One Spirit, One Body

1 Corinthians 12:14-31
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King David wrote in Psalm 139:8, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Do you ever take a moment and consider the human body and how it works and its relationship to the mind and the self and to others?  God really has done something wonderful. 

Consider what all goes into playing a banjo?  One has to understand music.  It helps if one can to hear; though it is amazing that Beethoven composed all of his beautiful music when he was all but stone deaf.  To play the banjo it is necessary to have hands and fingers and a neural network with the brain to form chords, finger notes, and pound out rhythm.  If a right-handed banjoist lost her right hand, she could still banjo but would be limited to strumming like a riverboat banjoist. Yet, if a special prosthetic were made to hold a pick, she could to pick individual notes and play Irish fiddle tunes. 

On the other hand (pun intended), for a right-handed banjoist the left hand is probably the weakest, uncoordinated part of the body.  Yet when it comes to playing music, the skill developed in the left hand could not and cannot be done with any other part of the body.  A banjoist could loose the thumb and even a finger or two on the left hand and still manage to play music.  But if she lost her left hand, this otherwise clumsy and awkward and weak part of the body, she could not play banjo anymore and that would be devastating to who she is as a person that would in turn have profound effect on her relationships.  There would also be those who would miss her playing.

Paul says here in Corinthians that God has made, established the human body just as he chose to and he made it so that it consists of many parts and those parts need each other. A hand cannot be a hand without a brain and what good is a brain with no hands.  If a part of the body is lost no matter how insignificant it might be, like a toe, the impact on the rest of the body and the human person and the community of that person is…profound. 

Well, so it is with the church.  We are the body of Christ and individually we are members of his body.  Paul wants us to think of church fellowship as a body, like a human body, that God has fashioned and is fashioning our life as a congregation in such a way that we each are an indispensable member of the whole body and that even if we were to loose what would seem to be an insignificant part or person, the effect it has on the whole body is dramatic, even traumatic. 

So, the main point of the day, we are the body of Christ and each of us are individual members of his body gifted by the Holy Spirit with abilities for specific functions of Jesus’ own ministry to his church and to the world and therefore, we are each indispensable in his body and his ministry. So, here in this passage Paul brings out three threats to that unity: individualism, isolationism, and elevationism.

Individualism is when we say, “I am a hand, but I am not so sure about this body.”  In real life that sounds like, “I come to church here because the minister is God’s gift to preaching (riiiiight), but I really don’t feel like I have much in common with the people here and those I’ve talked to, I don’t agree with all that much on stuff.  I’m not so much into the things that the church offers for me to do.  I like to do what I like to do.  I’m a hand.  I don’t need y’all for my Christian walk.  Thank yuh.”  Individualism is sitting in the pew and avoiding fellowship and serving with others.  It’s the risk free way to go.  It keeps you in control all the while preventing you from the mandate to love and share in ministry together.  People don’t get to know you and you don’t get to know them.

Isolationism is when we look at our brothers and sisters in Christ and say, “You’re a hand.  We’ve never had hands before and we have functioned quite well without them at doing the things we do.”  Yet, “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’  And, the head cannot say to the foot, ‘I don’t need you.’” The Christian faith is about human beings living together NOW in the way life will be when Jesus returns and God makes all things new; life governed by the one commandment Jesus gave his disciples – that we love one another as he has loved us.  Love is a community effort.

If we look at the Book of Acts chapter 4:32-35 we catch a glimpse of early church life and we find that they were constantly together. They constantly worshipped together, prayed together, and ate together.  Moreover, they shared all things in common…they shared all things in common!  There was no such thing as pew sitting back then.  They didn’t have pews!  Nor, could they exclude someone who was different.  Jesus’ commandment to love as he loves cut that one off at the pass. Individuals compose the body of Christ but individualism and isolationism have no place in it.

