3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025c
Old Testament - Psalm 19:1-14
New Testament - 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
“Christ Exists as Community.”
INTRODUCTION: So more often than not, when people are asked in surveys to list their least favorite body parts, the stomach, perhaps not surprisingly, usually tops the list.
Given that when most of us put on a few pounds it usually shows up in our bellies, it’s understandable that so many of us would list the stomach as our least favorite body part.
Another area of the body that also gets mentioned frequently as disliked are toes. Despite often getting them manicured, massaged, painted, and even adorning them with little rings, it turns out a lot of people are also not really crazy about the way their toes look.
I’ll admit it, I am not crazy about my toes, or at least my left big toe. You might recall several years ago I dropped a large log on it, smashing it nicely. And while I am glad to still have my left big toe, it’s really never fully recovered. It’s what I, lovingly, call my Frankenstein toe.
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But even before dropping that log on my toe, I wasn’t a big fan of them. My feet, because of too many soccer games in cleats and long runs training for marathons over the years, were already showing wear and tear long before demolishing one of them with a log.
Are there other body parts that people aren’t crazy about? Of course. But the abdomen and toes are usually top of the list for most folks - me included.
ONE: Well, it turns out even in Paul’s day there were body parts that people tended to view negatively and less important than others.
In the same way we tend to frown on our tummies and toes, people in Paul’s day did the same thing. But it was more than just not liking certain parts of the body.
You see, back in Paul’s day it was a pretty common practice to use the body as a metaphor for human societies and how they should be configured. Yep, turns out all kinds of folks liked to use the body with its various parts as a stock analogy for discussing human relationships and social arrangements. Except when the analogy was normally used, it was always done to reinforce the status quo and promote a social hierarchy.
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Those at the bottom of the social pecking order, in other words, were always equated with the lesser, undesirable parts of the body. While those at the top of the social order, well, they were always associated or equated with the more desirable parts.
The peasants, grunts, and day-laborers of the world were considered inferior because they had the task or role of being, say, the feet, while the political leaders, landowners, and mercantile folks were seen as being superior because they had the task of being the brain or the heart or some other important organ.
So back in Paul’s day the body analogy worked almost like a kind of caste system. While everybody had a part to play, some parts were clearly seen as more important than others. And the people who were equated with things like the brain and the heart, well, they were naturally considered to be of more value than those equated with lower parts of the body.
But that’s hardly what Paul does with his body analogy, is it? Instead, in an effort to stress the importance and value of the gifts and talents of all, Paul actually flips the order of things:
“On the contrary,” says Paul “the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect.”
So Paul’s way of using the body to talk about the church was actually pretty revolutionary. While everybody else was using the body metaphor to create and maintain a social pecking order, Paul was using it to actually stress the value and importance of all people and their respective roles in the church.
TWO: You see, here’s the funny thing. The very same common mindset about the body had apparently also infected the Corinthian congregation.
Yep, turns out there were some people in the Corinthian Church who thought themselves more important than others for a variety of reasons.
There were those, for example, who thought they were pretty special because of who had baptized them. “Well, the Apostle Paul baptized me,” a few liked to proudly claim. But for others, a fellow named Apollos was the one you wanted doing your baptism. “Being baptized by Paul is okay I suppose,” would come the reply, “but my baptismal certificate is actually signed by Apollos.”
And then were those who thought their spiritual gifts were more important and valuable than others. And as shocking as it might sound to sedate Presbyterians like us, speaking in tongues was apparently the spiritual gift to have. “Bless your heart, child. It’s sweet that you have the gift of prophecy, but we all know speaking in tongues is the one to really have.”
So the church in Corinth wasn’t the harmonious place we might romantically imagine gazing back at it through the pages of history. Turns out, it was a pretty divided and stratified group of people. And some people, well, they just considered themselves more important and valuable than others.
But Paul, well, he isn’t too keen on such talk, is he? While he affirms the body imagery that was customary for his day when it comes to the Corinthian congregation, he hardly thinks some parts should be seen as more valuable than others. United in Christ through baptism, the Corinthian congregation is now one body even though composed of various different parts and pieces.
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THREE: For Paul, though, it’s more than just our unity in Christ that matters.
While any church is certainly a body made up of many different parts all working together, and no one part is any more important than another, such an arrangement means our lives are also intimately intertwined and woven together.
There is, in other words, a communal nature to our life as well. Because of our unity in Christ, we also share in each other’s joys and trials, our triumphs and failings, and our victories and losses. Or as Paul puts it: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” Or to use a more modern adage, there is the daily recognition that “we’re all in this together.”
Many years ago the famous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote extensively about the nature of Christian community. Among other things, Bonhoeffer claimed that “Christ exists as community.” Meaning, when churches gather together to experience God’s grace through the Word, sacraments, and service, such places become the presence of Christ in the world.
For Bonhoeffer, no human ever exists as a solitary, isolated individual. Rather we always exist in relationship to, and in responsibility for, other people.
The famous playwright Tony Kushner has put it this way: “The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction.” For Kushner, like Bonhoeffer, none of us are ever solitary individuals. We live, instead, always enmeshed with others - even when we might try to deny such a reality.
And so for Bonhoeffer, at the core of Christianity is the question of how we respond to those relationships we find ourselves enmeshed. Do we respond with care, love, and concern? Or, do we respond with indifference, malice, and detachment.
FOUR: As many of you know, this past week it was our turn to serve as the cold night shelter for folks in our area that are currently unhoused.
And so each night this past week, right around 13 people would show up to sleep in the gym for the evening. It’s been a group effort with various people chipping in to provide help in all kinds of ways.
When I showed up Monday morning to touch base with Don Jones and Bethany Sterling, who had served as hosts for the night, I was touched by one particular story they shared concerning how the evening had gone.
First, a man arrived with health issues that prevented him from lying down flat on a cot. Well, Don Jones, who had brought his zero gravity chair to sleep in, told the man he could have his chair. (A zero gravity chair, if you're wondering, is kinda like a lazy boy, except it’s easily transportable. I actually use one myself to sleep in on the nights I am also serving as a host.)
But then at some point all the blankets we had got claimed leaving another man without any covers for the night. And so what did Don Jones do? Well, he gave the man his sleeping bag. And so that night Don Jones slept on one of those paper thin camping mattresses without a blanket on the kitchen floor off the gym!
Needless to say, when thinking about our passage from 1 Corinthians this week, that story came to mind more than once:
“On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect … 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.”
CONCLUSION: While it might seem strange to say it, sometimes I think the simplest acts can actually be the most revolutionary.
Gestures of kindness, concern, and compassion really can make a difference, I think. Especially in a world where acrimony and callousness and cruel indifference are, strangely, almost lauded and celebrated.
So who wants to be a revolutionary? Truth be told, it doesn’t take much. Just live with grace, and compassion, and concern, and you’ll be well on your way.
And now to the ruler of all worlds, undying, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.