Jesus is Lord: Sermon 1 Cornithians 1:1-9

Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.

I was driving down the road the other day and I saw a sign outside of a school that read “Lordy, Lordy Mrs. Jones is 40”. I don’t know if Mrs. Jones enjoyed the attention of not. We use that word a lot sometimes don’t we, Lord. We say “Oh my Lord”, when something shocks, saddens, or even angers us. Sometimes our shortest prayers are simply, “Lord, help me.” We see the word used in this week’s Scripture reading. This is Paul’s greeting in his first letter to the church in Corinth. Paul was a highly educated man and so Paul uses a standard Greek greeting used in that time. Paul first introduces himself not as self-made man but as one who has been called by God as an apostle of Christ. Paul then indentifies his recipients in this case it is the church in Corinth and Paul offers them the peace and grace of God in Christ.

That is the reading for today. What does the introduction to 1 Corinthians mean for us today? Shouldn’t we delve deeper into this letter to gain some new spiritual enlightenment? If we look closely at Paul’s use of words in this introduction we can find some insights for our lives today. Paul refers to Jesus as Lord 5 times in these nine verses. The Lord Jesus Christ was a title given by the disciples and carried on through the early Church and into today. It was an important title back then; it was a title of honor and respect. It has lost some of that honor and respect in today’s time. Let’s take a look today at what that title meant for Paul and his contemporaries and also what does Jesus’ title of Lord mean for us today?

Before we can answer these two questions we need to develop a working definition of the word Lord. If you were to look in the good ol’ Merriam-Webster dictionary you would find a definition of the word Lord. The first definition would be “one having power and authority over others”, also “a ruler by hereditary right or preeminence to whom service and obedience are due”. The second definition is God and Jesus. We can see how these two definitions can come together to give us a clearer picture of what we mean by Lord theologically. Calling Jesus “Lord” means that he has power and authority over our lives and that we owe him service obedience and honor. We use the word Lord in that context often. We have the Lord ’s Prayer, the Lord’s supper, Sunday is often called the Lord’s Day. The word Lord is used over 1,000 times in the Old and New Testaments. Now, Lord, does not always refer to Jesus, sometimes, especially in the OT it refers to God, but as we see God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit as a Trinity, three in one, so in that sense it does refer to Jesus. Referring to Jesus as Lord is not something to be taken lightly nor should in vain. It is a title of honor and respect and should be used as such.

Now that we have a definition of Lord, what did referring to Jesus as Lord mean for Paul and his contemporaries? First we need a reminder of the political culture that Paul lived in. Paul lived in a time of Roman dominance in the world. Rome had conquered most of the then known world from Britain in the west to India in the east. The entire seaboard of the Mediterranean Sea was under Roman control. All those who were under Roman control were expected to pay homage to the emperor, which in the time of Paul as Nero. The emperor was to be lord in the lives of the people. Along with the emperor there were other governors and leaders in the various regions that expected your service and honor. In this time the Emperor not only expected your political allegiance, but also your spiritual allegiance. The later Roman emperors claimed to be a living god on earth. All Roman emperors were deified after death, but a change soon took place and the people were to worship the emperor’s as gods living on earth. This was the way all under Rome’s control were to see the emperor. You could have whatever religion you wanted as long as you paid homage to the emperor as lord and god.

Naturally, this was an impossibility for Christians. Paul and his contemporaries know that they could not serve two masters. As they chose to make Jesus their lord of their lives they took a risk. First, calling Jesus Lord could cause you to lose your reputation. People would think you were nuts. You mean your lord is a Jew, from Nazareth, born to poor parents, who was crucified in Jerusalem. Yeah, ok, whatever. Paul expected this and understood the difficulty. He later said that the good news of Christ was foolishness to those who were perishing; to those who were not Christians the idea of a crucified lord was ludicrous. Calling Jesus Lord could cause you to lose your business or your house or your possessions. All the material things you had were at risk when you made Jesus lord of your life.

Not only this, making Jesus lord of your life could cost you your life. Paul and his contemporaries were teaching and preaching in the time of Nero, which was a time of Christian persecution. Nero would use the Christians as scapegoats for the things that went wrong in the empire. If there was an outbreak of disease or money problems it was the fault of the Christians. So Christians were hunted down and imprisoned and killed.

Why was making Jesus the lord of your life so offensive to the emperor and therefore so dangerous? One can only have on lord in their lives. One can only serve one master, if Jesus was your lord that meant that Caesar was not your lord. Jesus is lord was a radical, counter-cultural statement back then. It was a statement in defiance of an empire. It took much courage and faith to make such a statement.

We do not have that problem today. Today, we are fortunate enough to live in a country of religious tolerance and freedom. We can thank God and a veteran for that. Our President does not require us to pay homage or to offer a dedication to him. We are blest beyond words to have this kind of freedom. We should thank God for it and pray for our sisters and brothers who do not have such a freedom. So what else does it mean to call Jesus Lord in our times?

Our belief that Jesus is Lord means that we owe service and obedience to him. This means more than just church attendance and Bible study, it includes these for sure. But, we also serve Jesus by doing for the least of these. We help the poor, we speak out against injustice, we live each day more and more like Christ. This is how we offer service to him. We love one another as Jesus loves us. We love our neighbor as ourselves. It is the simplest thing to say and the hardest thing to do. God is love and so to serve God to pay homage to God in Christ we too must love. We love and support one another. Saying that Jesus is Lord is not enough it must be backed up with actions. We must live out our faith each and every day.

Making Jesus Lord of our lives means denying the other “lords” in our lives. These lords are not emperors, barons, or kings. Instead it is greed, selfishness, anger, hate, racism, sexism; all those things that seek to divide us instead of unite us. These lords seek to take the place of Jesus in our hearts. Our love of material things above love for neighbor and God prevents Jesus from becoming lord of our hearts. We have to keep our focus on Jesus through constant vigilance in order to prevent these lords from taking over.

Saying that Jesus is Lord means that we are connected with, we are unified with Christians from around the world. From denomination to denomination we are united together as one body of Christ. We have to put away foolish divisions and bring ourselves together as a unified front facing the darkness of this world. We have spent too many years apart. We all might worship a little differently, we all might sing and pray a little differently, but we are united as children of God under the Lordship of Christ. That is what Jesus is Lord means for us today. It is not just words, but actions and life that matters most. Jesus is Lord. This is a simple statement, but as we have seen it carries with it some heavy connotations and responsibilities. It means joining together; it means acting and behaving in a certain way. It means having the love of Christ in our hearts.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.