Lastly, elevationism says, “I am an important and powerful person outside the church and therefore, I should be important and powerful inside the church.  And, if I’m going to give the big bucks because I can, I’m going to say how they’re used.”  Others might say, “I’ve done everything there is to do around here.  I’m here all the time.  I am this congregation.  Therefore, it will do what I want it to do or I will make life miserable for them.”  What swill we swaller. 

Just as God has fearfully and wonderfully made it so that the loss of any part of the human body profoundly affects not only the person losing it but also those close to them, so God has made the church so that the weaker members are elevated and all are equal in care for one another.  The church is the only human community where rich and poor, powerful and powerless, successful and failing, black and white, red and yellow and brown, rural and city, Brit and Scot, Yank and Arab…whatever the boundary line of status we draw…are a family…the family of God.  As a family we all gather around the same table, drink the same Holy Spirit, eat the same body of Christ, and share in the same ministry of Jesus Christ.  In the church, those who seem of little importance or status out there in the world become elevated and honoured just the same as the worldly honourable.  It’s because we share the Holy Spirit and the same ministry of Jesus.  We love because he loves us and so we build one another up in love. 

Friends, we are the body of Christ…THE BODY OF CHRIST.  Each one of us individually are members of his LIVING BODY…eyes, ears, hands, feet, heart, mind, follicle, finger…and this is by God’s doing and design and not our own.  We are in effect a New Humanity – human beings indwelt by that Holy Spirit of God so that in our life together in the love we share we look and function like Jesus Christ who gave himself up for us to free us and heal us of the spiritual disease of sin.  Jesus has gifted us each to be a particular and vital part of the Body of Christ as it exists in this backwater community of Southern Ontario.  Through all the churches of this community the kingdom of God is breaking into this fallen world and WE are an integral part of what God is doing here.  

We, the congregation, are fearfully and wonderfully made by God to be a New Humanity, the Body of Christ filled with the Holy Spirit reflecting the glory and love of God.  So, praise be to God, let us love and serve one another in all humility in this world that is dead in individualism, isolationism, and elevationism.  Amen.

Fill the Jars

John 2:1-11
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A few years ago when my daughter was in Kindergarten, I remember her suddenly beginning to use the phrase, “You filled my bucket, Mommy.” That meant Dana had done something to make her feel happy.  She would also say, “You’re not filling my bucket.”  Usually that meant she wasn’t getting her way.

We came to learn that her Kindergarten teacher had been teaching the bucket system to her students.  She explained that people are like buckets.  We can do nice things for one another and fill those buckets with good feelings or we can do mean things to one another and empty those buckets.  Empty buckets are not good at all.  Empty buckets mean we’re sad and hurt or angry.  So, if we all just fill each other’s buckets by doing nice things, everything will be wonderful.  All the world’s problems solved. 

Those empty jars in our reading from John’s Gospel makes me think of the bucket system.  As buckets represent people, so those jars are representative of something having to do with the people of God back in Jesus’ day, something to do with the state of their faith, with their relationship to God within the context of their religion.  John tells us that these jars, they were rather big jars holding 20-30 gallons of water, were for holding water for rituals of purification particularly at feasts.  Assumingly they were standing empty, not being used at this wedding.  That is significant.

Ritual washing for purification was nearly a fanatical practice among certain groups of Jews back then, particularly the Pharisees.  I don’t think scholarship has quite pinpointed a reason for it because there is no biblical requirement for it.  Yet, they washed their hands in a specially prescribed manner.  It was more of dip and a rubbing them together so that everyone could see than an actual scrubbing with soap. 

Ritual bathing was quite popular back then as well.  In excavations dating to that time, archaeologists have found that many people had a small cistern called a mikvah just outside of their house or at ground level inside where they would ritually dip before entering the living area of the house.  It had nothing to do with actual cleanliness, but rather with washing off iniquity, the stain of sin, so as to not bring it in their homes where other people could come in contact with it.

