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Last week we began a series called The Social Network. I
said last week, that we are talking about a social network that has little to
nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest, but everything to do with
the person to your left, your right, in front of and behind you.
Last week I shared with you a quote from John Wesley that
served as an inspiration for this series. Wesley wrote, “Solitary religion is not to be found [in the gospel of Christ]. ‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no
more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ
knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” In other
words, the Christian faith is not something we can do on our own. Living as a
follower of Jesus Christ has a distinctively social aspect. I also gave you
Wesley’s definition of what he means that Christianity is a social religion. He
said that our faith cannot survive without living with and sharing with other
believers. In other words, our faith is dependent on community.
So during this series we are talking about the importance of
community. And this is actually something we talk about all the time, probably
without thinking too much about it. We often talk about being a community of
faith, but what does that mean? We talk about being the body of Christ, but,
again, what does that mean? That’s going to be our focus today. What it means
to be the body of Christ and what it looks like to live as the body of Christ.
In our scripture this morning Paul talks about the body of Christ. Paul
uses this metaphor again and again in his letters. He talks over and over about
the church as the body of Christ. We read an example of that last week. In
Ephesians 4:12 Paul we are all given gifts and have a responsibility to use
those gifts to do the work of God to “build up the church, the body of Christ.”
It is a metaphor we see throughout the New Testament. As the church, we make up
the body of Christ. It is more than a metaphor, we are the embodiment of Christ.
We are to be the eyes and ears, the hands and feet, the voice and the heart of
Jesus for the world.
Through our baptism, we are initiated into the body of Christ. We become
members of that body. But it’s more than membership in an organization. I read
an article this week that talked about the church as an organism versus an
organization. That’s the way we should think about the church. As a living
organism. One point that article made is that an organization has many heads,
the church has only one head. Ephesians and Colossians both talk of the church
as the body of Christ and Christ as the head of that body.
So instead of members of an organization, we are members of the body,
just as our hands and feet, arms and legs are members of our body. And just as
we use our members – our arms, legs, hands, and feet – to move and work in the
world around us, Jesus uses us the members of the body of Christ to work in the
world.
There are three aspects of the body of Christ present in our scripture
that I want to focus on as we think about what it means to be the body of
Christ and how we live as the body of Christ.
The first of these goes back to the quote from John Wesley I read
earlier. “Solitary religion is not to be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
If we are a part of a body, the we are dependent upon one another. Paul speaks
of the church in terms of a human body. The many parts make up one body – and
so it is with the body of Christ. When we talk about the human body, we know
that no part of the body can survive apart from the body.
When I was growing up I remember seeing a Michael Caine movie called
“The Hand”. Has anyone else seen it? In that movie, Michael Caine’s character
had his hand cut off in a car accident. Actually, I think he was sticking it
out the window in a fit of road rage and it was knocked off. Well, for the rest
of the movie, that malevolent hand tormented Michael and the rest of the cast.
In reality, if you were to lose a hand or a finger, it can be
reattached, but doctors say that it must be within 6-12 hours because the
tissue begins to deteriorate quickly. And, of course, the thing would not
reanimate on its own.
The same is true for us as members of the body of Christ. We cannot
survive apart from the body. Our faith, our growing closer to Christ is
dependent on being with other Christians. It is dependent on being connected.
Jesus uses a similar metaphor to the body in John chapter 15. There he
says that he, Jesus, is the vine and we are the branches. In other words, we
are all connected through Jesus. He goes on to say in verse 4, “For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the
vine, and you cannot be fuitful unless you remain in me.”
I know what some of you are thinking. “I can remain connected to Jesus
without being connected to the church!” “I can feel just as close to God on the
golf course or in a tree stand or running or hiking or”, you name it. I would
argue that you cannot stay connected to Jesus without the church. On our own,
we start to depend on ourselves instead of others. And that leads to depending
on ourselves instead of depending on God.
And, as I mentioned last week, we are created for relationship. A
defining characteristic of God is the trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That is community. It is relationship. This is the image in which we are
created. We are created to be in community. We are created to be in
relationship with God and with one another.
The second thing we learn about being the body of Christ is that in the
body, we are all connected to one another and through that connection, no one
part is more or less important than another.
One reason Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth was because
of arguments among the members about who was more important. In verse 13 Paul
attempts to settle this argument. “Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves,
some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and
we all share the same Spirit.”
In other words, in the body of Christ, we are all equal. It’s odd that
in the 2000 years since this letter was written, these same issues are still
lingering. We still deal with issues of race, gender, social status, economic
status. All of these are things that divide us, things that in some cases turn
us against one another. All of them are things that Paul tells us don’t matter
one bit in the body of Christ. In Ephesians 3:6 Paul makes this same argument.
He wrote, “And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe
the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are
part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they
belong to Christ Jesus.”
In the body, no
part is more important than the other. And something else to remember. It’s not
up to the parts of the body to determine who is and who is not a part of the
body. Paul reminds us that some parts that seem the weakest and least important
are actually the most necessary. It’s not our job to decide who is on or out of
the body. It’s our job to work as one body. To be one body. Paul says we should
be in harmony so that all of the parts care for one another.
Which leads to
the third thing we learn about the body of Christ. That when one part suffers,
the entire body suffers. When one part rejoices, the entire body rejoices. Our
passage ends with an emphatic statement – “You are the body of Christ.” James Boyce says that in light of this
passage that verse is more command than statement. He says, “we are meant to
hear that this calls us not to some assertion of privileged status, but rather
to the recognition of our responsibility for mutual care for the members of
this body.” We are meant not to simply have sympathy for those around us, but
to have empathy. Do you know the difference?
I’m going to
show my geekiness. Is anyone a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Do you
remember counselor Deanna Troi? Troi was an empathy. Her mother came from a
planet of mind-readers, but her father was human. So instead of reading
someone’s mind, she could feel their emotions. She was an empath. She literally
felt what they felt. That is what it means to have empathy.
If we have
sympathy, we feel sorry for someone. If we have empathy, we feel their
suffering. When is the last time you had empathy? True empathy? When is the
last time you suffered with someone. I saw it put like this. When I have an ear
infection, the rest of my body suffers. But when Ms Eloise is widowed I don’t
really suffer, when frank gets a cancer diagnosis, when the Smyth’s baby is
still-born – occasionally I feel a pang of something. Maybe I breakdown and cry
for a few minutes. But then I go about my life. I certainly don’t suffer with
the suffering.
The best way to
do that is going back to the second point. We are all connected to one another.
But we tend to build barriers between us that keep us from truly feeling what
the other is feeling. In the body of Christ we have to let those barriers go.
We have to open ourselves to God and to one another.
To do that, you
have to make your faith about more than 11am-12pm every Sunday. You have to
make church about more than sitting in these chairs once a week surrounded by
acquaintances and then going back to real life when the service is over.
To truly be the
body of Christ, you have to know the rest of the body. You have to spend time
together. You have to share with one another. In order to truly be the body of
Christ, you have to make Christ the head of you. What does the head of a body
do? It directs the body. Tells it where to go and what to do. It senses pain
and joy from the different parts and lets the rest of the body feel that as
well. To connect ot one another we have to first connect to Christ.
But then we have
to connect to one another!
Amen.
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