The Body of Christ: Together – Sermon for January 23, 2022

For today’s sermon, I’m continuing a three-week sermon mini-series on Paul’s image of the Church as the Body of Christ. If you missed last week’s message (part one in this series), you can read/watch it here.

In Christ’s body, we are joined together. Every part of the body is important, and together, we are called to join in Jesus’ mission of liberation, healing, and proclamation in the world. Today’s readings are 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 and Luke 4:14-21. I found particularly helpful Lee Barrett’s commentary for this week on the 1 Corinthians passage in Feasting on the Word, Year C.

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As we prepare for our annual meeting next Sunday and our 150th anniversary festivities, we’re looking at this image Paul uses in 1 Corinthians of the church as the Body of Christ.

Last week, we read the first part of chapter 12, where Paul talks about the Holy Spirit giving each of us spiritual gifts, everything we need to do the mission to which we are called. Our gifts are different, but they come from the same Spirit.

Paul continues by explaining that we are the Body of Christ together, and I love this chapter, because Paul is really committed to this metaphor, talking about the eyes and ears of the body of Christ. I think if he’d kept going he could have gotten to the little toe of the body. What’s your role in this church? I’m the spleen of the body of Christ. (Wouldn’t that be a great t-shirt?)

But it’s a great image, right? Because it shows that every part of the body is important and unique. If the whole body were an eye, the hearing would be missing. If all we had were ears, the smell would be missing. But God has arranged all the members in the body together, to be church together.

We’re all connected. None of us can do this on our own. We need each other. Paul says, “If one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” We’re called as a community to support each other, to care for each other.

Maybe the best example I can think of is funerals. When a spouse or a family are grieving, the community comes alongside them. People show up with casseroles. We sing together at the funeral service, with others carrying the tune when you can’t. We eat together. We carry each other through grief and loss.

Of course, we fall short of that calling. It’s a sad reality that some people are better known than others, and more people show up for their funerals. But the idea is there, the care is there, even when it’s fewer people representing the community.

Sometimes this language of members of the body trips us up, and we start thinking the church is some kind of a club, where you pay dues and you get the privilege of getting the newsletter and renting out the clubhouse. That’s the world’s model of membership, and it always leads to exclusion and hierarchy.

The church, Paul says, is different. The church is a body, something more organic. Jesus is at the head, but all the rest of us are at the same level. We are all uniquely gifted, as we talked about last week, and we are all indispensable to the body of Christ. If we are truly church together, if we are truly the Body of Christ, each body part is necessary, from the little toe-nail to the earlobe.

All are valued – this is not American capitalism’s model where the CEO is paid 351 times more than the average worker. (source) This is not the Roman army where the lowly soldiers are at the bottom of the ladder and their only duty is to obey and support the emperor and their commanding officers. This is not even a sports team where everyone’s needed, but if you get hurt or have a couple bad games you get cut from the team and replaced.

No one gets to be put up on a pedestal, exalted over everyone else, but also, no one gets cut from the team. Membership in Christ’s body means you have something to contribute to Christ’s work. You don’t get too old to be part of the church, or too poor, or too busy.

The particular tasks you’re doing might change—and probably ought to change every so often—but your gifts are still needed. Your presence, your prayers, your participation in the community of faith is essential.

Obviously, that’s easier said than done. It’s easy, I think, for the church to make mistakes on both sides. We live in a culture that’s often obsessed with celebrities, sometimes because they’re obviously gifted, sometimes just because they’re celebrities. And it’s easy for that to carry over to the church. You can probably name some Christian celebrities, maybe televangelists, or singers. I won’t pick on any here, but I could definitely come up with a list.

And even in smaller churches in small towns (maybe especially in small towns), it’s so easy for the pastor to get put up on a pedestal as the model of faith. And it’s tempting, right? I liked that when I moved here, I got a front-page article in the Recorder – I saved a few copies!

But in Paul’s vision of the church, the pastor is not more important than anyone else in the body. The council president and the treasurer and the organist and the secretary and the youth director and the committee members and the biggest givers are not more important or valuable than anyone else.