It seems that they believed that if a person was dirty with the stain of sin, or “unclean” as it would be called in the Bible, you could not go to synagogue or to the Temple to be in the presence of God.  According to the Old Testament, uncleanness was dealt with through separating oneself from others, synagogue, and Temple worship for a prescribed time and then offering an sacrifice when the time of separation was finished.  As I said, no one knows how this ritual washing got started, but people were doing it nearly fanatically as a way of keeping themselves ritually “clean” and worthy of being in the presence of God rather than or in addition to the sacrificial requirements. 

Some would say that they took to ritual washing because they had lost faith in the sacrificial system that was being operated by the Jerusalem priesthood that was known to be corrupt.  Since the Temple and priests were corrupted and the Romans were there occupying the land, a significant number of the people had a great expectation that God would send his promised Holy Spirit anointed king, the Messiah, to come put things right and establish the Kingdom of God.  And so washing became a Populist practice to keep oneself ready for the coming Messiah and the Day of the Lord.  Some would say this was why John the Baptist baptized.

Back to the jars, that these jars used for holding water for ritual washing stood empty at a wedding is quite significant.  They were standing there like a big King James family Bible enshrined on a coffee table in a home where the people don’t go to church anymore.  That the jars were there indicates the people of that household had at one time lost faith in the Temple establishment and had become participants in that Populist movement of ritual washing.  But the jars are now standing empty and unused at a wedding feast when ritual washing would have certainly occurred.  This would indicate that the people of that household no longer believed the reasons for ritual washing either.   

To make an analogy to today, recent sociological studies on religion in North America indicate that the two largest categories of religious practice among people in North America are the “Nones” – those who claim to be spiritual yet have never had any Christian affiliation – and the “Dones” – those who have quit church and will never go back.  The people hosting the wedding feast were like the “Dones”, just done with it all.  Jerusalem was corrupt and the “washing” wasn’t doing it for them likely because the ritual of washing came with a bunch of other little rules that only led to religious bullying and hypocrisy.  It is great that the “washers” had Messianic hopes and were trying to be faithful, but God’s call to righteousness meant being compassionate, just, and fair rather than simply observing rituals and traditions.

It was no coincidence that Jesus told the servants to fill those empty jars for ritual purification with water and in turn he turned that water into wine, good wine.  The Jesus wine was better than the wine wedding go-ers had gotten drunk on.  The Jesus wine saved the wedding feast from becoming a fiasco that would have brought shame upon the groom and his family.  The symbolism with respect to the wine is so blatant that John calls the act a “sign”, an act by Jesus that reveals who he is – the Messiah and somehow God with us.  He revealed himself to be the One in whom the true believers in Israel were hoping, the one who would bring the abundant life – the compassionate, just, and fair life rather than life suffocated by rituals and rules that lead to a false sense of righteousness.

Let’s go back to the “Nones” and “Dones”, for the last fifty years people have been leaving the church vowing never to go back.  Around the top of the list of reasons is that the church has so often put rituals, rules, and conduct codes before compassion, justice, and fairness and done so at the expense of hurting people.  Our society is full of people who have “empty jars”.  They tried real hard to find meaning in “doing church”, but left it behind because “doing church” seemed like a lot of busyness that had little to do with Jesus and his abundant life.  The straw that broke the camels back was usually an encounter with a hypocrite or a bully, two types of people that churches rarely seem to hold accountable in their midst.

We have a responsibility to go to these folks and fill their empty jars.  We who drink the good wine of the Holy Spirit, who know the abundant life that Jesus has to give to those who will follow him.  Crucial to this task is that we must be readily tending to our jars, making sure there’s water in them.  We must be avid followers of Jesus ourselves.  We must learn the power in prayer by taking time to be prayerful.  We must be hearing God speak to us through the Scriptures by giving God the opportunity to speak us through the Scriptures.  We must be students of Jesus, adamant in striving to be like him in his simple lifestyle and sincere compassion.  When the “Nones” and “Dones” sense that our jars are full of the Holy Spirit rather than just empty, powerless religion, they will see and might even let us help fill their jars.  There is a thirst for good wine of Jesus out there and we have it in abundance.  Amen.

