Well, it was a tough choice to decide which part of Sunday's sermon to grapple with in regards to the relationship between Christian community and the releasing of God's power. There was the Mark 16 passage, and the First Corinthians 6 passage, and Acts 5, and Acts 28... but I think it might be interesting to look at First Corinthians 5.
Paul says: "Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgement on the one who did this, just as if I was present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord" (First Corinthians 5:3-5).
The community of faith is not often viewed as a vehicle for the execution of God's judgement. But, this passage clearly indicates that the apostle Paul expected the community at Corinth to act on his behalf in pronouncing judgement on the man who was sexually involved with his father's wife (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you may want to take a few minutes to read the whole of First Corinthians 5).
There is a curious phenomenon that Paul alludes to in this chapter: Paul had already pronounced judgement against the man, but the judgement could not be put into effect until there was a gathering of the community of faith where the power of God was present. This reminds me of Old Testament passages where we see, for example, the process of the anointing of kings: God would tell a prophet to go and anoint the new king in a private setting, then at a later point in time the king would be anointed again in the presence of the whole community. The community was merely giving witness to something that was already fact. I think it's the same idea in First Corinthians 5, except that the congregants at Corinth weren't just witnesses to fact: they were agents demonstrating (or performing) on earth what had already been settled in heaven- the expulsion of an unrepentant community member.
The concept of Paul being with the Corinthians "in spirit" might be a bit uncomfortable to reflect on, as it might sound metaphysical or even weird. But let's approach this from our main point of this week's series: this is a basic function of our faith. As we learned yesterday, the concept of "two or three" implies that Paul on his own could not access the power of God that was necessary for judgement to be meted out. But Paul seems to be saying that, as the community of faith gathered, he would counted among them because he was in agreement with them. It didn't matter that he wasn't physically present.
We have seen this before in scripture. Perhaps one of the more famous examples is in Numbers 11:16-30, where the Lord took of the Spirit from Moses and put the Spirit on seventy elders. Two men, Eldad and Medad, chose not to show up at the meeting, and the Spirit rested on them anyway: even though they were not present at the meeting, they had been identified by God as members of the community of elders... and God's Spirit was not hindered by the physical distance.
Some of you have experienced this, and it may make more sense if I use a modern-day example. There have been occasions where we have been asked, as a congregation, to hold hands and pray for an individual who was sick or in crisis. And, sometimes months or even a year later, the individual has come to our church to testify of what God did in their lives as we were praying. In this regard, the laying on hands can be a spiritual activity with physical results/consequences. We did not touch the sick person with our own hands, but we "touched" him by standing in agreement with one another in the presence of God.
I hope you'll visit tomorrow, as we continue with our third point: protocol.
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