For the 6th Sunday after Epiphany, Rev. Cari preached on I Corinthians 3:1-9. In this text, Paul takes the Corinthians to task for being “ordinary humans!”

Since “ordinary humanity” has been visited by divinity in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the people in Corinth belong to God, Paul has hope of them eventually becoming “spiritual” people. So Rev. Cari takes the opportunity to remember the “three eyes” she introduced in a sermon in January, quoting Fr. Richard Rohr. And then she notices how Paul’s use of “human” and “spiritual” lines up with those deepening ways of seeing (and being).

Then she turns to Crossroads, and our current process of discerning God’s call for our future life and ministry in this community. Discernment is also a process of “holding lightly” she says, to the markers we have grown accustomed to (“Paul” or “Apollos” in the text) and opening in trust to the integrative vision that calls us forward in Christ.

This kind of maturity, along with sharing of our diverse gifts, is the collaboration with God that will carry us into a new vision for ministry, even in the midst of external change in the world that we can’t control.