Crossing Jordan

Luke 3:15-22
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When I ministered in West Virginia, there were two preaching charges associated with my church for which I had to hold service once a month.  One of those, Mary’s Chapel, was just up there and out there along the highway sort of halfway to nowhere.  They didn’t have an organist or pianist and the hymnal was older than what most churches would call the “old” hymnal.  So, I took my guitar along and we did hymns kind of Bluegrassy.  They liked that and sang loud.

There was a woman in Mary’s Chapel who has a special place in my memory.  Virgie was her name.  She was widowed for quite some time and didn’t seem to leave her home much; seemed to like solitude.   She had a very deep faith.  Virgie liked it when we sang “He Leadeth Me”.  The lyrics of the last verse are: “And when my task on earth is done, when by thy grace the victory’s won, Ev’n death’s cold wave I will not flee, since God through Jordan leadeth me.”  When we hit that last phrase about Jordan Virgie would sing so loud as to almost shout “God through Jerdon leadeth me”.  Apparently, Virgie had some strong feelings concerning God’s faithfulness and “crossing Jordan”.

The symbol of “Crossing Jordon” in the tradition of Christian faith seems to be that last little bit you have to go through to get to the “Promised Land”.  The “Promised Land” may mean “Heaven” after death or just a better day coming.  The Jordan is just what you’ve got to cross to get there.  Jordan may seem like an impossible barrier, but you can still look across and see the promised good that God has waiting for you, and so you do what it takes to cross over.

Sometimes sermons on the Jordon will compare the Jordan River crossing to the Red Sea crossing.  If you remember the Israelites had to cross the Red Sea to escape from Pharaoh and his army.  It was life or death. God miraculously parted the sea and Moses led them across to safety on dry ground.  When Pharaoh and his army tried to follow in behind them, God released the waters and “Pharaoh’s army got drowned.  Oh Mary don’t you weep.”  The Red Sea now crossed became a barrier that kept Israel from going back into Egypt and slavery. 

Yet, the Red Sea crossing was deceptive.  The crossing wasn’t over into the Promised Land but rather into the Wilderness of Sinai.  The promise of the Promise Land was still there but it was a long way off with mountains of granite desert to go through to get there.  There would be no ready source of food, no ready source of water.  They were just going to have to learn to trust the God who for them had plagued Egypt and parted the Red Sea and was with them as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  One would think that was an easy thing to do but it wasn’t.

The Jordan River was a different matter.  The Promised Land was just on the other side.  They could see it.  They’d been looking at it for months.  God had been faithful in the Wilderness and God had just caused the walls of Jericho to fall.  There was just one more obstacle to face, the Jordan River.  Normally the Jordan River was about 100 ft. wide and 3-10 ft. deep, but the Book of Joshua tells us the Jordan was flooded with snow melt and too dangerous to just “Wade in the water, children”.  But, God had brought them there to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land.  Four priests carried the Ark of the Covenant on poles and as soon as their feet hit the water the waters parted.  The voice of the Lord was over the waters.  The Lord sat enthroned over the flood as Psalm 29 told us.

That was the first time Israel crossed Jordan.  They crossed it two more times after that, once to go into exile in Babylon and then again when a faithful remnant returned to the Promised Land to rebuild.  God spoke through Isaiah to those folks and said, “When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”  To these returning exiles crossing Jordan into the Promised Land was a symbol of a new day, of a new life, of God’s presence with his people, of God’s faithfulness, of God’s promises fulfilled, of God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

And so, here’s John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan baptizing the hordes of people who were flocking to him, God’s prophet, and some were thinking that he might even be that Promised Messiah person.  Earlier in Chapter 3 Luke says John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Repentance and forgiveness are theologically loaded terms and I think what they’ve come to mean in Western theology isn’t what’s happening here.  These people were not coming to wash their guilty consciences clean from sin.   John’s baptism wasn’t a way for the people to say “I’m sorry” and for God to say, I forgive you and now I won’t get you.”  That’s our reading Protestantism's response to Medieval Roman Catholicism into the story.  Repent means doing something to show God you’re allegiance is with him.  Forgiveness of sin meant God and the people were now united with nothing between them.

