Bonnie Brechill tells a story about her 5 year old daughter Crystal, who recently met an Amish girl her age. Within minutes they were off, hand-in-hand, to play. “I caught glimpses of them chattering and giggling,” Bonnie says. “Even though Sylvia, the Amish girl, spoke a Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, she and Crystal got along well.
Later I asked Crystal, ‘Could you understand anything Sylvia said to you?’
‘No,’ she replied.
‘But you played so nicely together. How?’
‘Oh, Mommy. We understood each other’s giggles.’”
These two little girls had communicated with each other with nonverbal communication.
Body language. Its the way we communicate who we are and what we are about without using words. You know, sometimes we can profess with our mouths something about us and profess with our body language a completely opposite or different message, can’t we?
Body language.
Paul wrote in this letter to Christians in Corinth about the body of Christ and their body language.
What does Paul have to say about body language, particularly as it relates to the Christian body? Well, first lets look at who were these people Paul wrote to.
Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth because of divisiveness and lack of compassion of the Corinthian Christians toward one another.
Corinth was a commercial and religious hub. And by that I mean there was great wealth and commerce coming through that region, and there was a great diversity religiously and culturally speaking.
Corinth was a hopping place. I guess you could say that Corinth was one of the “in” places to be.
Corinth was known for its superficially cultural life, for being a place of fads where the new “in” thing was happening. For some, perhaps, being Christian was in some ways the cultural “in” thing to do.
Corinth had a reputation for its wealth and culture. It reminds me of the reputation of New York’s Greenwich Village Beatnik population of the 60’s & 70’s. It was the new popular place to be.
Corinth was known as “Sin City.” It reminds me of the reputation of Hollywood, California, when the stereotypic young adult tries to break into the entertainment business and becomes a victim of those who prey on them.
Corinth was full of decadence and those who took advantage of others, made gains at the expense of others.
Corinth had a very visible well-to-do section, and a much less known preponderance of poor people. This, my friends, reminds me of Conway. We look around and see “Mayberry.” A well-to-do, powerful contingent has gone to a lot of effort to promote the best that Conway has to offer and has been very good hiding most of the skeletons in our city’s closets. We don’t see a lot of the other side of Conway visibly, but its there.
Corinth was much the same way.
The wealth and cultural aspects of this community was its forefront -what was “advertised” the most - what Corinth was known for.
All this great diversity of wealth and culture came together in the Corinthian church. In many respects the Corinthian Christians had great difficulty filtering out their social and economic diversity to come together as a group of believers in Christ.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth because of their divisiveness and lack of compassion for one another, and he used the metaphoric language of the body to tell them first of all, we are one. And the way we become one is through baptism.
“Christ is like a single body, which has many parts.
It is still one body, even though it is made up of different parts.
In the same way, all of us... have been baptized into the one body.”
Each of us has something different to offer in the marvelous and diverse way God has created us and we each have a different role to play as a part of the family of God...but its interesting that Paul brings up our baptism to signify our unification into the body of Christ.
Baptism is a gift freely given to us by God, but when we receive it, we are saying something about ourselves. To play on the metaphor that Paul has chosen, baptism becomes for us, a form of body language.
Here at Grace, when we are baptized, we answer, “Yes.” to the following questions. Listen while I ask these questions. Maybe even close your eyes. Whether you have actually been baptized or not, see if you can affirm these questions. See if you can say, “Yes,” in your heart:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
Do accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
Do you confess Jesus Chrsit as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord,
in union with the church?
Will you nuture children in Christ’s holy church that by your teaching and example they may be guided to accept God’s grace for themselves, profess their faith openly, and lead a Christian life?
Will you serve as Christ’s representatives to the world?
Will you nuture one another in the Christian faith?
Do you profess the Christian faith as contained in the Bible?
Do you believe in God the Father?
Do you believe in Jesus Christ?
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?
Is it your desire to be a baptized member of the Christian faith?
Will you faithfully participate in the ministries of this congregation by your prayers, presence, gifts, & service?
When we answer, “yes” to these questions, we become a part of this church, but more importantly, we become a part of the body of Christ. And when we take those vow -when we go through the physical act of baptism, we are, in effect, saying something about who we are.
