Church is a funny thing. I don’t mean funny, ha-ha, funny. Although, often it is that, because we’re human and humans are hilarious. Church is kind of peculiar, kind of wonderful, kind of a mystery.
I know a lot of people have a lot of issues with church. I know that a lot of people don’t do a very good job of separating what the church is called to be, compared to how it has often failed to be what it is called to be.
As a result people like me who believe in it deeply have to spend a fair amount of time explaining that its faults, especially its dodgy history, are not what define it, anymore than our faults as humans can define us.
I’ve got to tell you, I love the church. My personal experience of church has been that it is a beautiful thing. Like some people, when I came to know Jesus, I really had no idea about the church.
That’s because my parents didn’t go to church and never talked about church. Neither did any of my friends growing up.
So as I was starting to explore Christian faith I had only a vague idea that it was people who went to church who were the ones demonstrating to me a whole different way of life, a whole different way to understand the reason for living.
They were showing me Jesus, and somehow they also liked this thing called church.
So at first it was just Jesus and me. And, to be honest, if the church hadn’t existed I would have, been ok with that. Jesus loved me and died for me. He wanted to know me and cared that I know Him. That, I thought, was good enough for me.
Pretty quickly though, I realized that the random assortment of Christians that I knew liked to talk about getting together for church. So, curious about it all, I started to go to church with them.
I found it incredible that all over the city, and eventually as I learned all over the world, There were these people who, in a great many ways, we’re family to me.
People who were complete strangers to me, if they knew Jesus as their Lord and Savior, were actually my brothers and sisters. What now?
So...today we’re going to take a look at the what the church is called to be. Right before this passage, Paul has been talking about spiritual gifts.
Perhaps knowing that people might be inclined to use their gifts outside the context of the church and without accountability to the body of Christ, Paul writes the following:
The Body of Christ
1 Corinthians 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
So much of Christian theology is practical. That’s why I love it. It can be understood, in many cases, by being compared to things we can easily wrap our heads around.
The Apostle Paul’s theology of the church as expressed here takes something as big and diverse and mystical as the church and explains to us that it is just like that thing your brain is sitting in right now, your body.
To be fair, Paul sometimes refers to the body of Christ as Jesus’ own body, sacrificed for us at Calvary and remembered in the bread and cup of communion, or the Eucharist. But here he is talking about you. And me. Together in the Body of Christ, the church.
Our Theresa quoted another Theresa, Teresa of Avila, in our course on prayer this week. Teresa of Avila wrote this:
"Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world
Yours are the hands, Yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, You are His body"
Bible commentator William Barclay pointed out that long ago, Plato had drawn a famous picture in which he had said that "the head was the Citadel or fortress; the neck, the isthmus, or the narrow connector between the head and the body; the heart, the fountain of the body; the pores, the lanes of the body; the veins, the canals of the body".
Paul, knowing that the Christians in Corinth were heavily influence by the thinking of Plato, spoke in terms they could relate to and that have for all time been quite helpful - he spoke of the Body of Christ.
Plato had pointed out that "we do not say, "my finger has a pain," we say, "I have a pain." There is an I, a personality, which gives unity to the many parts of the body. What the eye is to the body, Christ is to the church. It is in him all the diverse parts find the unity."
Paul talks in this passage about one Body and one Spirit. It matters to God that we understand ourselves as the church to be one thing, one whole. A thing that is one thing has one purpose.
What is the purpose of your home?
To house you and all that entails. What is the purpose of a car? To get you from here to there. What is the purpose of a musical instrument? To make music.
Confusion enters when a thing that’s intended for one purpose gets used for something else. So the Body of Christ is one thing. What is true for the church is true for us as individuals. When we’re clear on our identity, we can be clear on our purpose.
When we’re clear on our purpose, we are clear on what we should be about doing.
Clarity of identity leads to clarity of purpose leads to clarity of action.
If we did not know who we were as a church, we would be scrambling at doing anything and everything. We wouldn’t know what was the right thing to be doing.
We would probably be doing everything, spreading our resources so thin that we would be completely ineffective. But we know our identity.
Our Identity is in Christ. So we honor him, glorify him, Fulfilling his mission on this planet to make disciples and to demonstrate the loving kindness of God. That’s our identity. That’s our purpose. That’s what we seek to Di with all our hearts.
Paul suggests in this passage also that our unity comes from the fact that we were all baptized by one Spirit, the Holy Spirit, into the one body, regardless of where we came from.
Look around in this room. We come from all over the world. We come from most every walk of life. And at this church over the years we’ve baptised many, many people - all of them by the same Spirit and in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In May or June of this year more will be baptized, as many as come to Christ and want to be baptized into the one body of Christ.
14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
Think of our band here. If I was not satisfied to play piano and the other instruments I play, and instead insisted on playing drums, which I do not play, what would happen?
If Barbara wasn’t content to be herself on the team and sing as she does, but insisted on playing the bass, which she does not play, what would happen?
If Denis who plays bass insisted on playing bass parts on the kazoo, what would happen? It would be a little wierd. It would be the funkiest kazoo anybody ever played, but there would be no amazing rhythm, no bottom end to the band’s sound.
No. The band works because we all do our part, play the instruments that we have been gifted to play, have the common goal of wanting to glorify God in worship, we spend the time together to practice and connect that we need to. So it is with every other aspect of church family life.
18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don’t need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don’t need you!"22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
As I’ve said before, Paul most often writes in response to challenges that were faced by churches that he planted, either directly or through others who he prepared to go on the mission field. And it’s clear too that way back then, as can be the case now, people in church can behave a bit oddly at times.