We have to put John’s baptizing God’s people in the Jordan into the historical context of what the Jordan River meant to them.  John’s Baptism was the way the faithful people of God at that time crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, which for them was the coming of the expected Messiah and the establishing of the Kingdom of God.  God would be with his people.  The Roman oppressors would be gone. 

So John baptized a great number of people.  In Luke here we find him having baptized a great crowd, and among them was Jesus, who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit.  After John baptized Jesus, Jesus prayed.  While he prayed heaven was opened to the people and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove alit on Jesus and the voice of God the Father thundered over the mighty waters, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

On that day, in that moment God’s people crossed Jordan a final time.  God was with his people.  He would pour his Spirit upon his people.  With heaven opened it would now start becoming on earth as it is in heaven where God sits enthroned and reigns unimpeded by human sin.  The Holy Spirit would begin his work that extends to this day, the work in each of us of burning off our chaff so that only the wheat of the image of Christ remains.

Let me return to my hero Virgie and her thoughts of crossing Jordan.  Crossing Jordan for her was passing through death into Paradise, into Glory to be with Christ Jesus and many others whom she longed to be with again.  Virgie looked forward to a day when her death would be behind her.  Like so many Christians I don’t think she really understood that she had already crossed Jordan and was living in the Promised Land right now, the Promised Land of the presence of the Lord being with her, with all his people, with us working in the power of the Holy Spirit to burn off the chaff and make us to be more and more in the image of Christ.

Virgie was a strong Christian, a praying woman, full of compassion, kindness, and generosity, and I could go on.  Yet, I’m not sure how deeply she and us understood/understand that heaven is open to us right now and that God is with us particularly now as are gathered for worship.  She was the product of a Christianity that harped heavy on how much a sinner you are rather than on letting you know that even though you are a sinner the voice of God thunders over the floods of life telling you that you are his beloved child, whom he loves just as much as he loves his only begotten Son, and he is with you and the rivers they won’t overwhelm you.  Friends, we have crossed Jordan and are in the Promised Land.  The Kingdom of God is at had.  Believe this Good News.  Amen.

The Camels Are Coming

Isaiah 60:1-6
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Let’s step back in time nearly two and a half millennia to ancient Israel in the 500’s BC.  In 586 God sent the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and level the temple and they took anybody who was anybody away to exile in Babylon.  The reason God gave for this through the voice of prophets was idolatry which included child sacrifice and Israelites taking advantage of the poor in their midst to their own gain.  The Land of Judah, the Land God promised to Abraham on which his descendants would become a great nation, was then left undefended and became cheap, quick real estate for foreigners.  The great nation was exiled.

Those who went into exile, they had it tough at first but over time actually faired well and became comfortable.  The Babylonian community of Jews remained the largest community of Jews worldwide up into the 1800’s AD.  Significant things happened in the Babylonian community.  Most significantly, in the 400’s BC, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible as we know it, received its final edit by a school of the descendants of Jerusalem priests in Babylon.  This edit included the addition of most of the legal stuff you find in the Old Testament.  Like the Amish have their rules to preserve their distinctive identity so also the Jews in the Babylonian exile wanted to write down and codify everything about their way of life to keep it distinctive while in Babylon.  The roots of Judaism as we know it today formed in Babylon.

In 539BC King Cyrus of Persia defeated the Babylonians.  His policy was to allow the peoples that the Babylonians took into exile return to their homelands.  Not soon after a trickle of Jews, a small remnant, began to head back to Judea and to Jerusalem with the hopes of rebuilding what they had before.  Yet, they returned to find that Jerusalem was still in tatters.  The wall still lay torn down.  They strongly felt they needed a wall to make Jerusalem great again for they were outnumbered by the people who had moved in like squatters on vacant lands and “those people”, those not Jewish people, weren’t going to leave and strongly resisted any effort by the remnant to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.  It did not take long for this faithful remnant of former exiles to become disillusioned in the realization that their resettlement was going to be difficult.

