January 21, 2007

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

    1 Corinthians 12.12-31a; Luke 4.14-21

    The Reverend Jennifer K. Morrow

 

Have you ever looked up a word in the dictionary, only to find that you needed to then look up the definition?  What should have been a relatively simple search can turn into a complex process until the first word in question is distilled down into something understandable, and thus, useful.

 

This is not unlike the work that lies before us this morning.  For hearing the reading from 1 Corinthians is tantamount to having looked up “us” in the dictionary.  If, in your pews there were dictionaries instead of bibles, thesauruses instead of hymnals, this is what we would find.  “Us: the body of Christ.”  Hmm.  “MUMC: the body of Christ.”  That’s not really helpful.  “The Church: the body of Christ.”

 

Most of us, in our lives around the church, have heard this kind of language before.  But have we ever stopped long enough to consider what it really means?  Having spent most of my life in the church, I’ve become convinced that one of the things Christians in general and preachers in particular are unfortunately fond of, is using words they haven’t fully understood, or at least adequately explored.  “God’s will.”  “Jesus is Lord.”  “I’ll pray for you.”  “Peace be with you.”

 

Each of these statements expresses something tremendously meaningful, but they often get thrown around without much thought to what we’re really saying.  When we exchange “a sign of Christ’s peace” each week and say to each other, “Peace be with you,” what do we really mean?  Have a nice day?  I like you?  Good to see you?  May your soul be filled with a peace that will change your life and the world around you?  Meaning makes a difference.

 

So too, when we hear the reading from 1 Corinthians today, in which Paul confidently and authoritatively describes the church as the body of Christ, do we dig deeper, and allow the real meaning of these words to engage us, change us?  Or do we brush them by in familiarity, giving them only a passing glance?  Today, I suggest we give them our attention, because I believe they contain within them truths about our identity, our purpose, and what potential our life together may hold.

 

 As I was writing, I began to wonder how I would introduce a child to the idea that the church is the body of Christ.  Then I realized, as I often do with children, that they may be more able to help us understand.  Usually sometime during the pre-school years, a child begins drawing people.  Most of these early people have circle-shaped heads and two sticks descending directly from the face.  As children mature, however, so do their drawings of bodies: arms appear, then hair, ears, hands, feet, and torsos.  As a child grows, so does their awareness that more parts are needed to make a body.

 

As the church grows, the same is true.  As we mature in our collective faith, we begin to realize that more parts are necessary to make a body of this church.  These parts come in the form of new members, and from a commitment to recognize that those who may be very different from our individual selves—whether that difference is age, race, class, weight, or political leaning—must be welcome and present if the body is to be complete.

 

As Kris read from 1 Corinthians earlier, we heard Paul’s exploration of all the other implications of being a body: mutual dependence, unity, equality, connectedness, individual functions and gifts, the necessity of health.  It’s a good image, but what makes it truly significant is what we know about the community to which Paul was writing.  The Christians in Corinth were struggling to find themselves; the church was riddled with imperfections, and yet in the midst of that Paul still tells them they are the body of Christ, and have been given spiritual gifts: leadership, teaching, healing.

 

Which goes to show that spiritual maturity, morality, goodness isn't the point of spiritual gifts.  The Christians at Corinth didn’t possess these gifts because they were moral and good, rather they were given chances to use them because they are the body of Christ.  And they are the body of Christ because they have been claimed by God.  "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ own forever."   Their gifts have nothing to do with themselves but with God's ends and purposes.  Paul regularly reinforces this in other writings, "I do not boast in myself, but in Christ crucified." 

 

Paul could have said that the church is a body, and he would have said a lot.  But he did not.  He said more.  He said that the church is the body of Christ.  We are the body of Christ.  Which means that if we want to know to what end we live, toward what purpose we strive, we need look to one source: the God of transforming love revealed in Jesus.

 

In today’s gospel text, we find this Jesus giving a statement of his purpose in a way.  He is in his hometown of Nazareth, preaching publicly for the first time there.  He walks to the front of the synagogue.  He opens a scroll of Isaiah and claims his identity before many who probably still think of him as the young boy they knew growing up.  Boy no longer, he reads, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.  And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

 

This is who Jesus was, and lest we forget, it is who we are as well.  We are not the body of Christ because we are religious, because we believe certain things.  We are not the body of Christ because we have certain gifts.  In fact, the only thing that makes the spiritual gifts about which Paul writes “spiritual” is that they are put in the service of our identity: living as the body of Christ.  Proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free and proclaiming God’s great love for all.  And make no mistake, this is who we are.  We are the body of Christ.  It’s not a goal or a resolution.  It is a reality, and we are either living into this identity, or we are not.  We are either living on behalf of the poor, the blind, and the oppressed, or we are not.  We are either living as the body of Christ, or we are pretending to be something else.

 

So we must be willing to ask: who are the poor to whom we could presume to bring good news?  And how can we share it with them without patronizing?  Only by being in loving relationship with them, and so how do we find that?  And who are the captives among us?  Those bound by their dependence on substance?  Those unable to leave countries torn by violence?  Those unable to escape families torn by violence?  How can we release them?  Who are the blind among us?  Those young people who look at their bodies and see imperfection rather than beauty?  How can we help them see?  And the oppressed, who are they and how have we been their oppressors?

 

These hard questions are the ones that lead to wholeness and meaning.  They require a tremendous amount from us.  If we ask them seriously we must be willing to give some things up.  We may lose sleep, money, or comfort.  But we will find ourselves.  We will experience a joy like no other at the recognition that we are the body of Christ.  Which reminds me again of children’s drawings of bodies: their faces are always smiling.  We are the body of Christ.  We are.