Our year-long experience with COVID has forced many congregations to do what doesn’t come easily especially to us Presbyterians – to embrace change. Many pastors have learned how to livestream services, and to use Zoom for classes and meetings. Many dollars have been spent on cameras and audio equipment to make all this electronic communication possible. And now, as more people are getting vaccinated and as disease rates fall back to the levels not seen since the start of the pandemic, we have to wonder – will the crowds come back to church?

Well, in a very real sense, the people never really left. After all, as Paul reminds us in verse 16, the people of God, taken collectively, are God’s temple because every Christian carries within himself or herself the Holy Spirit. That means that whether we are scattered or gathered, the Church is wherever God’s people may be.

But that also means that it’s more important to tend to the church’s spiritual health than to its facilities or even its programs. As Paul points out in verse 11, the Person and Work of Jesus Christ is the only firm foundation on which the Church can be built, for we only become part of the family of God through faith in Him. So, to the extent that all our electronic communication has helped maintain and nurture our faith, it has been and will continue to be helpful – the same tools that saw us through COVID isolation can keep us connected, helping us learn while we are on our summer vacations, or stuck in the hospital or at home caring for loved ones.

And we can also take comfort in the fact that God is the One Who is ultimately responsible for the growth of the Church, both in numbers and in strength. As Paul reminds us in verses 5-9, even the wisest of theologians, the most inspiring of preachers and the most persuasive of teachers can only plant and water the seeds of faith – it is God alone that can make it grow.

But at the same time, Paul reminds us that we all have a responsibility to nurture the faith God is growing within us, to build on the foundation of Christ in our own lives and in the lives of others. So, if the electronic tools that made it possible for us to stay in touch while we were forced to be physically separated become a crutch or an excuse to avoid gathered worship and study, we risk missing out on the blessings that we can both give and receive from being with other believers.

So, let’s all do our part to build the temple of God in a durable, lasting way, wherever we are and however we can. For Paul promises an eternal reward to those who do this (v. 14).

I Corinthians 3:1-23 (ESV)

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw–
13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future– all are yours,
23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.