There are several books in the Bible associated with this time.  Ezra and Nehemiah record the history.  The Prophets Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and whoever wrote the last six chapters of Isaiah speak to this disillusioned remnant.  They hoped they could just go back and rebuild and things would be like they were before but without all the bad stuff.  Things would be ideal.

To this disillusioned, doubly heart-broken people who had been unwelcomed back to their ancestral homes as if they were the squatters by “those people” who actually had moved in to squat on the land, to these Isaiah writes: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.  For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the glory of the Lord will appear over you.  Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.  Lift up your eyes and look around…your sons and daughters will come from far away…the wealth of the nations shall come to you…a multitude of camels shall cover you…They shall bring gold and frankincense”.  Like Paul Revere at the beginning of the American Revolution riding out to proclaim “The British are coming;” so Isaiah proclaims “The camels are coming.” 

This chapter-long exhortation concludes in verses 21 and 22 with God saying, “Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever.  They are the shoot that I planted, the work of my hands, so that I might be glorified.  The least of them shall become a clan, the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the Lord; in its time I will accomplish it quickly.”

“In it’s time,” says the Lord. “In its time.”  Step up to the time of the birth of Jesus nearly 400 years and eight generations later.  It took 200 years for the Jewish people to repopulate the land.  Then the Greeks came and then the Romans and they didn’t bring their wealth.  They brought their armies and oppressed these Jews who were only trying to be faithful.  Unfortunately, like people living the “Adult Lifestyle” today, many Jewish people back then particularly the leadership and the wealthy began to live “the Greco-Roman Lifestyle”.  Yet, there was still a faithful remnant in the Land waiting for God to do what he said he would do through the mouth of Isaiah – bring the nations, their kings, and their wealth to Israel to proclaim the praise of the Lord. 

Joseph and Mary were part of this remnant.  Jesus was born, the Son of God, the glory of the Lord, the presence of the Lord had come to dwell among his people.  The promised light began to shine.  From angels and shepherds, from highest to lowest, they all began to proclaim the Good News that God was bringing salvation to his people as this baby.  As Matthew says an unusual light appeared in the skies and following that “sign” came a caravan of camels carrying three astrologer kings from afar; kings bearing gifts of gold and frankincense, just as Isaiah said.  They came not to oppress the Jews but rather, just as Isaiah said, “to proclaim the praise of the Lord.” 

In a small, insignificant way the camels had indeed come and thus began God opening the doors of his faithful people up to peoples of other nations, of other cultures, and races.  This “New Jerusalem”, this “New Zion” didn’t need walls around it for protection.  It was open to everyone.  The Baby Jesus grew up lived, and died, and was raised and lives and reigns and is coming back to fully fulfill Isaiah’s prophesy.  As promised, God pours his very own Spirit into those who follow Jesus as his disciples and claims us as his very own children.  Instead of a wall, God sent out apostles and evangelists such as Paul to tell the people of the nations they were welcome to come and have new life in Jesus, life filled with God’s own life.

Here is an epiphany for us today.  Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God as Paul says at Colossians 3:3.  He says, “Set your minds on things above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  When terrible things happen and our lives fall apart, because our lives are hidden with Christ in God, God has a future for us that is full of his glory, full of his self, a life that we will find in drawing closer to Jesus who is walking with us always.  Our instinct may be to try to recreate our lives the way they were, but we must resist that and seek the Holy Spirit-filled life God has for us.  “In its time” we will heal and shine with the light of God’s glory.  The same is true for us even when things are good.  When things are good our instinct is to resist change and try to keep things just as they are.  Yet, our lives are still hidden with God in Christ and in seeking him “in its time” God will bring it about.  To put it in the terms of Isaiah, God is going to cover us with camels.  The camels are coming.  Amen.