Paul has a problem.
Actually, Paul has several problems, and most of them live in a church called Corinth.
The church in Corinth is divided by loyalty and status.
They are spiritually competitive and morally confused.
They are misusing freedom, mistaking chaos for maturity, and calling it life in the Spirit.
Paul knows all of this. And that is what makes the opening of this letter so unsettling.
Because Paul does not begin with alarm.
He does not begin with warning.
He does not begin with, “We are running out of time.”
He begins with thanksgiving.
“I give thanks to my God always for you…” dysfunctional followers of Jesus Christ residing in Corinth.
Which honestly feels almost irresponsible. As a pastor, if it could be considered malpractice not to act when you see the church, the whole church or parts of the church, acting a fool. It feels like Paul is committing pastoral malpractice. Everything in us wants a pastor who tightens the reins when things start falling apart, not one who dares to name grace first.
Paul is not calming the Corinthians down.
He is starting the clock.
“The grace of God has been given you in Christ Jesus.”
Not will be given.
Not is available.
Not is waiting on better behavior.
Has been given.
Grace, for Paul, is not a future possibility. Rather, it is a present fact. And once grace is a fact, delay becomes a problem.
Before Paul names a single failure, he announces that God has already acted. Which means the Corinthians are no longer living in a holding pattern. They are living in the aftermath of God’s decision.
Grace has already happened. Christ has already claimed them. God has already spoken. Which means the question “Now what?” becomes unavoidable.
Not because God is impatient.
But because grace does not allow postponement.
Epiphany exposes this.
Epiphany shines light on who Jesus is, and once that light is on, we discover how often we have been living as if it were not.
We prefer a grace that reassures without disrupting, but Paul offers a grace that rearranges the present.
“You have been enriched in every way,” Paul says, “so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.”
This is not praise. It is pressure. Because grace does not simply comfort us; it confronts us with the truth of who we already are.
Because if you lack no gift—not language or knowledge—then the problem is not scarcity. It is misuse.
Grace does not wait until we are competent. But once grace is given, ignorance is no longer an excuse.
The Corinthians cannot say, “We didn’t know.” And neither can we.
Grace is urgent not because judgment is coming someday, but because the Kingdom of God is already here. It was present in Corinth way back when, and it is present here today. Because grace does not simply comfort us; it confronts us with the truth of who we already are. We may not always feel like it is, but thanks be to God that God and the Kingdom of Heaven do not wait for us to feel or to be ready.
Paul presses it even further.
“He will also strengthen you to the end… God is faithful.”
Notice where the weight falls.
Not on their resolve.
Not on their consistency.
Not on their track record.
On God’s faithfulness. I don’t know about you, but I know that despite muscles, physical and spiritual will, every now and then, collapse under pressure. But because of the faithfulness of God, the present and future of the is secure.
And when the future is secure, the present becomes the place of decision.
Grace does not paralyze us with fear.
It frees us from delay.
This is where we often get grace wrong.
We treat grace as though it is a pause button, while Paul treats grace like a starting gun.
Grace’s hour is now.
Not after we get our act together.
Not after things calm down.
Not after fear recedes.
Because grace refuses to wait, the kingdom of God is not deferred either.
It is present. Right now.
And this is why the Civil Rights Movement matters here, not as a holiday reference, but as a theological witness. Martin Luther King Jr. and the women and men of that movement did not believe they were dragging the kingdom of God into the present. They believed the kingdom was already here—and segregation, silence, and delay were lies that had to be confronted. They did not wait for permission to live as though Black lives belonged fully in God’s beloved community. Grace had already spoken. And because grace does not wait, neither could they.
Which means we are not waiting for better conditions to live as citizens of God’s reign. We are being asked whether we will live truthfully now.
And that matters when fear is thick in the air.
When immigrants are afraid.
When division spreads faster than trust.
When chaos starts passing itself off as normal.
Fear teaches people to hide.
Grace teaches people to belong.
Fear teaches people to protect themselves.
Grace teaches people to risk mercy.
Fear says, “Now is not the time.”
Grace says, “Now is exactly the time.”
And listen, I know that living in the knowledge that the kingdom of God is present right now can make it seem like we are pretending everything is OK. But that cannot be further from the truth. The presence of the kingdom does not deny suffering; it refuses to allow suffering have the final word. It means we live refusing to let sin-induced fear be more real than grace.
Paul refuses to let the Corinthians imagine that the Kingdom of God is a future improvement project.
Remember the tense:
God has already claimed them.
God has already gifted them.
God has already bound them to Christ.
God has already claimed you.
God has already gifted you.
God has already bound them to you.
Which means their lives must catch up to what God has already said is true. Delay does not stop the Kingdom of God from being fully realized, but it does distort how we participate in it.
That is the urgency of grace.
Not panic.
Not frenzy.
But truth lived without delay.
So “Now what?” is not answered with “try harder.”
It is answered with “live now as though the kingdom of God is present.”
Because it is.
And grace has already made that possible.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
