St Luke’s, OT 3, January 24th 2010 – Who We
Are
“Now you are the body of Christ.”
How many times have we heard that phrase? Hundreds? Thousands? We hear Paul’s words and I suspect that because they are so well known and oft repeated we tend to take them for granted and not think much about them. I want to rectify that just slightly this morning.
What we see in these verses is evidence of transition. The earliest Christians were convinced that he would be coming back any moment, so for them the primary task was to wait expectantly and faithfully for Christ’s return. After a while it seemed maybe this might take a bit longer so some infrastructure was going to be needed, and we begin to see the church emerging. Then some, Paul included, realised that this could be a very long wait, and rather than just waiting, the church’s task was to actually carry on the work of Jesus.
“For 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.”
Like all metaphors, Paul’s body image won’t stand up if you take it too far, but it will last longer than most. As we know, the church at Corinth was a bit of a mess, with lots of arguments and tension, and everyone wanting to take what they considered to be the plum jobs, and Paul begins this section of his letter with the words we heard last week, ‘everybody has been given a gift, and no matter what it is, it they all come from the same Spirit’ – everyone’s task is a godly and god-given task, but everyone’s task is different.
“Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 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.”
It’s a great illustration because it makes so much sense. Not all of us can be preachers, and not all of us can arrange flowers, or play the organ, or read the lessons, but all of us are needed to make the whole thing work. But more than that, it’s a great illustration because it also picks up one of the key messages that Paul is beginning to offer at this time, and that we all need to continue to hear, which is not only do we all have our own functions like a body, but we are all called to function as a body; the body of Christ.
The early
Christians had moved from waiting, to doing, to being – waiting for Jesus to
return, doing what he himself had done, being Christ in their own time and
place. Centuries later Teresa of Avila would describe as; “Christ has no body on earth but ours, no
hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes through which the
compassion of Christ looks out upon the world. Ours are the feet with which he
goes about doing good. Ours are the hands with which
he blesses his people now.”
Christ has no body on earth but ours. Let’s really think about that for
a moment. We are the body of Christ. Look around. Those people sitting next to
you, they are Christ’s body, those ones up front, they are Christ’s body, you,
you are Christ’s body. Scary eh?
In a fractured world with a largely fractured Church, we really need to
think about what beign the body of Christ means. Paul
himself offers a few thoughts, including recognising that your gift is as valuable
and essential as my own, but I guess if we’re looking for some instructions,
maybe a job description of sorts for the body, its our gospel reading that may
come to mind.
“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 favour."
Bringing good news, proclaiming release and
sight, setting free, and proclaiming the Lord’s favour;
how does that sound for a job? But again, I have to ask, what does it mean? We
hear those words, just as we’ve heard them many times before, and in response
we do what? I think the answer is actually in the same reading. I believe what
we need to do is read these words, as Jesus did, and reinterpret them in our
own context, as Jesus did.
“Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing."
If you look up the passage in Isaiah that Jesus
supposedly reads here, what you’ll find is that it doesn’t exist, or at least,
not in this form. What you’ll find is two separate passages which this reading runs
together, and its entirely unclear whether this is because Luke or someone else
simply got it wrong when they wrote this story down, or Jesus did what no
church reader would ever dare to do and simply made up his reading.
Whatever the reason, what we’re left with is a
reinterpretation of Isaiah’s words and within that a fresh instantiation of the
text. That’s your word for the week, by the way, ‘instantiation’ – to provide
an instance of or evidence in support of something – instantiation.
Again, we need to hear and think about this carefully.
It’s what we find in our first reading from Nehemiah. The Hebrew Scriptures had
been lost and forgotten until their rediscovery during Nehemiah’s time, and
here we find the people gathering to hear them read and we’re told they
listened attentively from early morning until midday, and that the law of God
was read to them with interpretation. In the bits that the reading missed out
we hear the names of all those who stood beside Ezra while he read the law and
then essentially preached on what he had read – one of the missing verses says
“they helped the people to understand the law “.
This is all about bringing meaning to what the
people heard. It’s in essence what I’m trying to do up here, but – and this is
a very big BUT – it’s not something I do alone. As we hear these ancient words,
as we listen together to what I and others have to say about them, we find
ourselves collectively and individually encountering those words in our own
time and our own place and from within that encounter meaning begins to emerge.
And every time those words are encountered in new times and new places, those
differing contexts contribute to new meanings and understandings of what they
say and mean.
It’s like sampling in a hip hop track, if you’re
into such things. This is just to prove that I’m still young and down with the
kids! In hip hop music it’s common to take a short section of an older song – a
sample of it – and incorporate it into a new song, which in turn gives new life
and meaning to the old. That’s what’s happening in both Nehemiah and Luke.
People are gathering, listening, and interpreting what they’re hearing, and
they’re doing it together. Always together. That’s the
key to understanding what’s behind Paul’s body metaphor, we are in this
together, as a community, as a body.
I had a phone call the other day from someone
who wanted some help with growing her faith, but definitely did not want to
join a church. She listens to some programmes on
Radio Rhema and she chats on a couple of religious
websites, and she couldn’t see any reason whatsoever why she should have to
also join and get involved with a church. She just didn’t get it. She didn’t
get that being part of a church, gathering as we do this morning, isn’t about
keeping some old religious rule. This isn’t about just doing what the Bible
says, it’s about becoming what we say we are – the body of Christ – and it’s
about understanding that we do this not because we should, but because we must.
“If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there
are many members, yet one body.”
We need one another. This isn’t about following
the rules or doing our Christian duty, we need one another, because without
you, or me, our body isn’t complete. Who we are, how we work and live together,
is inextricably connected to our calling to engage in
God’s mission, to be Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and so on – to be the
body of Christ.
Ultimately I believe we make a big mistake if we
look at the words of Jesus in our gospel reading today without recognising the reality that surrounds them. In Nehemiah,
in the gospels, in Corinthians, throughout the scriptures we see again and
again God’s people gathering, listening, interpreting, together, and then – and
only then – responding. Everything we do, all our work in the community
comes as a response to the work we do together as a community. May God
make it truly so. Amen.