If No Sound

Many Gifts, One Body©

January 24, 2010

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19 (UMH 750)

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

Amy DeWitte

          It’s a funny thing to think about individuals as if we were one body. Our society is so individualistic, so sometimes it might be hard for us to think about belonging to each other, being truly connected to each other. We’d much rather think that I can go my way and you can go yours; that you can think what you want and I can think what I want; that what you do is your business and what I do doesn’t affect you in any way. But in the human family that’s just not the reality.  And in the church, that’s not the ideal.  So this metaphor of the church as a body can be really powerful and telling for us. It can show us what we could be.

Sometimes I think about how amazing the human body is - an incredible machine that doubles as a work of art where every part is designed to be perfectly synchronized with the others. The best researchers and engineers strive to create machines whose parts work together as beautifully and efficiently as the human body.

          Just think about the beautifully choreographed movements of the human body - walking, grasping, writing.  It’s truly amazing.  Or think about a simple common action:A mother hears the cry of a child.  She looks around to see where she is. She runs over to be close to her, scoops her up in her arms and coos to comfort her. There is no part of the body that is not at work in just this one act of human interaction. Each part of the body is needed for a mother to love her baby.

          THis seems to be an apt metaphor, then, for the people that God has brought together to nurture a crying world, to fulfill the purposes that God has for us, to live into the mission that Jesus Christ came to institute.

          I’ve been talking and writing a lot about that mission, about what it means to be the church in this day and age. We have talked together about our purpose and direction as a church in the world and the ways we are all responsible to that purpose and need to be united in a particular direction.  We have recognized that in a new year we have been given new beginning to hear afresh what God is calling us to. We have remembered that as baptized Christians we are blessed to be a blessing, to be agents of God’s love. And I realize that I have talked about all of that rather abstractly.  Maybe that has given you an opportunity to wonder and dream about what you as a part of this church might do to take one more step into the kingdom of God. Or maybe you like to think more concretely.  You think: I get Jesus is all about love and transformation and salvation, but I need you to give me a little more to work with. I need you to tell me what it is I should be doing with that. Or maybe you haven’t really bought in to this whole idea. To you, this church is a great place to get together with your friends, and you love this community, but you aren’t really sure you want to have any responsibility to it. You don’t know exactly what that would entail or how it would affect your life.

          For all of us, wherever we fall in that process of thinking about our lives and our purpose as a church and our place in this God thing, I’m here to tell you, this is the time to buy in.  This is the day to figure out what part of the body you are and just the way you are needed by God to nurture this crying world. Today is the day where we try to bring all these abstract ideas a little closer to home.  So what?

Today is the day, Jesus said.  When Jesus started preaching and teaching in Galilee, he told the people in the synagogue exactly what his purpose was, exactly what he had come there to do.

          Jesus had been going around to synagogues in the area, and people were all  abuzz about him.  At one point he went back to his hometown, Nazareth, among the people with whom he grew up.  ON the Sabbath day, he went into the synagogue there where it was his turn to read from the Scripture.  The attendant handed handed him the scroll of Isaiah, and he looked for a particular passage, and then began to read, "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 let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

          After he had finished reading this, Jesus rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the attendant. HE then sat down in the posture of a teacher and he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

          Here we are., he said.  This is it. Today is the day. God has sent me for a purpose. And this is what I’m going to be about. I imagine there was so much wrapped up in that in what Jesus was saying.

•         Bringing good news to the poor, economically poor, and those who are poor in spirit. 

•         Release to the captives, those who are literally contained in some sort of forced servitude and those who are imprisoned by their worries or their fears

•         to proclaim recovering of sight to the blind - physically blind and impaired and those whose vision is limited to their own small desires

•         to let the oppressed to go free - those who are oppressed by social and economic structures and those who are afraid or unable to leave abusive relationships or hopeless situations

•         to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor - what does that mean?  Could Jesus be talking about the year of Jubilee?  The year of Jubilee was one year of forgiveness and grace every forty-nine years in Jewish culture.  Debts were forgiven, indentured servants were released from servitude, and the land was allowed to lie fallow. 

•         This is a time of immense grace, Jesus said.  Here I am.  This is it.

          Those were the things Jesus proclaimed he would be about. That would be his purpose.  For the time that he was incarnate and on earth, in the time he was embodied with us, things were going to change forever.  That should say something to us.  You see, we now follow in that purpose.  As the church, Jesus is forever connected to us.  In fact, as the church, we have become Christ’s body.  We have become the embodiment of Jesus for our time.  And for us things have to change forever.  If we are to be the body of Christ - that’s what we call the church, isn’t it? - we have to really buy into this.  You can’t be the hand that reaches out on Sunday morning and then break off to do your own thing for the rest of the week until next Sunday.  That wouldn’t make you any less a part of the body, Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians.  It would just mean that the Body has a hand that’s not working very well.  Each of us has a purpose, and for God to work in our Body, we each have to be committed to that purpose.  We need each other like a leg needs a big toe to balance, like a finger needs an opposable thumb to grasp a pencil.  You are part of the Body of Christ and we need you to fully be fully membered.

          And the corollary is true. Just because you know that you are needed here, doesn’t mean that you can say anyone else is less a part of us.  You saying it wouldn’t make it true.  We can’t excuse ourselves from being a part of this body, nor can anyone else say that we are unnecessary

          The challenge, then, can be the question: what part of the Body am I?  If our purpose is to continue this mission that Jesus instituted, this kingdom of immense grace, what is each of us doing to fulfill our purpose?  Why are some of us still not so sure?  Why are others of us neglecting our responsibility to the body?  How can I see the gifts in my brother and help him find a way to use them to show grace?  What can I do to hold my sister accountable to the Body?  How can I find out what my gifts are so that I can better understand what my gifts are?

Copyright © 2009 Amy DeWitte. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this writing may be reproduced in any form without specific, written permission of the author.

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