“The Need for Every Part”

Third Sunday after Epiphany

Sunday, January 24, 2010

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

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a

Last year, we had car trouble during our summer vacation.

At first, it was a slightly strange noise emanating from the engine; then the car started to act rather temperamentally when we tried to start it.  As we were on a camping trip in one of the campgrounds in Algonquin Park at the time, we hoped against hope that the trouble that we were starting to notice when we would drive to one of the hiking trails with the kids would either just go away, or that whatever was causing the problem would wait to completely reveal itself until we had gotten safely home to our regular mechanic in Toronto at the end of our vacation.

Unfortunately, those hopes went unrealized.  The car began to make even more solemn protests against its continued use.  And then one day when I had driven into a little town called Whitney, just outside of the park in order to pick up some groceries while Karen and the kids were back at the campground with a friend who had come, with his kids, to camp with us for a few days, the engine made its final desperate plea for attention, and would go no further. I was stranded in Whitney with a car that would not move.

At the best of times, having car trouble is a bit of a problem.  When one is midway through a camping trip, the problems seem to be exponentially greater.  We were fortunate in the fact that our friend was able to drive to town and to pick me up after I  got in touch with them through a call to the park wardens.  But we were then confronted with the rather daunting problem of figuring how to get major repair work done on the car without having to have it towed all the way back to our regular mechanic in Toronto.  When all was said and done, the solution to this dilemma involved having the car towed from Whitney to another town – close to two hours away – called Killaloo – where we then had to make arrangements to drive to pick it up a few days later.  Two hours of driving each way, and hundreds of dollars beyond the holiday budget later, the car was fixed and we were able to drive again.

All of these problems had developed because one little part of the engine stopped working as it was supposed to do.  It was nothing so grand or obvious as a tire, or the steering wheel or the battery; rather, it was a small part inside the engine that required the mechanic to lift the entire engine out of the car in order to get at it.  The entire movement and purpose of our car had been hampered and undermined because that one little part needed to get fixed. 

So what does all of this have to do with faith and with today’s biblical readings?

The Church is not unlike that car. 

We have many ways of understanding and describing the Church.  Some see it primarily as an institution.  I, for one, am not offended by the fact that the Church has institutional dimensions to its life; an institutional structure is an inevitable eventuality in any form of human organization that has a great and noble goal towards which it is striving.  Moreover, anyone who immediately reacts against, or has problems with what is sometimes demeaningly dismissed as ‘organized religion’ should remember that disorganized religion is not a particularly effective way to get anything done.  All that an organized religion is, really, is a group of people with shared spiritual commitments, who gather together for the sake of creating a more effective and less self-centered, self-indulgent and narcissistic spirituality.

But when organized religion becomes paralyzed by a rigidity dictated by arid dogmas, by overly ritualized disciplines, and by narrowly defined fundamentals about which there can be no debate or discussion, rather than animated by the spirit of life, it is good for us to take a good look at who we are, what we have become, what we were meant to be, and what parts need attention so that we might start moving again.

This dynamic nature of the church reminds us that the Church of Jesus Christ, although most often perceived in its most institutional and organized dimensions, is – and always has been -- meant to be a movement.  It is meant to be a movement of people who come together -- beyond all boundaries and categories of age, culture, language, gender, orientation, ethnicity, economic status, educational background – with the common goal of continuing the work, the mission and the ministry of Jesus Christ.  It is meant to be a movement that confronts the horrors, the hatred, the brutality, the apathy, the violence and the injustices of this world, and seeks to continue to drive the wedge of God’s holy love into the history of this beautiful but broken world. 

But like our car, last summer, the dynamism and potential of this great movement that is the Church of Jesus Christ can be slowed, stifled, even stopped, if all of the parts are not working correctly.  This great movement is undermined when we, who are a part of this monumental historical movement, do not remember that our true potential and purpose can only be achieved when every part of the movement is honoured, cherished, encouraged and given the opportunity to do what it needs to do for the common good of all.

And, although this might seem completely obvious, it is a lesson that needs to be learned, and re-learned, in every generation.  When we fail to honour the significant role that all of the parts of this movement that is the Church should be playing, we undercut the movement itself, and fail to achieve the potential that is set before us – which is nothing less than God’s dream for a community of people in this world whose very existence is a transforming blessing to this world that God so dearly loves.  The Church is not meant to be a holy huddle of people cowering behind old stone walls and sheltering themselves from the seemingly degenerate and depraved ways of a lost world; to the contrary, the Church is meant to be a people whose presence brings light into darkness, joy into sorrow, hope into despair, a bit of yeast into the mix so that the whole world can rise to new heights of goodness, kindness, peace, justice and compassion.  The salvation that we celebrate in Jesus Christ is not meant to lead us to view ourselves as saved from the world; we should try to view ourselves as saved for the sake of a world that God is the process of saving.  

