January 24, 2010
The Third Sunday after The Epiphany (Year C)
Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6.8-10; Psalm 19; I Corinthians 12:12-31a;
Luke: 4:14-21
Yesterday I had my third yoga lesson. To say that I am not very good at yoga and that I need to stretch my muscles is a very big understatement. It is stunning to me what other people can do with their bodies, especially our instructor. But it is also amazing to me that I can actually stretch these old muscles, feel parts of my body, and be in tune with it in ways I never have before, and most of all to remember, or probably more accurately, to learn the power of breath – breathing deeply and deliberately to help my muscles do what God intended them to do.
All this yoga has given me a different kind of awareness of my body. So the passage this morning from Corinthians, about the body of Christ, has likewise taken on new meaning. Of course I have heard this passage for years, even preached on it, thought about it, heard people expound on it, so what I say this morning will probably not be new, but it is said with a different kind of awareness of the “body.” And I invite you into that awareness also.
Paul is talking to a group of disgruntled folks in Corinth. They are at war with one another over many things, and they are living in a world that is divided between rich and poor, masters and servants, not willing servants rather servants almost to the point of being slaves, for there is no way to change their station.
Paul wants the people of Corinth to see each other as God sees them, not as individuals who need to extol and brag of their greatness – and who probably believe it! nor as ones who bemoan their frustrating station in life and think they probably deserve it. But he wants to level the playing field, so that neither is above the other, that the meek do not continue to feel valueless and the mighty stop believing they have somehow created their own good fortunes. He wants that playing field leveled as he believes God has done in Jesus Christ.
With this new awareness of my body I have thought more about the parts of my body that I could live without. And yet I don’t really want to try to live without any of them – except a few more pounds of flesh perhaps! I have had the painful experience of watching others having to give up the use of some of their body parts. I think of one specifically, my mother. She was once this active spit fire of a woman who is now crippled by arthritis, and walks slowly and often with the help of a walker. At one time I might have thought her feet a lesser body part, but now I see that a body needs all its parts in working order and working together, otherwise the whole is far more incapacitated than one would think just loosing a small part.
Paul wanted that to be clear to the Corinthians. Every single person was necessary to the community, and all were equal in the eyes of God. True, each body part has a different function. It is hard for a foot to digest food after all. But when the feet cannot carry the body to the place where food is, the stomach cannot digest anything! A body is an intricate interconnection of parts so amazing and varied that I cannot even begin to imagine the creativity of God when I behold the wonder of it.
The truth is, Paul would tell us, and I think rightly, so is the body of Christ. We, as members of it, are as complex and interconnected and necessary as a foot is to a stomach. Even though the connection may not be immediately apparent, it will be eventually! While doing yoga I have felt those connections of one body part to another in ways I have not expected. Yesterday when we were working to stretch our legs, I felt it in my left armpit, in the scars left behind from when I had breast cancer surgery ten years ago. The connection of leg to arm pit would not have been apparent to me had I not felt it so acutely!
I think that interconnectedness is true of all Christian communities too, and certainly of this parish. We all feel it when the youth come into church together, even though we may not have any relative in the class or even know the names of the kids who are there. We feel it when someone is sick or when someone looses a loved one. I have been very grateful for the beautiful cards and notes that people have sent to me sympathizing with me over the death of my brother. I know how much the prayer shawls mean to people who receive them! I was delighted to see one even on the bed of a young woman who is only loosely connected to this parish and to hear how much it meant to her. Like a leg to an armpit we are connected to one another, and Paul wanted to make that clear to the bickering Corinthians. He didn’t much care who was right and who was wrong. He just cared for them all, as God cares for them all. And what Paul was trying to do was to get the warring factions to see each other as God did, as Paul did.
Now, of course, I am not so naive as to think the body metaphor is the only one that could describe a community such as Corinth, or a community such as ours, either. There have been many others, but I like using an organic metaphor like the body. I like it because bodies grow and change and can be stretched and strengthened. I like it because it allows for parts to regenerate and even for fingernails to be clipped! It also recognizes that parts can be hurt and the whole body can suffer. And it also realizes that the whole body can heal and bring healing to the parts that are hurting, with a little stretch, a bit more pain and the willingness to, as Paul so aptly points out, trust the power of the Holy Spirit.
Trusting the power of the Holy Spirit is something like stretching a muscle that doesn’t get used too often – for most of us anyway. It means that we have to push a little harder to find the “edge” of our comfort zone, letting go of the resistance, holding it there until we are not aware of ourselves but of the Spirit taking hold and bringing us to a new place, stretched into places we have not gone before. And once we have gone to the new place, we don’t want to go back. We want to go forward even more.
That is the way of the Spirit of course! And the way of yoga too!
I have to say that neither is easy. But all good work with the body is not easy, any kind of body, be it bodies who swim or run marathons, bodies who exercise or try yoga, or bodies of faith who let go and trust more in God’s ways and the working of the Spirit than in the ways of the world.
We are the body of Christ. We are all necessary, loved parts of the body. And we are accountable to one another.
One of the other things our yoga instructor has stressed is that we must balance our bodies. If you stretch one side, then the other side must be likewise stretched. I would say that is true of all bodies, that each part needs to be given the opportunity to grow and stretch.
We are the body of Christ; we are loved by God, all of us. We need to stretch – all of us! We need to trust the Spirit more and our own devices less – all of us! That is the human condition for human psyches encased in human bodies! But most of all, as Paul urges, we need to value every member of the body equally, and placing none in esteem too high, or too low.
Stretch!
Amen.
The Reverend Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd