Brief note of explanation: If you're not a member of my church.... obviously the "you"s in this sermon are addressed to the people of my congregation... this is written pretty much exactly as I wanted to speak it to them as I was standing in front of them.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (click here to read the passage (NRSV version))
Luke 4:14-21 (click here to read the passage (NRSV version))
Last Sunday during the announcements and in the weekly email that went out to the parish on Friday, I gave you a little "homework" in preparation for this Sunday's sermon. In our New Testament reading for this morning, Paul uses the metaphor of the members of the church being "one body in Christ." I asked you to think about your answers to three questions about that metaphor:
1. When you hear someone say, "we are one body in Christ," what does that mean to you? What are your first associations/connotations with that phrase?
2. Who is included in that body?
3. How does who you consider to be included in the body of Christ change how you relate to or are in relationship with them?
I hope you found this to be an interesting and thought-provoking exercise. I used these questions to guide my reflections about this passage, and will share with you my own thoughts in response to them.
First, "When you hear someone say, "we are one body in Christ," what does that mean to you? What are your first associations/connotations with that phrase?
For me, the phrase "we are one body in Christ" connotes first and foremost a sense of community, a community that is bound together by something larger than ourselves. As I reflected on this, I also realized that the phrase connotes to me a sense of being similar in some sense, of having something in common.
The second question was, "Who is included in that body?"
When you hear someone talk about the "body of Christ," who do you think of as being included in that body? Members of Holy Spirit? Fellow Episcopalians? Christians of other denominations?
I found that when I think about who is included in the "body of Christ," my first thought is of my particular worshipping community -- that is, all of you. Upon further reflection, I think about the other churches with which I have formed meaningful connections, in Boston and South Carolina. I also think about the wider "body" of Christians throughout the world who I may have never met or have any connection with and yet to whom I am still connected, through the "mystical body of Christ," as our Eucharistic liturgy says.
And finally, begrudgingly and with great confusion at times, I think of those who call themselves Christians with whom I disagree on various aspects of theology, politics, or ethics, or who see the world entirely differently than I do. It is sometimes hard for me to make sense of the idea that they and I are "one body in Christ" -- especially if, as I mentioned earlier, the notion of being "one in Christ" connotes to me some sense of oneness, of similarity.
I think this is probably a common line of thinking -- that as Christians, we should be similar in some way. And, on some level, this is true -- but the problem comes when we look for this commonality in our opinions, or our worship preferences, or our tastes in music, or even our interpretations of scripture, rather than in our common love of God and desire to follow Christ.
I am currently reading a book with my spiritual director called The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. In the most recent chapter we read, the author, Ronald Rolheiser, writes about the misperceptions people hold about what "church" is supposed to be. One of those misperceptions, he says, is the idea that church is made up of "like-minded individuals, gathering on the basis of mutual compatibility." He says it better than I could, so I quote from him:
"To be in apostolic community, church, is not necessarily to be with others with whom we are emotionally, ideologically, and otherwise compatible. Rather it is to stand, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand, precisely with people who are very different from ourselves and, with them, hear a common word, say a common creed, share a common bread, and offer a mutual forgiveness so as, in that way, to bridge our differences and become a common heart. Church is not about a few like-minded persons getting together for mutual support; it is about millions and millions of different kinds of persons transcending their differences so as to become a community beyond temperament, race, ideology, gender, language, and background" (Rolheiser 115).
After explaining a number of other things that church is NOT, Rolheiser finally gets to his main point, his definition of what church IS -- people "gathering around the person of Christ and sharing his Spirit" (Rolheiser 118). And the Gospel passage for today gives us a nice summary of who exactly we are gathering around in the person of Christ - the one who brings good news to the poor, gives sight to the blind, and frees the oppressed.
So, the phrase "one body in Christ" DOES connote similarity -- but our similarity as Christians lies in our turning to Christ as our Savior, not in sharing similar political opinions, similar cultures, similar backgrounds or even similar interpretations of scripture. If we struggle to think about those who are different from us as included in the body of Christ, perhaps it is because we have focused so much on the "oneness" part of the metaphor that it overshadows the centrality of the "Christ" part of the metaphor.
Paul gives us some powerful imagery to illustrate this concept in this morning's New Testament reading: "Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slave or free -- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corin. 12:12-13). Christ is what unites us; the Spirit is what binds us together. Through our baptism, we are inextricably linked to one another, even when we may not FEEL like we are a part of the body.
One of the most powerful aspects of Paul's metaphor of the "body of Christ" is his affirmation that we are still included in the body even when we feel excluded because we are different from the other members of the body. He writes, "If the foot would say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body" (1 Corin. 12:15).