But the Holy Spirit gives different people different gifts so we can serve different roles. Being a pastor means being called by the congregation to a particular role, ordained to a uniquely public form of ministry. Pastors are more visible, perhaps than others, but when we make them more valuable, we’re missing the message of what Paul’s saying.

Companies like Netflix use the term “membership” too, but church is not a business or public utility with a group of subscribers. Worship isn’t just content we consume. The life of faith is a journey we’re all on together. Lutheran theology calls it the “priesthood of all believers” – we all have access to God, not just the professional religious folks.

It’s also easy to make the opposite error, right? Paul says, “The members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” If we are the Body of Christ, we can’t write off people for not giving enough, or not being on a committee, or for being too young or too old or not good enough or committed enough to do whatever.

If I had the people in worship stand up and arrange ourselves in a row from the least important to the most important to the church, first of all, I hope you’d rebel and not do it, but I think Jesus would be at the back of the line saying turn around — the ones back at this end of the line are indispensable. As Jesus says elsewhere, “The first will be last and the last will be first.”

We don’t get to assign value to people. Jesus already did that. Jesus looked at each person here/watching, each person in this community, and declared that they are worth dying for. Jesus looks at each person in the community of faith, each person gathered by the Holy Spirit, each person joined together in baptism, each person fed at the Lord’s Table, and says, “I have a job for you.”

You have been gifted with spiritual gifts, you have been equipped by the Holy Spirit, and you are called to join in the work God is doing in this world, to join in Jesus’ mission.

And what is that mission? Well, today’s Gospel from Luke 4 is a great place to start. This is the first sermon we know of Jesus preaching, and he says, “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.”

Jesus has come to bring liberation, to proclaim good news. There is a better option than the ways of this broken world. God is at work setting prisoners free, giving sight to the blind, liberating the oppressed, proclaiming the kingdom of God. That liberation is for you—you have been set free. Forgiven. And called to join in this work.

Perhaps less literally in some ways than Jesus himself did—I can’t heal blind people—but we can work for justice. We can work for people to have healthcare, to be free from hunger and poverty, to be released from situations of captivity. We can stand up for the oppressed, for the people our world and our culture ignore.

That’s work we are all called to be involved in, that none of us can do on our own. Not everyone gets excited about every cause, every aspect of the mission. Not everyone has the gifts or skills or ability to work on any one part of Jesus’ mission. That’s the beauty of being church together.

As Paul says, do all possess gifts of healing? Are all teachers? No! But each of us is called to use the gifts we have to do God’s work, for the common good, as we talked about last week.

No matter what your physical ability, you can pray. No matter what your financial resources are, you can give something to support God’s work, even if it’s a penny.

Remember the story last week of Jesus turning water into wine? God can use whatever we have to offer. In God’s hands, a penny is as valuable as a million-dollar-check, because God provides whatever is needed. It takes every member for the body of the church to be whole.

We have diverse gifts, diverse abilities, backgrounds, and vocations, and that diversity is a gift from God. Where but church do you get toddlers and great-grand-parents in the same room who aren’t related to each other? That diversity is needed for Jesus’ mission. We have that diversity within our own congregation, and that’s also why we are part of a wider church denomination.

Next week I have a video to show you about how an ELCA World Hunger grant is providing chickens for people in Appalachia so they get good protein in their diet. The church is working together to help neighbors you and I will never meet.

This week we had Father Kevin, a Roman Catholic priest with us in confirmation to share about what it means to be part of the Roman Catholic tradition, and guess what? They worship Jesus too! The Body of Christ is much more diverse, much more gifted than any one of us, than even our entire congregation. And it’s all joined together by the Holy Spirit.

“In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.” And you are part of that one body.

Let’s pray.
Lord God, you have gathered us together in to the body of Christ, and you have called us to join in your work. Help us, as we seek to live out your mission, to value each other’s contributions. Help us to live with humility, putting others before ourselves, caring for and supporting each other. Thank you for being with each of us on this journey of faith we are on as your people. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen

Here’s part 3 of this series – The Body of Christ: Loving.