Living, Breathing, Sweating, Feeling
Body
1 Corinthians 12:4-14
“Now you are the Body of Christ and
individually members of it.”
1
Corinthians 12:27
This is the punch line of Paul’s
treatise on spiritual gifts in Corinthians
Paul
is making sure that for the Corinthians
and for all who
hear this letter, that it is personal.
He’s not talking about some other
group of Holy people
He’s talking about the
Corinthians and
All
of God’s people.
He’s not saying that the Corinthians are the most righteous group,
Or a perfect group, or even an ideal group.
In fact the
reason he is writing to the Corinthian’s is because
They were having problems.
They were a
center of commerce for the Greek world
so they were a
prosperous city but along with that
they were a
worldly city
with all the
corruption that implies
and the church
at
was in
conflict.
Part
of the conflict was about who had the best gifts,
The
most spiritual gifts, who had the right stuff.
So
Paul is first of all validating all the
gifts
That are part of the Holy Spirit.
“Now there are a variety of gifts, but the
same Spirit;
there are a variety of services but the same Lord.”
Notice Paul
is validating all the gifts but he is not saying
“Anything
goes”.
He is saying
that any spiritual gift is good if
it is in
service to God and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
William Easum
wrote a book called: “Sacred Cows make Gourmet
Burgers:
Ministry anytime, anywhere by anyone”
In
it Easum challenges us to be a church that embraces
the
Work of the Holy Spirit through the whole
people of God.
He
challenges churches to be permission giving churches
(that a lot different from permissive churches!)
Permission
giving churches encourage the working of the Holy Spirit
Within the mission and vision of the church.
He
challenges us not to greet new ideas with
“we don’t have the money or people to do it”
or “we’ve never done it that way before.”
Instead
he challenges us to ask:
“Does it
serve the mission and vision of Christ here at Covenant.
He
challenges us to dust off our old mission statement:
“We are called together by God in west
to worship, to reach out, to learn and to serve
as a covenant community of faith to the
glory of Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
And have
that shared mission be the primary criterion
By
which we decide whether a new idea is
“activated by one
the same Spirit.”
My hope is that we are a part of the
Body of Christ that does just that.
When
I was reading Susie’s article about
About
all the different hands adding ingredients to the pot
My
hope is that “We are all activated by one
the same Spirit
who allots to each one individually
just as the Spirit chooses.”
This embracing of the variety of Gifts
of the Holy Spirit
seems like a good
thing in theory, but it gets messy in practice.
And I think that’s why Paul chose the
image of a “Body”
To describe
the
He didn’t choose the image of a well
oiled machine, or a well constructed
building, he chose a “living, breathing, sweating, feeling
body.”
As much as we Presbyterians want to do
everything decently and in order;
If
and when we are open to the Spirit at work in our lives, our church
and the world; then we have to get used to the fact that
the body can get messy and even chaotic at times.
That’s
hard for me, a first born son, who likes
Things organized and orderly.
I
like to be in control.
But
if we really believe what we say: that Christ is the head,
We
are the body and the Spirit energizes it all
Then
we have to give up our control and speak of
Seek
for and work with the Spirit that
Energizes
the very Body of Christ
Of
which we are simply a part.
And we can find comfort in the fact that
even science and political science
And
organizational theory are coming around to the
understanding
Of
the world and organizations that Paul spoke of years ago.
In a book by Ken Wilber “The Theory of Everything”
He notes with others that we have moved
from a place
of
understanding the world linearly A causes B causes C
to
understanding the world as an organic system
A, B and C are interrelated
and they are related
To
D, E F and G as well.
My
grandson Ashton taught me this difference at a pool table.
We
were playing pool with 15 balls sitting still
and one white
ball that we would strike with a pool cue
that ball
would hit another ball
and we would
play pool
and be
upset if we didn’t strike the cue ball
in the right way to sink the other balls.
Of
course Ashton couldn’t play this game
so he
introduced us to Ashton pool.
Three Uncles, two cousins and two
nephews stand
Around the table with a handful of pool balls.
They
start to rolls the balls at each other, the balls strike each
Other
in what seems to be random order, instead of one
moving part you
have many. You have to move your
hands quickly to keep from being hit by a pool ball.
It seems completely
random and without purpose except
the people
talk, the balls end up in the pockets
and everyone
instead of one winner and one loser
everyone is laughing
unless
they got their hand
hit by a ball.
Which pool game sounds more like real
life to you?
We
no longer live in a world when the atom is the smallest unit
And
the whole is simply the sum of the smallest parts
But
we live in a world where now the relationship between
atoms is the more important variable.
And there is synergy in which
the whole
Is more than the
sum of the parts.
William Easum
talks about the movement
from the
Newtonian Age to the Quantum Age.
He characterizes it as moving from the
“cause and effect” world
To an
understanding of the world as “dynamic process.”
In this world chaos is not bad but
rather it is often part of movement
We embrace as we move to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit
And seek to be the living, breathing,
sweating, feeling body of Christ.
It
is a different image of the church from the hierarchical image
Where
things are well under control and change rarely
Happens to an understanding where change is
constant and we are being shaped and molded by the Spirit
Every
day every hour, every minute, every second.
It’s
like a body which is continually sloughing of old cells and
Creating new cells with our DNA guiding the whole process.
The story of the Good Samaritan is Jesus
trying to teach the lawyer
About
this new living, breathing, sweating, feeling body of Christ.
The lawyer
asks the question “Who is my neighbor?”
in an effort
to boundary his world into easily contained
parameters
governed by one set of rules.
Jesus
shows him that in this world which includes a man, robbers,
A
priest and a Levite and one law Numbers 19:11
“Those who touch a dead body of any human
being shall be unclean for seven days.”
The
man who is beaten and left by the side of the road would die
But
Jesus shows him a bigger world that includes a Samaritan,
An
inn keeper and the whole counsel of God starting with
Leviticus
Leviticus
Jesus shows the lawyer and us what
happens if we share the love of God
Lives
are saved and changed as we become the whole Body of Christ
So
when we confess that we the church are the Body of Christ
We
are confessing that we are a living, breathing, sweating
And feeling body.
We
are sometimes chaotic, sometimes hurt, sometimes
healed but always led
by the Holy Spirit
to care for
each other and for the world
in Christ’s
name.
Amen