Body of Christ: January 24, 2016

Year C, Epiphany 3                                                             

1 Corinthians 12:12-31                                                                      

            In my junior year of college, I studied in Italy.  I was living in Florence, but had several opportunities to visit Rome.  I was able to attend one of the Wednesday papal audiences.  It was in a huge auditorium with thousands of people from all around the world.  The pope, John Paul the II, spoke in several languages and the Bible was read in several languages. The energy in the room was powerful.  Part of it was the presence of the pope, but part of it was all the Roman Catholics in one room singing, praying, and rejoicing.  It was one of the most profound religious experiences of my life and one of the reasons that it was so hard for me to leave the Roman Catholic Church.  What I loved about the Church was that I was part of some bigger and I knew that almost wherever I went in the world, I would be able to find a Catholic Church to worship in.

            Then I took my first class at seminary in Episcopal history.  That was where I learned that we are part of something bigger…this thing called the Anglican Communion.  We are part of a communion that covers  165 countries and we have our roots in the Church of England.  What appealed to me about the Anglican Communion was that there was a relationship, but not the same kind of hierarchy as in the Catholic Church.  Each country celebrates their faith in a different way, yet we share the same history and very similar liturgies.  This is an overly simplistic depiction of the Anglican Communion and I will talk about it in greater detail in our adult forum next Sunday, but this covers the basics.

            For this reason and others, I, like others, found it very distressing when the primates of the Anglican Communion reprimanded the Episcopal Church last week.   Many news outlets have reported it as: “The Episcopal Church gets kicked out of the Anglican Communion for approving same sex marriage.”  This is not accurate, but we have been reprimanded and this is not the first time. We were called out in 2003 after consecrating an openly gay bishop and we never resolved that difference of opinion.  It’s not that the Episcopal Church didn’t care that there was now tension in the Anglican Communion, we just were not willing to make a compromise.  We believed, and still believe, that while we have this common heritage and this relationship, we also have differences.  I would contend that those differences are not a bad thing.  If handled well, they can make us stronger.

            When Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians, there were not multiple Christian denominations.    There was a group of people who had been inspired by Jesus and his followers.  They believed that Jesus was the Messiah and that he had died for them and was resurrected.   Yet this does not mean that they did not have divisions.  Their divisions were not between large groups, but individuals.  Their divisions were often based on things like class and ethnicity. 

Previously, people who worshipped together shared more than merely a way of worshipping.  They were in the same social class, the same ethnicity, sometimes the same family.  When Jesus came along, he opened God’s love to everyone.  As Paul said, “It was in one Spirit that all of us, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, were baptized into one body.  All of us have been given to drink of the one Spirit.”  The Christian Church became a montage of people who would never normally spend time together…but there they were in the same room, sharing a meal together and drinking out of one common cup.  What Paul was saying was revolutionary.  Today that would be like putting together senators and homeless people with mental challenges—tea party members and Bernie Sander’s campaigners--vegans and strict adherents to the paleo diet.  That would be an interesting church! 

            Paul even went further.  He wasn’t simply telling people to look past their differences, but to honor those differences.  Now we consider diversity to be something that we somehow find a way to live with.  Paul was saying that this diversity was God ordained.   This glorious montage was God’s gift to the church.  I am not just talking about diversity in terms of ethnicity (although that is a very important topic) but diversity in all things--how we think, how we live, even what our gifts are.  One of the things that the Corinthians were arguing about was what gifts were most important.  Paul was saying that all the gifts were important, that we needed all of these people with these different gifts to work together.  Furthermore, we needed to honor each of these gifts because they were gifts given by God.

            Paul used the metaphor of the body.  This was not a new metaphor.  Previously the metaphor had been used to describe the hierarchy of a community.  Even today, we use that same language.  The leader of a group is the head of the group.  Paul was not using the body to describe how the community was organized, but how the community worked together…how they were in relationship with one another.   The toe never seems like a big deal until you break a toe….and then you remember that toe and how important it is with every step you take.    Recently I had a problem with one of my teeth, which messed up my jaw and then gave me a two week headache, which made it a lot more tempting to procrastinate writing my sermon.   Small parts of the body can make a really big difference in how we live our life.  It is the same with a community of people.  When one member of the community is upset, it can affect the whole group.   When one person is ostracized, we lose part of what make us beautiful.

            One of the things our new Presiding Bishop likes to talk about is the Jesus Movement.  He tells us that we (the Episcopal Church) need to be part of the Jesus movement.    That transcends politics.  It transcends denomination.  It transcends everything.  But here is the thing about the Jesus movement…there is movement involved. And we all know that for a body to move, it has to have all its parts working together.  When the Anglican primates sanctioned the Episcopal Church, they also said something that the news’ outlets are not reporting.  They said that we will continue to walk together…side by side.  There will be times when we find that we are too different to walk as one, but as long as we are a part of the Jesus movement, then we must find a way to walk side by side. 

            Some of you might be wondering how this relates to us at St. John’s.  We are not as diverse as we could be, but I guarantee that  if you were to poll the people here in this church, you would find that we all have different back grounds and a wide variety of opinions.  Even when it comes to what is happening in the church, there will be some things we might never agree on.  That is not a challenge to overcome. It is a gift that has been given to us.  It is an opportunity to model for the rest of the world how different people can still find ways to worship  together, to have fellowship together, to communicate. There will be moments when we do not always feel as though we are moving as one body.  The knee might be mad at the thigh because it’s not doing enough, the ear might be irritated by the mouth it just won’t stop talking.   Yet we cannot give up.  Because on Sunday morning, we all come to this altar table and we share the same bread and drink from the same cup.   We pray that we can find a way to love one another not despite of our differences but because we are different.   

