But I Don’t Want To

1 Corinthians 5:6-13

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ⁹ I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— ¹⁰ not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ¹² For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? ¹³ God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Over 30 years ago, my husband was serving a church in rural America. It was a very small community where everyone knew everyone else (and their business). One of the leaders in our church had a wife, 4 kids and one on the way. It was right before the birth of that 5^th child that he decided to become involved with another woman. He and this woman took up residence directly across the street from another one of our church leaders. He was living openly with this woman and wouldn’t even see his wife and children. Needless to say, this was quite the scandal for our church members. The elders of the church went to his house (in fear and trembling – because let’s face it – confrontation is a bummer) and told him this situation was unacceptable and pleaded with him to repent and return to his family. He was completely unwilling to hear their pleas and slammed the door in their faces. As a group, they made the choice to remove him from church membership and set about helping his abandoned wife as best they could. It was exactly the situation Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5 – the removal of the unrepentant sinner from the congregation. It was painful and hurt everyone involved. He never did return to church; he divorced his wife and left our little city all together. It was shocking and terribly sad. I still wonder about what happened to him after all these years.

Paul’s words here are harsh. And he doesn’t pull any punches. Life is messy – even inside of the church, because we are all messy, Christian and unbeliever. Sin affects every single person on the planet and we bring all of that into the church with us. But, and here is where Paul’s message hits home, we don’t have to wallow in that sin, nor do we have to allow the sinful choices of others to infect our own lives. Paul instructed his protégé, Timothy with these words:

1 Timothy 5:22

Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.

Those elders at our first church certainly didn’t want to go to that man’s house. They, in fact, wanted nothing to do with the entire situation. But love demands that we act responsibly and that includes calling one another out on our sin. Jesus never shied away from calling out sin, but He also acted with love, mercy, and grace. When we go into those situations with prayer and His heart for others, we act in His stead and for the good of the community. I don’t want to do it, but sometimes that’s what is needed.