Pentecost 6 (NL4) John B. Valentine
1 Corinthians 10:14-33 July 5, 2026

ZERO DEGREES OF SEPARATION

I’m just curious ....

How many of you have every heard the phrase “Six Degrees of Separation”?

It’s okay ... you needn’t be embarrassed to raise you hands on this one ....

And how many of you understand the concept behind the phrase "Six Degrees of Separation"?

Okay ....

Now ... for those of you who don’t know that phrase ...

“Six Degrees of Separation" is this idea ...

• first articulated almost a century ago by some Hungarian fellow whose name I can’t pronounce ... and

• first expounded upon by some American psychologist whose name I can’t remember ...

That all of us ... all people ... all over the world ... are separated at most by six relationships ...

That the world is far smaller ... in terms of human interconnections ... than we think ...

That I may not know Maria who lives in a little village in the Ecuadorian highlands halfway around the world ... but that I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows that very same Maria.

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For the longest time ... people presumed that there was some validity to the theory of "Six Degrees of Separation" but could never quite prove it ....

But now that we live in the world of ubiquitous social media ... Facebook and LinkedIn and the like have shown pretty clearly how relationship chains connect us all.

I mean ... have you ever been surprised to see one of those “small-world” connections Facebook ... wherein someone with whom you went to college is also friends with someone who works in your office ... but not through you???

So ... for instance ... here’s my own classic “Small-World” story

It was at my dad’s memorial service ... a year ago this past March.

A couple of my cousins ... who were both elementary school teachers ... had flown down from Washington to be with us for the weekend ... and they were sitting over in the back corner of the sanctuary ...

And I went over to greet them ... and happened to point out that the fellow who was sitting in the pew right in front of them had been an elementary school administrator up in Washington until just a few years before ...

And so I tapped Donald and Paula on the shoulder to turn around and make an introduction ... and my cousin’s jaw dropped and she got all flustered and said “My granddaughters go to the Donald Eisman School” ... just one degree of separation ... me .....

It’s a small world .....

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You know ... I might be a bit weird ... but I couldn’t help but think about “small-worlds” and “six degrees of separation” and the like when I looked at this morning’s Scripture lesson.

You see ... in the ancient city of Corinth ... like everywhere else in the Roman Empire of the 1st Century ... it was assumed that there were multiple degrees of separation between the so-called ‘gods’ of the day and human beings ...

• That ‘the gods’ were distant and uncaring and almost impossible to access if you wanted to get their attention .... but also ....

• That ‘the gods’ really didn’t care about what you did or how you acted ... or whom you hurt ... or whom you stepped on ...

Just as long as ... at the end of the day ... you gave ‘the gods’ their due.

But into that cultural context comes Paul ... preaching the Gospel of Jesus ... proclaiming the Good News ... opening the eyes of those who could not see.

And among Paul’s biggest challenges in proclaiming that message is getting people to embrace this radical assertion .....

• that God DOES care ...

• that God is NOT distant ...

• that there are NOT ‘six degrees of separation’ between the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of our God ...

• that God DOES care about whom you hurt and whom you step on ... or step over ...

• that God is intimately involved in ... and engaged with ... life as we live it ...

• that the Kingdom of God is NEAR ... not just temporally ... but physically ... and

• that ALL of human life ... the totality of life ... is lived in the presence of God.

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You know ... or maybe you don’t know ... that this whole idea of living life “in the presence of God” is at the heart fo what it means to be a Lutheran Christian.

You see ... Martin Luther had the phrase that he loved to use to talk about the essence of godly life and godly living ... a Latin phrase ... “Coram Deo”.

“Coram Deo” means “In the presence of God” ... or more literally “before the face of God” ... kind of a “face to face with God” sort of a thing.

To live “Coram Deo” is to understand that there is not one square inch of your life that is hidden from God’s sight ...

To live “Coram Deo” is to know that there is not one second of your week that is outside of God’s grace ...

To live “Coram Deo” is realize that we don’t have “religious lives” and “everyday lives” that we can put on and take off ...

