapter of the kingdom is being born right in front of us. And we who've loved its many faces have a chance to love it again. And to help our brothers and sisters welcome it into the world. May God make us worthy of such an amazing privilege. And may the glory go to the one foundation, Jesus Christ, our Lord.