Wednesday 23 January 2019

Sermon 27th January 2019 – 3rd Sunday after Epiphany - Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a – Every member needed


Sermon 27th November 2019
Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a – Every member needed

The human body is an intricate and complex creation by God.
It is capable of feelings – emotions –pain.
It has things about it that science can’t explain and nothing in the non-human creation has.
It has a conscience – it has a soul.
The human body was the only part of creation that was created in the Image of God.
And because the human body is so complex so too is the life experience of humans.
Animals don’t have money problems.
Animals don’t have employment problems.
Animals don’t have relationship problems.
As Jesus once said: Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one inch to your height? “So why do you worry?
Animals feel pain and certain emotions but not to the extent of human beings.
Last week I accidentally stood on my dog’s foot.
He let out a yelp and I turned around and gave him a pat and said sorry and his tail was wagging again.
No resentment – no feeling of needing to hurt me back.
Human beings have a different sense of natural justice – if someone hurts you then you hurt them back.
As a result, human beings are much more complex in their relationships.
St Paul, when describing the body of Christ, the church, uses the complexity of the human body as an analogy.
He says: 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.
Just like the human body, the body of Christ, the church, shares the same complexity.
The church has feelings.
The church has emotions.
The church suffers pain.
Sadly, too, the church feels a need for natural justice that when attacked it defends – when hurt it retaliates.
It often forgets Jesus’ call to “turn the other cheek”.
And just like a human body needs healing when it goes through suffering so too the church, Christ’s body, needs healing when it goes through a time of suffering.
If you’re hurting, you don’t just ignore it or go away and do nothing – you seek ways to heal it.
So too, when the church is hurting, the church needs to deal with the sickness and seek healing
At Synod last year South Australian and Northern Territory Bishop David Altus reminded us that our church is hurting.
And like a body that is hurting it needs healing.
The problem we have is that when our bodies are hurting we tend to deal with the symptoms rather than the underlying problem.
We have an itch, so we scratch it but that can make the problem worse.
Like a child who has a cold sore and licks it constantly for soothing even though it makes the sore worse.
 We have a cough, so we’ll take a cough drop of cough medicine rather than finding out from the doctor what is causing the cough.
But, as we often hear in advertising, if the problem persists seek medical attention.
As a church, the body of Christ, we have tended to deal with the symptoms and the problem has gotten worse and sadly to the point where many believe that amputation of that body part is the only solution.
But Paul highlights how EVERY part of the body is essential:
If the foot would say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
Likewise if the church was just made up of people who had the same view on issues we would never be challenged to grow in our thinking.
If a body part leaves or is cut off, then the body is incomplete.
As Paul says - If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.
In fact Paul says that those delicate parts of the body require much more care.
One of my members in my first parish sadly had to have his leg amputated because of an infection.
And he shared with me that the pain is worse even though the infected leg was no longer there.
He experienced what are called phantom pains and they are worse because the pain does not go away for the body and now there is no body part to scratch or rub.
What this tells us is that the body of Christ hurts even more when a part of the body is not there.
And we know that by our friends and family that are not with us.
We can take them off the membership list but that does not bring healing but a more difficult pain.
The human body is a complex creation by God and so is the body of Christ, the church.
Our human bodies need care and so does the church
The human body needs love and companionship and so does the church.
The human body needs food and water and so does the church which God provides through the sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism.
And just like our human bodies need regular check-ups to see where our bodies are needing attention so too the church needs regular check-ups to see where it needs to focus its attention.
In our Old Testament reading Ezra read God’s Word to the people to bring them healing from God.
They had gone astray – they were following other gods and idols; they were neglecting the poor.
And as they heard again the Word of God they realised where they had gone astray.
We go astray at times ever so slightly to begin with that we don’t realise how far we have strayed from God.
Luther called this the need for the 2nd use of the Law.
In case you’ve forgotten your Confirmation lesson, Luther says that the Law acts in 3 ways:
As a Curb to keep us on the straight and narrow – so society has law and order.
Secondly as a mirror so when we think that our lives are going okay the Word of God convicts us and reminds us that we have strayed and need Jesus to forgive us.
And Thirdly as a signpost to show us how we can live a God pleasing life knowing that Jesus has saved us.
But it’s that mirror that we need to find – to hear God’s Word to remind us that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
God’s word is not to bring judgment when it convicts us but to drive us to Christ and the healing Gospel.
And if we don’t deal with it then it’s not just our lives we are affecting but the life of the entire body of Christ.
It’s not very comfortable looking in the mirror at times seeing our imperfections – our wrinkles and grey hair our blemishes from ageing.
And the closer we bring that mirror to our face the more we see the imperfections.
So too as the people heard Ezra reading God’s Law it says - all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.
But the intention of God’s word – God’s law – is not to hurt but to heal.
Ezra says to the weeping people - Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Sometimes it hurts to be reminded of our condition before God.
Just like a surgeon’s scalpel that sometimes has to cut deep in order to heal, so too God’s word is likened to a double edged sword that cuts in order to heal so we can hear the sweet sound of the Gospel.
God’s word brings us comfort but sometimes it first needs to remove the unhealthy parts that have made their way in.
This is different to amputation which removes a body’s member – but the foreign part that does not beong.
Jesus did not come to condemn the world but to save it as he preaches today to his people:
"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 favour.
And that’s what Jesus now proclaims to you – the year of the Lord’s favour as today this scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing
So go – eat and drink from the grace God has given to you but share with the body of Christ – those missing out from the grace and healing that God’s word brings.


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