They might have felt left out, felt under-appreciated, felt that their contributions were not as important as others, or in some cases that they were superior to others because they had a more visible role, or a role that received more accolades.
Paul, as usual, flips these ideas on their heads, but not after making a critical point: God has made us, and arranged us within the church, just as He wants it to be.
We serve as we serve because it’s what God wants. Then Paul points out that we give more honour to what we would perhaps normally think of as less vital.
I like the way the Message paraphrase of Scripture puts this section:
What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
Here Paul starts looking ahead to the next chapter, the love chapter. 1 Corinthians 13 is about how the greatest thing on the planet, better than faith, better than hope, better than anything, is love. He spends the whole chapter saying that.
Here Paul points out an important thing. Since we’re a body, we are connected. If one part is hurting, all the other parts suffer with it. Likewise if one part is doing great, we can all rejoice.
I recall the two times when our son Jared was sick in hospital.
Once when he was 6 and dealthly ill, and another time at 15 when he was sick and we were told that we had lupus.
This was very serious stuff. And both times, both the church and the mission were remarkable in their concern, in the practical help they offered and in the love demonstrated to Jared and to us as his family. So I’ve felt this at work, this deep connection between yourselves and me.
It may because of that in part, that I still so firmly believe in the church, even though we are so far from perfect, even though we may let God down and we may let each other down at times.
That’s less important to me than the times we honour God and the times we come through for each other. Those are our true colours.
Now I know that everyone’s experience of church is different. I know that, for sure, some have been quite wounded by either Christians or by the church as a whole.
We’ve had people who began to be involved here, even many years ago, who came to us pretty cautious and suspicious simply because their previous experiences at church were hurtful.
But Generally, people I think have found this church to be fairly unique in a bunch of different ways. Some people, for example, have experienced church life elsewhere as very judgmental, very harsh and unforgiving.
They come here and they find that among those who are truly a part of this church, there isn’t a whole lot of judgement going on. I’ve said a bunch of times that we’re just not a judging church. We have had people come here, or visit here, who are convinced that the only way Christians will grow is if they are critiqued and judged and corrected all the time.
And then of course they presume themselves to be the judges. You know what I do when I learn that this is going on?
I sit down with the person and I tell them that they are welcome here if they’re going to be loving and accepting, and if they are going to look at themselves way before they criticize others.
But if they feel that church is about judgement, that church is about that school of thought, then they don’t belong here. It’s blunt, but it helps to keep us as God has called us to be - an accepting and loving community on a journey, following Jesus.
Some people say church is boring. My experience is the church is one of the most engaging, interesting, and exciting places to be. But I was always a lousy pew sitter. I could only sit for so long and not get involved.
Church wasn’t boring to me; not being involved and active was the boring part. I was the problem. So I had to get engaged, early on. So I came in early and put out the Bibles, the chairs. I’d cook for the men’s breakfasts.
I’d come and shovel the snow. I’d be a greeter. I got involved how I could in any way, serving the congregation as a way of serving the Lord. And eventually I got involved as much as I could musically.
The last thing the church is to me is boring.
Some people say the church just wants your money, and is not interested in you. If you’ve come here much, you might’ve scratched your head, and asked why don’t we never talk about money.
Why our offering is so low key. Well, we find that by just encouraging people to give as God has prospered them, people give generously enough to cover our program expenses.
But the main thing is that we’re interested in you. We’re interested in all of us growing together as the local body of Christ in this community. Is it important to give?
Yes! Is it important to tithe, to give God 1/10th of our income? Yes. It’s important because that’s part of what it means to be a disciple, to give God the firstfruits of our lives.
But it’s just as important that we each be who God has called us to be in the body of Christ.
That’s why reasons why we run our annual network course. It’s coming up soon actually, the first weekend in March.
In the network course, you can discover your spiritual gifts, your personal style and your ministry passion. We do this course because we know it helps people to learn how it is that God has made them.
We do this course because we want everyone who attends his church to be who God has called you to be, and serving as God has called you to serve.
This week I was in my car going home, turning left off of Parliament Street onto Gerrard, and what do I see: Gary Oliver, giving a Bible to a man.
At any given point in time, if you’re out and about in this community, there’s a good chance you’ll see Gary and Rob talking to people, total strangers in fact a lot of the time, and then handing them a Bible.
Why? It’s who they are. They know the Word of God. They love the Word of God. They know it points the way to salvation in Christ and that it is the key to transformation in every person’s life.
So with joy they engage in conversation with people, and those talks often end in them giving a gift - the best gift, really, that they could give.
People of church at the mission: we are the body of Christ. We were baptized by one spirit, into the name of the father, the son, and Holy Spirit.
God wants us to be one. As a church, the one purpose, one in focus, one in like-minded love toward each other.
It’s incredible honor to be part of the body of Christ. Christ is our head. Others of us are other parts of the body. It doesn’t matter what part of the body we are.
It is just, truly, an incredible honor to be part of the body of Christ in this place, in this year of 2013, serving Christ in this community.
May we each claim our identity in Christ. May we each fill our purpose in Christ. May God be glorified, and Jesus Christ exalted as we move forward together as one body.
Let’s end with this prayer by St. Teresa, and let’s read it was a collective "our":
Prayer of St. Theresa
"Christ has no body now but ours
No hands, no feet on earth but ours
Ours are the eyes through which he looks
with compassion on this world
Ours are the feet with which
He walks to do good
Ours are the hands with which
He blesses all the world
Ours are the hands
Ours are the feet
Ours are the eyes
We are His body".
Amen.