Adam Hamilton has something interesting to say about becoming a part of the church. Listen to what he says:
“We tell our prospective members that membership is not required in order to participate in the life of the church. We make clear, up front, that unlike the American Express Card, membership in our church has no privileges, only expectations. We promise to visit them in the hospital whether they are members or visitors. We will do their weddings and their funerals whether they are members or visitors.
We tell them that membership comes only with responsibilities and expectations. If they join they are no longer able to park in the visitor parking. They will receive stewardship mailings in the fall. We will call them from time to time to ask for their help.
Membership, like marriage, is a sign of commitment. Often people live together today before marrying, where they seem to have most of the benefits of marriage. Why do they marry, then? Because the heart longs to express meaningful commitment.
Membership is a commitment in which one expresses, “This is my church, I feel responsible for her. I am committed to her mission, vision, and ministry. I want to serve God here as I grow in my faith.”
“This is MY church.”
Now as we ponder these thoughts, let me ask each of us a couple of questions.
What is Grace Church to each of us? What do we perceive as each of our places within the body of this congregation?
What is your Christian faith to you and to me? What does it mean to be a part of the body of Christ? What do those vows we take at our baptism mean?
Is Adam Hamilton right? When we become a part of the Christian body through the profession of our faith and through baptism, is our membership a profession of our commitment rather than the expectation of privileges?
Paul writes that we are all one body, a cohesive group coming together to form the body of Christ.
Now I don’t see a lot of divisiveness in this portion of the body of Christ called Grace Church. I don’t think Paul’s words speak to us about the need for us to get along and come together.
But I do think Paul’s words do lead us to consider some very important questions about ourselves.
As the body of Christ, what is our body language to be? How do we nonverbally communicate who we are and what we are about?
Paul shares with us about being a part of the body of Christ.
Some of us are feet and some of us are hands. Some of us are eyes and some of us are ears. In other words, we all have different gifts and God calls each of us differently to do a different task in the body of Christ.
Some of us are called to prepare coffee and some of us are called to stuff worship bulletins. Some of us are called to be greeters and some of us are called to lead small groups. Some of us are called to pull weeds in the flower beds and some of us are called to sing. Some of us are called to ring bells for the Salvation Army at Christmas time and some of us are called to prepare a meal for Bethlehem House.
We all have gifts that come from God and each gift is a necessity for the body to function properly.
Paul says the ear can’t say to the eye, “I don’t need you!” Because the ear can’t see. And the eye can’t say to the ear, “I don’t need you!” Because the eye can’t hear.
This strikes me more of the problem happening in the Corinthian church - there were some cliches that were doing some “lone ranger” thinking in that community.
As I said, I don’t see that sort of problem much here.
I think we’re much more inclined to think just the opposite.
Paul says the hand can’t say, “I don’t belong to the body. They don’t need me.” Because then the body isn’t whole. The foot can’t say “I don’t belong to the body. They don’t need me.” Because then the body is incomplete. Ever seen someone whose foot is missing? Ever seen someone whose hand isn’t working?
Each one of us has a role to play, or the body doesn’t function properly. Its like Adam Hamilton said. Its not a privilege to belong to the body, its a commitment we make to what we believe.
What Paul is calling the Christian people of Corinth to do is to be what they already are. Paul is exhorting the Corinthians to act as the Christians they profess to be.
To express their Christian - body - language.
Tonight we are looking at cultivating the holy habit of hands-on service in our lives. We are asking ourselves, “If I am a Christian, what would the Lord have me do with my hands and feet? How would God have me act out my Christian faith?
If through my membership vows, I am making a commitment to my faith, how then do I express myself through my Christian - body - language?”
It is through our service to one another and to the world that we communicate nonverbally that we are Christians.
Next week when we come to worship there will be a commitment card for each of us to indicate the answers we have discovered to these questions.
If I am a Christian, what would the Lord have me do with my hands and feet? How would God have me act out my Christian faith? How then do I express myself through my Christian - body - language?
I invite you to join me in conversation with God this week, asking the Lord how he would have each of us answer these questions when we make our commitment next week.
How will we communicate to each other and to the world our Christian faith?
In Jesus name, Amen.