But rather that we just have us ... as we are ... who we are ... and that ALL of us .... and all of US ... ... ALL the time ... stand in the presence of God.

There’s not the religious “you” and the everyday “you” ... there’s just YOU ... ALL of you.

Likewise there’s not the religious "me" and the everyday "me" ... there’s just ME ... the good and the bad and the whole and the broken of me ... all rolled into one.

And there’s not the religious "life" and the everyday "life" ... there's just “life”.

And all of life ... all of your life and my life and our lives together ... is lived in the presence of God.

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You know ... yesterday was the 250th birthday of our nation ... and ... I’ve got to tell you ... as birthday celebrations go ... I thought it was a bit of a bust.

I mean ... I was hoping ... I think a lot of us were hoping ... that the 250th birthday of of the Declaration of Independence might have been a good reason to lay aside some of the partisanship that so divides us right now ... and remember how and why we are better together.

I mean ... some of you ... obviously ... remember the Bicentennial ... back in 1976.

That celebration took place at a time when our country was pretty deeply divided ... in the immediate aftermath of the Viet Nam War and Watergate and all that ...

But it felt like a good time and a good reason to celebrate what we shared ... and what we had in common ... despite our differences and divisions.

But this Semiquincentennial thing ... this year .. It hasn’t felt like that ... at least not to me.

Heck ... we couldn’t even come together on whether we should embrace the work of:

• “America 250" ... that congressionally-chartered non-partisan commission responsible for coordinating local community gatherings nationwide ... or

• “Freedom 250" ... the White House task force that has been organizing a year-long schedule of festivities ... including that Great American State Fair thing that apparently nobody showed up for.

Because it ALL got mucked up in politics and political opinions and the like

To us ... right now ... it seems all of life ... everything we do ... everything ... is being seen through a political lens.

• What kind of car we drive ...
• What kind of music we listen to ...
• Which AI service we subscribe to ...
• What TV channels we watch and/or avoid ...

Everything these days seems to be lived in the awareness of the political ramifications of it all.

But living “Coram Deo” ... living ‘in the presence of God’ ... would mean changing out the ‘political’ lens that we’ve so polished in recent years and replacing it with a faith-filled one!

THAT’S what Paul is inviting these folks in Corinth to do ...

To look at the whole of their lives through the lens of faith ... and shape the whole of their lives based on what it is that they see.

And that’s what Paul invites US to do as well ...

To look at the whole of our lives through the lens of faith ... and shape our behaviors based on what it is that we see.

And ... for Paul ... it’s really really clear what living ‘Coram Deo’ means ...

“Shaping our lives and our living based on the needs and concerns of our neighbors ... both those inside of the family of faith and those who are not yet a part of that family.”

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You know ... I think I’ve told you this before ... but it certainly bears repeating ...

I think that at least on this one issue ... the folks in the ELCA’s denominational structure really messed up.

You see ... if you were to take out the red hymnals there in the pew racks in front of you ...

And turn to Communion Setting Number One or Communion Setting Number Two ... and by extension Communion Settings Number Three through Nine ...

You’d notice that you’re given four options for the words of dismissal right at the end of the service:

• There’s “Go in peace. Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God.”
• There’s “Go in peace. Share the good news. Thanks be to God.”
• There’s “Go in peace. Remember the poor. Thanks be to God” ... and
• There’s “Go in peace. Christ is with you. Thanks be to God.”

Now ... ALL of those options are “nice and churchy” and “nice and faithful” and all ... but NONE of them are particularly Lutheran and none of them are particularly Pauline.

You see ... if there’s ONE point in which Martin Luther and saintly Paul are in complete agreement ... its this one ... THAT WE LOVE AND SERVE GOD BY LOVING AND SERVING OUR NEIGHBORS!

And none of the four options in the hymnal really make that clear ... that when we “go in peace” ... we go to love God BY loving and serving our neighbors.

Which is why ... at the end of our worship gatherings around here ... we say “God in peace, to love God by serving your neighbor.”

For ... as Paul is going to write in another letter just a few years later:

“For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence ...

But through love become enslaved to one another ....

For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment ....

‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”