Being a "Member" in the Body of Christ by The Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith
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11 Sunday After Pentecost Proper 16, Year A
August 24, 2014
Jesus gathered around him a tight-knit circles of trusted disciples and with them in his travels he went far afield from his homeland. Last week we read in the Gospel of Matthew of his going north, out of the Galilee, and far from Judea, into the region of Tyre and Sidon: Canaanite, Phoenician territory, not Jewish — in what we now know as Lebanon. We know he went into the region of the Ten Cities, the Decapolis, and pagan Greek cities. And this morning, the setting of the Gospel is the region of Caesarea Philippi, another pagan city, this one dedicated to the Roman god Pan.
It was there, in the region of Caesarea Philippi, that the real question of who Jesus was finally came to a head. He asked them, “Who are people saying I am?” “Who do you say I am?” I imagine, as they travelled through these relatively foreign lands, with different cultures, and different major religions, they were peculiar, they stood out, by appearance working class Galileans, by their accent, and most of all, by their aura and message. And I imagine, their being in strange lands, they stuck close together, like mergansers on a lake, the rabbi-Messiah and disciples.
All three lessons this morning, in a sense, are about standing out and sticking close together.
The story of the Hebrews, that specific people, living among the Egyptians, as we read this morning, so clearly different — so much so that they posed a threat to Pharaoh, and he singled the whole class of them out for harsh work and oppression.
And think of the early Christians, scattered here and there across the Roman Empire. Even though they were drawn from all classes and races of people, they were set apart by their dress — that’s where we got these long robes we wear — their developing beliefs and worship, and their habits and customs — like considering one another brother and sister rather than Cappadocian or African, citizen or slave; considering their attachment to Christ Jesus and therefore to one another more important than race or language or clan or even, in some cases, family.
So it was that Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, reinforcing their sense of difference from the rest of the world and their close-stuckness in God and to one another,
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters (there’s that phrase), by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a (living) sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (into the new) by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what the will of God is--what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
He went on, to compare their closeness and what we might call today their interdependence, with an image of the body (the body and its care were important in Greco-Roman culture), which sure enough has very different parts, but all are tightly bound one to another, so that if any one part gets separated, it loses its function, its life.
“We differ according to the gifts of grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
“Yet, as the body has many members-parts, and not all the members-parts have the same function, so we, who are many,” he wrote to the Romans and also to the Corinthians, “we are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. “
To be a body, a corpus, in Christ, members one of another. Some thoughts.
One. Member-ship is integral to our faith: tied in, together. bound. (e.g., Hebrews in Egypt). What Baptism is all about and why it is so important: it changes the whole place of one in the world, and it forms a ligature, a sinew, grafting us into with Christ, and with each other. A congregation then, is more than a gathering of disparate people, rather a whole, corpus, body. Joined together we all say who Jesus is.
Whether we all rise, or we all stumble, we all are jointly tied together.
Two. every person is necessary, gifted, is part and has a part.
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
Our body’s goal: Together to grow up into him who is the head of the body as Paul wrote to the Colossians, again using the body-image, who is Christ. Connected to the head: Brain-body co-ordination. Connection. With leadership: every one of us is called to leadership. So much more than coming to church, or worshipping at Trinity, or making one’s communion. So much more than letting others — the clergy, or staff — run the church. This is you and you and I knit together with the very sinews of new life, each blessed with gifts to exercise in leading the body in its mission and life.
Three. The Body has work to do! to continue and expand the mission begun in Christ Jesus. We are here for the word. And the world. So each part must be working!
How are you working as a blessed member-part joined into the body in Christ and with one another?
Heart and spirit. Imagine the strength, the power, the health, the joy when all parts, bound and attached together, growing up into the head who is Christ, moves with the mind and compassion and generosity that comes in Christ Jesus!
Know that we are called to be joined into Christ, and in that call we are joined, connected in one with each other. That each of us is blessed with divine gifts in Christ, and that with those gifts every one of us is called to exercise leadership.
Much like the Hebrews living among the Egyptians in ancient days, just as Jesus and his band of disciples were strangers in the region of Caesarea Philippi, so we really do live in a world and culture where who we are and what we believe more and more is foreign to so many people.
In the midst of all that, we are called to be a special body cohering in Christ, each of us knit to the other, Pray for the body in Christ, this body of Christ, Trinity Church, members one of another. Get to know the other members of the body. With help if necessary, discern, know and cherish the gifts you are given in Christ. Take up your part. So then, gathered together in unity by the Holy Spirit, as we prayed this morning, knit together in a strange land, may we step out and serve those in need and invite yet others to become members, and work to bring the change of love into the world, all for the sake of God who in Jesus Christ gives such profound new life.