In the year of our Lord 2026, it feels like Americans are more divided than ever.

And not only Americans who aren’t Christians; American Christians, too, quote verses back and forth at each other just as Christians have pretty much from the beginning. There are more denominations than you can imagine and as I’ve said before, most people don’t even know what the big fights of the past were about, and if they do, most don’t care very much, either… but we have very strong opinions about the fights of the present.

This isn’t new. In Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, he talks about divisions. One person, he says, claims “I’m Team Paul,” another, “I’m Team Apollos,” another, “I’m Team Peter,” and another, I assume trying to rise above the fray of whatever the real disagreement was about, creates another faction called “I just follow Jesus.”

Paul is frustrated by all this infighting and he just wants everybody to get along. “Knock it off,” he says. “Was Paul crucified for you?” “Is Christ divided?” “I’m glad nobody was baptized in my name!” He tells them to be of one mind. “Would you just all agree?” Stop the infighting. Work together. Get along.

And a lot of people will use that to say that churches shouldn’t do controversy, shouldn’t talk about politics, shouldn’t say things that people will disagree with.

But then in chapter five, he starts calling out sin. He objects to a man having his father’s wife and says that guy should be removed from the church. He says in ch. 15, “If we say Christ was raised from the dead, how are some of you saying there is no resurrection?”

Which tells me that for Paul, there are things worth disagreeing over, worth speaking a word of challenge over.

And since I’m going to say some things some people might disagree with me about, it is important for me to say that just because I’m standing in a pulpit doesn’t mean I’m right. In the Presbyterian Church we believe in freedom of conscience. There’s a quote about rabbis that I like that goes, “A rabbi whose community does not disagree with him is not really a rabbi.”

If my sermon this week isn’t helpful for you, I apologize and I hope next week’s will be… but I’m going to preach it anyway because I think there are some people here who do need to hear me say it, so please bear with me.

I want to go back to that question he asks: “Is Christ divided?“

And looking two thousand years ahead to the church in the United States of America I think the answer is very clearly yes.

Yes, Christ is divided.

Not the real Christ, of course; not the Christ who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. That Christ is not divided.

But if we look at the way American Christians talk about Christ… Christ, in out minds and imaginations, is very much divided.

White American Jesus

To some, Christ is a good person,
white, polite,
always falls the rules, keeps his head down and doesn’t rock the boat,
is more concerned about prayers than oppression,
More about piety than poverty
More about virginity and vulgarity than about violence
more about your devotions then others’ distress,
More about obedience to rules than about righteousness.

His extension of thou shalt not kill meant that as long as you’re not angry with someone it’s okay to pulverize them with policy.

White American Jesus just wants you to pray and read your Bible and work hard at your job and give your money to the church and live and die quietly in the shadow of the empire.

The white American Jesus would never get in the way of the machinations of empire as they used law and order to grind the bones of the vulnerable into profit.

His kind, smiling face hangs in a photo in the locker of the nice Roman soldiers who were actually very good people who only executed him because they were just doing their jobs.

That Jesus, a citizen, of course, would’ve followed orders from the authorities; would’ve focused on the souls of the people inside the synagogue while the bodies of people outside were being crushed.

The demons he cast out and the healing he brought were metaphors for the spiritual challenges we face. He said to be nice to people, but you should never forget that he was also the incarnation of the God who would smite you down if you didn’t show him the proper respect, and was going to come back in violence to punish people who don’t believe the right way.

White American Jesus still “loves” LGBTQ people, but he meant for his statement about divorce to be an objection to marriage equality for LGBTQ people.

White American Jesus died for your sin of saying a naughty word and disrespecting your parents, and your sin of feeling a little proud of yourself for doing something difficult.

He would say, “Those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness should obey the law, and if they don’t like it, they should work to change it.”

Christ is divided.

Christ is divided, and that Jesus is not who I want to worship and serve, and he is not the Jesus of the Bible.

The Jesus I Want to Follow

I want to follow the Jesus who headed north after his mentor John the Baptist was arrested (Matthew 4:12), for saying something he shouldn’t have said who had to much power, and kept on telling God’s story, saying God’s new way of life had arrived.

The Jesus they brought a woman caught in adultery to, and said “We caught her in the act; should we kill her?” and he said “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone.”

The Jesus who said “Your sins are forgiven” as a proxy for healing bodies.

I want to follow the Jesus who raised a little girl from the dead not because her dad was a leader of the righteous occupying forces, but in spite of that, and maybe a little bit because the local religious leaders vouched for his character and said he was a big donor to their local meting place for their religion, the one Rome tolerated. “All Centurions Are Bad,” they might have said, but THIS guy is one of the good ones.

The Jesus who, when asked, “Who is my neighbor,” told a story and picked the person the guy who asked the question had really strong bad feelings about and said, “That guy helped, but the people you like didn’t. Which would you say was a neighbor?” and the guy who asked was so flustered he couldn’t even say “The Samaritan” but said, probably between clenched teeth, “The one who showed him pity.”

The one who said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Who said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy,” who said “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I can’t help but believe the Jesus the Bible teaches us about would be – No, he is alive – IS – horrified to see his words, “Blessed are the peacemakers” prominently featured in a video of men engaged in violence, as if those words somehow supported it.

I want to follow the Jesus who cast out a bunch of demons who answered to the name “Legion,” which was the same word a group of the occupying soldiers answered to.

I want to follow the Jesus who said “Whatever you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do to me.”

The Jesus who, unlike Paul, could be tortured by whip and by cross because he did not have the privilege of citizenship of the empire he lived in.

The Jesus who picked the side of the vulnerable; who chose solidarity with the people who didn’t do anything wrong and were tortured and killed for it, on the cross.

I want to follow the Jesus who upset the authorities so much that they saw him as a threat to the occupying government and executed him.

Who died a death so shameful that the only poster a Roman soldier might have of him in his locker was a grinning selfie next to his crucified body, captioned “Don’t do the Crime if you Can’t do the Cross.”

And when he died he said “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing” even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they had a pretty good idea of exactly what they were doing, minus the part about him being God.

There are churches today that worship the American Jesus. The mirror-verse Jesus who would support capital punishment despite having been a victim of it, who doesn’t count illegal immigrants among the least of these his brothers and sisters because they’re not citizens.

Christ is divided, friends.

Christ has been divided —

• into the Christ who walked this earth and is told of in scripture,
• and a fictitious version of himself who makes some white American Christians feel comfortable defending their nation’s most heinous sins that Matthew 25 teaches are sins against Jesus Christ himself.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood in the prophetic tradition of Frederick Douglass, who, at the end of his book “Life of an American Slave” admitted he had railed pretty hard against religion, but then added this point of clarification:

What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.

Christ is not divided – not the real Christ.

But his followers are.

Let’s pray.

God, give us the courage to follow the real Jesus,
and as best as we are able,
reject the distorted Jesus
remade in the image of violence and power,
we pray in Jesus’ name,
Amen.

This sermon was first preached by Rev. David Schell at Jackson’s First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Michigan. This is a manuscript, not a transcript, but it’s pretty close to what was said.

The Scripture readings that day were from I Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23.