Members of the One Body of Christ
My first call as an ordained Deacon was to serve in ministry with and among people with disabilities, particularly people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. For 10 years I led inclusive worship services, bringing together people with and without disabilities, encouraging all who gathered to express their love for God and their love for each other through worship and fellowship. Over time, this gathering of people formed into a beautiful expression of the one body of Christ, a community of faith, where people mutually cared for the wellbeing of each other.
It was great fun to worship with these deeply faithful Christians who brought their whole unique selves into the worship space and who experienced worship with their whole bodies. It was lively worship! People laughed during worship! People sang – loudly! People danced in the aisles! People walked freely around the space! People prayed for each other! In this time of worship, we shared our lives together. We learned in concrete ways what it means to be members of the one body of Christ, each with different gifts to offer, each equally valued and esteemed by God and by the community and each totally necessary for the common good of the whole body.
In our time together, as we worshiped God together, we created sacred space around us; space where the Holy Spirit was present among us; drawing us together; filling us with love; giving us power and grace and courage to face the challenges of life in the world outside our time together in this safe space.
Our worship, of course, was centered on the Word of God; that is, scripture; God’s Word given for God’s people in this place and time. Every time we met, we would read a story from scripture about Jesus; and we would talk about the story and what it meant for our lives now. We talked about how the life Jesus gives us – our life together as members of the body of Christ – is very different from the life we experience when we are out in the world.
I would tell these dear folks that, as people who follow Jesus, we live in two worlds. We live in the world outside the walls of the place where we gather, a world where people can be mean and nasty to us because of who we are or who they think we are or because they think they are better than we are.
And we also live in the world inside the safety of the sanctuary, where we gather together as the body of Christ. Here we get a glimpse of the kin-dom of God on earth, the kin-dom where God’s love surrounds us and reigns over us and each of us is beloved by God, in whose image we are made.
In this kin-dom, God offers justice and equity and mercy for all people. In this kin-dom, we find shalom – the deep sense of peace, wholeness, wellness, completeness, rest. In this kin-dom, we are fully loved as the person God created us to be. In this kin-dom, we are free to love every single person around us, regardless of skin tone or ethnicity or gender identity or orientation or ability or age or poverty or wealth or immigration status or citizenship. For they too are God’s beloved people.
Jesus speaks of this kin-dom in the gospel reading today; it is for this kin-dom that Jesus has come to bear witness and reveal God’s glory.
Hear again the words from the prophet Isaiah, the words of scripture that Jesus reads to the people in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, as he begins his public ministry:
“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 set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus’ mandate is clear – he has come to bring good news and freedom and new vision and liberation and jubilation to all the world. He has come to unite all people in God’s reign of justice and peace and mercy.
Jesus welcomes everyone – and anyone – who is searching and longing for the hope of new life to come to him and follow him and enter into the kin-dom of God. Throughout the three short years of his public ministry, Jesus will preach and teach and feed and heal all kinds of people – men and women and children; servants and free people; Jewish and Gentile; local people and foreigners; tax collectors, sinners, religious authorities; even the Roman government officials and soldiers who are occupying and terrorizing his homeland. Jesus shows compassion and mercy to all people – to everyone and anyone – in need of his healing presence.
How did the people in the synagogue respond to Jesus’ prophetic words, you might ask? Not well. They become angry when Jesus reminds them that God had sent prophets to the people in other lands besides their own. It’s as if they cannot tolerate the thought that God loves other people – people whom they consider outsiders – who do not practice religion in the same way they do – as much as God loves them. They become so angry that they drive Jesus out of the town to a hill, where they planned to throw him off. (And these were his neighbors and friends!) The last line of this story in Luke 4 tells us that (Jesus) passed through the midst of them and went on his way. Clearly, Jesus had more work to do and he would not be stopped by some disgruntled neighbors. He left that place and continued teaching that the kin-dom of God has come near.
It is from this story that we get the (perhaps) familiar saying a prophet is not welcome in his own hometown (country).
We saw an example of a prophet speaking out publicly in our nation’s capitol this week, during the Service of Prayer for the Nation that was held at the National Cathedral on Tuesday. Perhaps you saw the video of the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde speaking truth to power, directly addressing the new president and boldly saying to him “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” Her comments have not been well received by all people.
Let’s be honest. This has been a hard week for many people in this country and, indeed, it has been a hard week for some people in this community of faith. The drastic and harsh changes in public policies that occurred within hours of the inauguration have had an immediate and devastating effect on the lives of real people – people known and loved and treasured by many of us – who are only trying, like all of us, to faithfully live the life they have been given.
People who have come to this country seeking safety and a better way of life for themselves and their families (as many of our own ancestors did) now fear they will suddenly be forced to leave. People who are gay, lesbian, and transgender fear they will face increased harassment, perhaps even violence, for living as their true selves.
The fear and anxiety that some people are now carrying is so noticeable.
This is not how God intends us to live as members of the one body of Christ. We hear from 1st Corinthians this morning:
God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Inside the safety of this sacred space, where we gather together as the body of Christ, where we catch a glimpse of the kin-dom of God on earth, we must not let partisan differences divide us.
In this community of faith, we must be united in our love for Jesus and our love for one another and our love for our neighbors and the strangers among us, and, yes, even our enemies. We must be ready to speak out boldly and act with courage in solidarity with those who are living in fear.
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 1 Timothy 1:7.
Let us be bold in our prophetic witness – in word and deed – to the truth that God loves all people and embraces all people – and so do we.
I want to close with the last words from Bishop Budde’s powerful sermon:
May God grant us the strength and courage to honour the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. The good of all people in this nation and the world.
And, I will add, the good of all people in this community of faith.
May it be so.