My good friend Stuart Coles, who has been worshipping with us for the last few months, is a remarkable man and a tremendous theologian.  But he is also a man with a passion to free the church from its indifference and its stultifying paralysis to an overly inward looking perspective and preoccupation with itself.  And one of his great and passionate protests is against what he often refers to as the ‘clergification’ of the church, in which the focus of the church’s ministry becomes fixated on what the clergy are doing, rather than realizing that a greater focus should be placed on how the non-clergy are being equipped and encouraged to fulfill their ministries in the world.  Stuart often reminds us that the famous text from John 3: 16 stated that God so loved the world – and not just the church – and that God sent the Spirit on all believers, and not just on a select few, so that the redeeming work of Christ could be unleashed in the world.   

And Stuart is not alone in that view; nor is he the first to articulate it.  It was this desire to free the Church from its focus on the clergy that led the great reformers to emphasize the priesthood of all believers and the need for every person – and not just clergy – to discern their calling, from God, in whatever form of life and work that God’s call led a person to undertake.  Those who were called to be teachers were called to teach to the glory of God; those who were called to be accountants were called to do their work to the glory of God; those who were called to be stay-at-home parents and caregivers were called to undertake their work with the same faithful enthusiasm and passionate obedience as was to be found in the most disciplined monk or nun.  The call of God was not just extended to clergy; the glory of God was meant to be revealed in this world; and the only way for that glory to be revealed in its fullness, and the only way for the movement that was the church to achieve that potential, was for every part to do what God had designed and called it to do.  

And, lest one think that this idea was original to Stuart Coles, or to the reformers, it is important for us to remember and to realize that this same idea has been at the heart of the Christian movement from its very earliest days.  Our reading from 1 Corinthians 12 uses the image of a body to illustrate this idea that every part has an important role to play, and every part must be honoured.  In verse 12, we read, “for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”  After discussing the many different parts in a body, each of which had to function for the body to be whole and effective, the apostle reiterates the point in verse 27 -- “now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.”

Scholars remind us that Paul’s letters actually pre-date the authorship of the Gospels – which mean that these words about the Church being a body made up of many parts, all of which need to work together, was a part of the Christian tradition even before the texts that we know about Jesus’ life.  In those early years, as the stories of Jesus were swirling about in a host of written and oral forms, these words about the Jesus movement being compared to a body with many parts were being written down and circulated among those early spiritual communities.  From its earliest incarnation, this great global community that is the Church of Jesus Christ has understood itself to be a dynamic, moving organism – a living body -- that can only accomplish the great goal that God has called us to accomplish when we take the time to discern how all of the parts work together, and when we are intentional about finding ways for all of the parts of the Body to what they are called to do. 

And it is only when all of the parts are working together, for the common good, that we will fulfill our common calling to model the kingdom of God in this world, to be the ambassadors of God’s reconciling love, to declare the great good news of Christ’s triumph over sin and death and hell, to be a community animated by God’s Holy Spirit, and to love God with all that is within us, even as we love our neighbours and our enemies as we love ourselves. 

Of course, we do not always achieve that great goal.  Even the early Christian communities to which these words were written did not have it ‘all together.’  To the contrary, one of the reasons why Paul used this image of the body to discuss the ways that the Christian movement was supposed to function was precisely because the church in Corinth was not working together very well.  Today’s passage, which is found at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, lies directly before Paul’s famous reminder of what love was supposed to be like, in 1 Corinthians 13.  After encouraging his readers, as we find in the final words of today’s reading, to “strive for the greater gifts”, Paul then describes what the greatest of all possible human qualities actually is.  “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”.  The controversies, competitions and contentions for who should be afforded the greatest amounts of power and authority, in the Corinthian community, served as the context in which Paul articulated his famous words about love.  Paul’s message is clear and it is as relevant today as it was so long ago – that is, what binds the one body together, what motivates our common life, and what we are all called to strive towards, regardless of the unique gifts and abilities that each one of us have been given, is love.

The challenge that that lies before us, in every age, is to find ways to use the gifts that we have; to find ways to honour the abilities that others have; to work together to use those gifts for common purposes in the ministry of the Church; and to strive to do so in order to accomplish God’s great dream for the Church, and for the world – that all of creation might be bound together in the everlasting love of God. 

This is the calling of the Church; this is the work of the One Body; and if this great dream is to be achieved, there is a need for every part. 

Even you and me.