Over what things have we found ourselves feeling excluded from the body of Christ? What would you fill in to that statement -- "Because I am not _______, I do not belong to the body"? Because I am not "spiritual" enough? Because I am not good at talking with others about my faith? Because I don't live up to my ideals? Because I don't agree with this or that action of the national church? Despite any of our differences that might make us feel that we do not belong, Paul says that our feeling this way does not make us any less a part of the body! If we have been baptized into the body, we ARE a part of the body, in spite of any attempts by ourselves or others to exclude us.
Next, Paul goes on to affirm that the differences within the body of Christ are a part of God's plan: "God arranged the members in the body, each one as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?" (1 Corin. 12:18-19).
In fact, Paul argues that this diversity is ESSENTIAL to the Christian community. By its very DEFINITION, the "body" consists of different "parts." Instead of saying that we are one body in Christ DESPITE our differences (a way of thinking I know I often hold), in this passage Paul argues beautifully that we NEED our differences to truly live out what it means to be the body of Christ.
He writes, "the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you" (1 Corin. 12:21). I cannot say to those Christians who are different from me, "I have no need of you." Their presence is critical to maintaining the integrity of the body of Christ. Otherwise, we are just a community of ears, with no eyes. Or of feet, with no hands. When I am able to have considerate and respectful conversations with people who are different from me, it is often those people who can help me to see and understand things I could never have seen through talking only with people who look, talk, and think like me. As Paul writes, "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?" (1 Corin. 12:17) Without engaging with differences, we miss out on experiencing the fullness of God in Christ.
I am a strong advocate of building intentionally diverse Christian communities for precisely this reason. We need all the different parts in order to be a HEALTHY body. Just as a body without an eye is not completely whole and healthy, so too is a Christian community not healthy if it is too homogenous -- in terms of race, class, culture, or ideology. Over the years I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the way churches in our country are segregated along racial, socioeconomic, and ideological lines. While I understand many of the historical and sociological reasons behind this phenomenon, I do not see how there can be any scripturally justifiable reasons for this. We have "white churches" and "black churches" and "conservative churches" and "liberal churches" and "rich churches" and "poor churches," and in all these churches, we read the same scriptures that tell us we are "one body in Christ." To modernize the metaphor, "In the Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- black or white, conservative or liberal" -- so why do we so often live as if this were not so? I feel that we as Christians are not really living the Gospel unless we are living it together, in community.
As you may know, this week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, sponsored by the World Council of Churches. Praying for "Christian unity" does not necessarily mean that we are praying for all Christians to become part of ONE denomination or ONE church, or that certain groups should give up their particular styles of worship and methods of scriptural interpretation and adopt those of another group. "Christian unity," as informed by Paul's metaphor of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians, does not mean erasing differences or assuming consensus among all Christians. Rather, it means caring enough to ENGAGE WITH the differences and to learn from one another. Ecumenical dialogue continually reminds us that God is not contained within our particular church, and as we engage with our sisters and brothers of other denominations, we are also strengthened in knowing that we are connected to a wider community of support in the larger body of Christ as we strive to live out the Gospel in our daily lives.
And finally -- I bet you thought I was never going to get to the third question -- how does who you consider to be included in the body of Christ change how you relate to them?
For me, I know there are people with whom I would never be friends or really have much to do with if it weren't for our shared Christian commitment. If I think of someone as being a part of the body of Christ, it makes me think twice before simply dismissing them or not listening carefully to what they have to say, even if we don't always agree. A common identity as Christians in the body of Christ may at times bind people together when nothing else will.
This metaphor also gives us a powerful theological basis for reaching across differences and building community, in some of the ways that I discussed earlier. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it in terms of "building the beloved community" -- that is precisely the type of community we should be about building as the body of Christ.
Above all, considering someone as included in the body of Christ gives us a powerful sense of solidarity with them. Paul puts it beautifully in 1 Corinthians: "If one members suffers, all suffer together with it, if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Corin. 12:26). We are one body in Christ with our brothers and sisters who are fleeing genocide in the Sudan. We are one body in Christ with our brothers and sisters who are entangled in the war in Iraq (on either side of the conflict). We are one body in Christ with our brothers and sisters who are rebuilding after the devastating effects of Katrina in on the Gulf Coast. When any member of the body of Christ suffers anywhere in the world, it affects us all.
But our solidarity does not end with the Christian community. In our baptismal covenant, we promise to "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves." We are called to be in solidarity with ALL people, not just Christians. Though we may feel a special connection and solidarity with our fellow Christians throughout the world, may we also be open to finding the presence of Christ even outside of our fold, in places where we least expect it.
In the name of the One who comes to bring good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind, to free the oppressed, and to bind us all together in the One Body, Amen.
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