Those 3 Words: January 10th, 2015

Year C, Epiphany 1              
Isaiah 43:1-7                                                                                      

In 2002, the newly formed Department of Homeland Security created a tool that they hoped would warn people of potential terrorist threats.  It was color coded with 5 levels.  At the top was red, which meant there was a severe risk.  At the bottom was green which indicated a low risk.  I remember seeing these color coded messages mostly in airports, occasionally on highway signs and really any form of public transportation.    In the 9 years it was in use, I don’t ever remember seeing anything below orange, which means there was always a high risk.  Every time I saw it, I felt as though I had walked into some dystopian world.  I knew orange was bad, but that was all I knew. 

One of the primary things this color coded reminder of potential doom accomplished was making people more anxious and afraid.  It seemed I was not the only one who was dubious of the system.   It was highly criticized until 2011, when they created a new system based on bulletins.  (I only know that because I looked it up when thinking about this sermon. I didn’t even know the color coded system was no longer in use.)  One of the criticisms was that the color coded warnings didn’t provide any helpful information…it just put people on edge.

            While we no longer have that color coded system, that culture of fear is still present, perhaps even more so.  There is good reason for this.  We can find reasons to be afraid every time we watch or read the news.  Fear is everywhere.  While it seems more acute now than it has at any other point in my lifetime, I know this culture of fear is not a new thing.  Even back when the Book of Isaiah was written (about 2500 years ago), fear was a very real part of life.  The people of Israel lived in constant fear.  Our reading for today comes after the Babylonian exile.  The entire Israelite community had been exiled in a foreign land for over 50 years. The prophets had warned them that this would happen if they did not change their ways.  But they preferred to ignore those warnings as they were not convenient for their lifestyle.  But then the worst happened.  Their homes and temple were destroyed.  Their lives were uprooted.  They were driven from their home and became slaves for their enemy. When Isaiah spoke the words that we heard in the first reading, that memory was fresh in their minds. They were still picking up the pieces of their pillaged land. They knew fear, much better than most of us do. 

            So I wonder how they heard these words from Isaiah: “But now, thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name and you are mine.”  Were those words a comfort or were they easily dismissed because they were so hard to accept?  Keep in mind that this is Isaiah speaking.  This was the same prophet who had warned them all about the horrible things that were going to happen….the horrible things that happened.  He had been with them through the difficult times.  He had seen them turn away from God and had experienced the exile with them. He was never one to sugar coat things.  While they might not have always enjoyed what he said, they knew that he could be trusted.   Perhaps those words were a comfort.

            In this text Isaiah is speaking for God. In other parts of the Book of Isaiah, he relays what God has said, he even talks to God.  But here, he speaks for God.  There is an intimacy in this.  It is as though God knew that they would need to hear from him…they would need a new relationship with God if they were ever going to find peace. 

            It is not just the words, “Do not fear” that provided comfort, it was the motive behind those words.  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.”  This was the assurance that grace had triumphed.  While there had been some troubling times and distance between God and his people, grace and love had the final word.  God had the power to redeem them and he did.  That is why there was no reason to fear.  It was not because there was no longer a threat.  The people of Israel were still very vulnerable to attack; but they knew that God had claimed them as his own.  He had renewed a promise that he made so very long ago. 

            Some variation of the words, “Do not fear” occur in the Bible hundreds of time, but God said something else in this reading that was unique.  He said, “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”  This is the only place in the Bible where God directly says to his people, “I love you.”  There are other places where God indicates his love.  But this is the place where he says, “I love you.”  And we all know how precious those words are.  It reminds me of those stories where one person says “I love you” for the first time and the other person responds, “And I love being with you.”  The words “I love you” are irreplaceable and these are the words that God shared with his people then and now. That is why we read the Bible, so we can hear these words whenever we want.

Hearing those words from God and believing them is an important thing.  This is not some kind of hallmark emotion that God throws out to people to keep them happy.  If you read the chapter right before this one, you will hear God refer to the people as deaf and blind.  It’s pretty harsh.  But in the end, God’s grace always overcomes the judgment. That doesn’t mean we can skip judgement, but we can rest assured that God’s judgment has a purpose and as long as we do all we can to love God in return and love God’s people, God’s grace will triumph. 

            Our world is a complicated place right now, but it’s nothing that God has not handled before.  The important thing is that we, the children of God, cannot let fear control us in our day to day lives.  There is only one power that truly matters…God’s power, the power to love a people who are hard to love.  The power of an omnipotent God to tell his undisciplined children that he loves them.  So instead of letting fear control us, perhaps we can channel the emotion behind that fear into something sacred and holy.  Let’s look at the worst case scenario…the world will end tomorrow.  If that is the case, then we better get busy today. Today is the time to show our love for one another.  Tell people you love them.  Tell people you don’t normally tell.  Don’t stop there.  Because even though God is all powerful, he still likes to hear from us.  Tell God in prayer, in song, in art, in mumbling….whatever, that him that you love him.  Then listen and wait.  I can guarantee that he is saying it to you as well.  “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”