Members of the Body
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
January 25, 2004
Nehemiah 8:1-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
I. INTRODUCTION
If you’ve been watching TV at all lately you’ll notice that there is an abundance of commercials for health clubs on right now. They’re always full of precisely the people who do not seem to need to go to the health clubs: lithe and muscular, athletic, bronzed gods and goddesses—paragons of physical perfection. So if we’re supposed to identify with these people—it’s not happening.
But the advertisers are smart: these people are on TV because we do not identify with them, but seek rather to be like them. And there’s something else that the advertisers know: it’s January, and we were particularly bad to our bodies in December. They all know that we’re looking at these nubile forms on our screens and that we are taking an inventory of our own bodies’ fitness and often finding them lacking. They are taking our envy (and perhaps our guilt) and using that to convince us to take care of our bodies (at a nominal fee, of course).
II. TEXT
Our scripture lesson for today also concerns the health of the body. Perhaps not as literally as in the way that a Bally’s ad would have it, but the health of the body nonetheless.
It is the health of the body that Paul is concerned with. He is responding to the controversies swarming around the community in Corinth. Listen to some of the words he uses to open his epistle to them:
1Cor. 1:10-13 ¶ Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Paul is attempting to bring a community back together that has been struggling with differing ideas of Christian living. Some have claimed a different authority from different teachers: Paul, Apollos, Cephas (that is, Peter). Paul is reminding them of their essential unity—they are not Paul’s or Peter’s but Christ’s. They are one body. And to that end he uses the image of the Body of Christ, which has not been rent into pieces, but was raised, whole and perfect.
III. DIVERSITY IN THE BODY
Now Paul is also trying to address the inadequacy some feel about their inability to perform certain spiritual gifts. In the early church, as it still is in the more charismatic, Pentecostal churches, ‘spiritual gifts’ such as tongues were more common and more expected. But just as today, such gifts are not everyone’s. It is clear from his letter that not everyone is of this opinion. In fact, those who do not possess those gifts are feeling insecure about it.
I was once approached at a family function by a relative who was attending a new church. Having been raised Catholic, he wanted to know about The United Methodist Church. His first question to me was “Do you have spiritual gifts?” When I explained about the variety of spiritual gifts available to the church, he looked disappointed. When it was clear that I didn’t expect speaking in tongues or other charismatic experiences he made a face. It’s a face I have seen before from all to many different kinds of faces: that’s not Christian.
It saddened me, too. Just because such charismatic gifts are not a part of my personal experience does not mean that they are not valid, nor does it mean there is something wrong with the Christianity of those who experience them. I would have liked to have been afforded the same courtesy by my relative.
Paul tells us that the body of Christ is made up of all different kinds of members. Those with gifts of tongues and those without. Those who prophesy and those who teach. Those who preach and those who serve. He is trying to reassure this congregation that their diversity is not only natural, but part of the God-ordered way of things. God created the body of Christ the way he created our bodies, full of different members, diverse in appearance, diverse in ability, diverse in function.
IV. DIVERSITY IN GIFTS—STEWARDSHIP
Now, perhaps that’s the easier part to understand. We have been hearing the lesson all our lives about the inclusiveness of the church, about its diversity (or at least, we ought to have been). But perhaps the more difficult question is what do we do with this information? Now that we know who makes up the body of Christ, the question presents itself: what do the members do?
We are entering a month-long stewardship campaign here in our community. To many of you, that makes about as much sense in a campus ministry as a building fund does: college students don’t have any money—why waste your and my time talking about stewardship? Well, that is if you understand stewardship narrowly, as about cash. But stewardship means ‘taking care of’—taking responsibility for. [Anyone who has seen the third Lord of the Rings film knows this: the Steward of Gondor takes care of the throne until the day the King returns.] In our tradition we understand such stewardship in four ways: giving of one’s prayers, presence, gifts, and service.
A. Service
Service we understand as basically what it is: serving. Now, in our context that can have a number of meanings: reading Scripture; leading the liturgy; taking turns as a greeter when people come into worship; helping to set up for worship or for the fellowship hour; helping to clean up afterward; tabling in Mary Graydon or on the quad; picking up snacks for the movie night; participating in feed the quad; going on an alternative spring break trip; organizing a discussion or an event. The list goes on.
B. Gifts
Gifts are one of the ways of stewardship, but are varied in themselves. Most people, including church finance committee members have always understood this as money, but it is not necessarily so. Some have talents in drawing and lend their artistic talents to artwork for bulletin covers and other materials. Some have talents in craft—like Kate Boustead, who made the beautiful paraments that grace our sanctuary every Sunday, or like those who will one day create sanctuary banners to add some more color to the chancel. Some have gifts of music and they sing in the choir or play with the Fellowship of Sound. Others have gifts of administration and they plan events and coordinate outings. And others have gifts of money, financial resources that they contribute to the community to support our programs and costs.
C. Presence
Then there’s presence. Showing up. Coming to worship. Some might think that overly easy or overly obvious, but as Woody Allen observed “99% of life is showing up.” It’s being there. It’s one thing to say you belong to something, it’s another to show up. It’s one thing to have the resume that gets you a job interview. It’s another thing to show up at the interview—that’s what matters.
In the same way, coming to and remaining involved with the worshipping community not only creates a greater feeling of community and of vitality, but is a sign of the health of the body—a sign of the life-blood of the body coursing through it.
D. Prayers
I saved prayers for last. Not because it is the least important, but because it is the most. Those things we pray for are the things that are most important to us. Remembering the community in your prayer life is not only good for the community’s sake, but also for helping you to remain grounded, centered in the community, and to maintain a connection to the community, even when you cannot be present or when you feel you have nothing else to offer. Our little community here at the American University is always in need of your prayers, as is the greater church universal. People who study yoga know of the value of centering oneself for bodily health—prayer is how we center ourselves for the health of the Body of Christ.
V. CONCLUSION
When Paul is talking about members of the body of Christ in terms of members of a human body, it is not by accident. For not only is each one different in appearance, but each one is different in function—and not only function, but competence at a function. People can walk on their hands if they try hard enough, but walking on your feet is really so much easier. Irish painter Christy Brown made a career of painting with his left foot, but most of us are better at that when we use our hands. And try as it might, an eye will never hear, nor an ear see. But neither should an eye lament that it cannot hear, or an ear that it cannot see—each has gifts enough that it brings to the body.
The point of this is that our diversity is a blessing not only in and of itself, but in the variety of gifts that we bring. As Paul says,
“And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?”
Not all of us are good at reading publicly—though most with a little training will do well. Not all of us have administrative gifts, or have money, or lots of time on our hands. Not all of us like to sing or play music. But together, all of us have the gifts to give that creates and maintains a whole community.
God has created for his people a Church in which all can not only feel a part, but all can take part. A church in which all have gifts to share, all have a role to play.
God is particularly keen, it seems to me, of bodies. He created us bodies out of the dust of the earth and breathed life into our flesh. In the fullness of time, he sent his Son, to be come incarnate, embodied in our midst, and raised that body to new and everlasting life in the Resurrection. And through the Spirit he gave to us the Church—the Body of Christ. And he wants our body to be no less healthy than the Bally’s folks do.
The Church is our body no less than our own individual ones. A body we are called to care for, a body we are called to love and to cherish. A body in which each member has respect and dignity. Each member has a role to play, each has something to contribute. A body that breathes one breath, one Spirit together. A body we are called to keep in shape.
