YOU ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST
Scriptures:
Acts 2:1-4, 14-17
I Corinthians 12:4-7, 12-18, 26-27
Paul was quite direct about this: “Now you are the body of Christ.” No qualifications; no legal loopholes; no possibility of saying, “but only if…..” The affirmation is simple, straight-forward, and specific. It includes all of us. Dr. Clarence Craig puts it this bluntly: “(Paul) does not mean to say that the church is like a body; it is the body of Christ.”
That’s what you’ve joined this morning, Jason, a people who in some very important ways consider ourselves to be one body. And what does a body do? It grows. (There are some of us who would say that some bodies grow a bit too wide in the middle, but you and I know that’s not really the kind of growth we’re talking about.) You are the body of Christ – learning, as you did in Confirmation Class, but also growing in wisdom, not letting a service called “Confirmation” put an end to learning. You are the body of Christ with the least of these – seeking out and identifying with the poor, the misunderstood, the mistreated, the maligned. You are the body of Christ carrying the greatest hopes of a people through the gates of Jerusalem – the heir of God’s hopes, and plans, and dreams for God’s people. You are the body of Christ there on that cross – nails of injustice pierce you, the despair of being misunderstood when you stand up for what you believe overwhelms you, the weight of suffering in a world governed by military might and a “we’re number 1” mentality bears down upon you. You are the body of Christ risen beyond expectation or belief to a freedom that only becomes possible when ultimate trust is placed in God.
Now, that’s kind of flowery and symbolic language for what just happened here and for what each of us experiences when we join the church and become part of this body of Christ. But what it suggests to me – to think of the church as a living, growing body in this way – is that the church is more like an organism than an organization. Paul, in this chapter in I Corinthians, is not concerned about the offices of elders and deacons and trustees, about questions of polity and whether the church will be governed by the local church or by a denominational hierarchy, about the appropriateness of having four Boards and a moderator and a Church Council. Rather, Paul is saying, the church is a human organism, and like a human organism there are different members with differing functions. The eye trying to act like a hand is a ridiculous image.
What this means, first of all, is that in the church we can be ourselves, do our own thing, and grow in both freedom and individuality. It means we can see ourselves as all kinds of things within the church – liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, activist and meditator, Mary and Martha – all these and more. In the church that is the body of Christ we can agree to disagree, but more importantly we do so in love, knowing that our disagreements are less important than the love of Christ that we share.
But secondly – and we must not miss this – the church as the body of Christ means that we need one another. The eye may look foolish trying to do the work of a hand, but a body without an eye or without one hand would be impaired and would function less freely. Or sure, sometimes the members get in one another’s way. But the idea of the right and left hands of Christ preparing to fight one another is just as ridiculous an image as the eye trying to do the work of the hand. In the body we need one another.
And this leads us to the third part of Paul’s insight in this passage: you and I are members of the body. When we forget that we are related to the body of Christ, we cut ourselves off from the support that the rest of the body can give. A hand cut off from the body – as gory an image as that is – simply ceases to function (unless, of course, you’re watching one of those horror movies where the hand takes on a life of its own – but that certainly destroys the image I’m trying to build here, and it’s why it’s only a movie). As Paul says in Galatians, we are called upon to “bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Dr. Craig, again, says it well when he remarks, “’Organic union’ did not mean for Paul legislating for the life of others, but feeling with them so completely as to share their experience.”
Usually – or, at least, quite often – we hold confirmation on Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is called “the birthday of the Christian church”, and so it’s appropriate that we hold a birthday party – because that’s, in effect, what confirmation is: a coming of age into a more mature relationship with the body of Christ – much like a Bar Mitzvah. On that first day as the church is launched into the world Peter quotes the prophet Joel in the passage in Acts that Jason read just now saying, “…I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” What a wonderful revelation! Can you just feel that gushing out, that blast of fresh air that brings something totally new along with it? We welcome it – as the choir sang, “Come, Holy Spirit, like the wind.” Our young people are filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit as they work their way through the confirmation process, and as we rejoice with them so also we share in the Spirit as it works its way through them.
The early disciples were so captured by what the Spirit was doing to them and with them that they started prophesying in different languages. Now, I know that we in the United Church of Christ tend to view with a skeptical eye the modern phenomenon of speaking in tongues, and, indeed, the whole Pentecostal movement. (Tom told me that a few years back a member of the congregation responded to his column in the Clarion about Pentecost by saying, “We’re not Pentecostal!”) Well, that’s true – not many of us, I suspect, would identify with the contemporary Pentecostal movement that began at the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906 – the movement that is marking its 100th anniversary this year, with special ceremonies that took place last April 25-29 at the site on Azusa Street where it was founded. But we are Pentecostal in a more general sense – just like we are “Catholic” in the sense of being universal. We are Pentecostal whenever we feel the Spirit at work in the world and when we testify to God’s mighty deeds that come through the Spirit. We are Pentecostal when we acknowledge that God is in us and empowers us to do good works in God’s name. We are Pentecostal when we proclaim that Jesus has authority over the world, as we said last week. We are Pentecostal when we are the church at work in the world – the body of Christ on the move – which is why we have a special offering called “Strengthen the Church” on this day.
To be Pentecostal, in other words, is to know that the Holy Spirit is real and is alive and at work in all the different worlds of our lives. We say that we are an Easter people; well, in this more general sense it is also true that we are a Pentecostal people. Note one other important thing from this passage in Acts that Jason read: the disciples were speaking in other languages, according to Luke, “as the Spirit gave them ability.” Here in the 21st century we may not demonstrate how the Spirit is acting upon us by talking in a wholly different language, but whatever we are doing for the Kingdom of God we are doing it because the Holy Spirit is giving us the power to do so and is showing us the way. We are truly enabled to dream dreams and have visions. When Jason and Lura and other confirmands come into our care and become a part of this body of Christ we can and we should listen to their dreams and see the visions that they hold out for how the church can be alive and well and witnessing to the world.
One other thing that we usually try to do on a confirmation Sunday is to participate together in communion. Sometimes in the past this has been because young people weren’t allowed to take communion until they had been confirmed, and thus the communion service on this particular Sunday meant that it was their first time to share in the sacrament. Nowadays we believe that anyone who has been baptized and who professes a commitment to Jesus Christ is fully welcome at this table, and we enjoy having children and young people be a part of the church’s communion experience. The meaning that it has will grow even as our youth grow in their over-all understanding of the faith. But receiving communion today does have a special significance for Jason – just as it does for each one of us – for in eating this bread and drinking this juice we are all renewed in the power that the Holy Spirit gives to us – and that is especially so for someone who has just become a part of the body of Christ. Christ’s body and blood symbolically give us new life and strengthen our body – that is, the body of Christ gathered here in this place – to respond to the Holy Spirit working among us.
Now you are the body of Christ. Take, eat, drink, and enjoy all the fruits of the Spirit that are showered on you this day. Know that the Holy Spirit is blowing in the wind to empower us to be Christ’s body on this day and each day of our lives.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
June 4, 2006