CHRISTIAN A & P 101: SUPPORT
Ephesians 4: 1-16
1. I found the following story on the Internet.
For my 50th birthday, my husband purchased a week of personal training . . . at the local health club for me. Although I am still in great shape since playing on my high school softball team, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try. I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer called Bruce, who identified himself as a 26 year old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. My husband seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started. The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.
MONDAY: Started my day at 6:00am. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Bruce waiting for me. He is something of a Greek God - with blond hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!! Bruce gave me a tour and showed me the machines. He took my pulse after five minutes on the treadmill. He was alarmed that my pulse was so fast, but I attribute it to standing next to him in his Lycra aerobic outfit. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring. Bruce was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week!!
TUESDAY: I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Bruce made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air - then he put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Bruce’s rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT!! It’s a whole new life for me.
WEDNESDAY: The only way I can brush my teeth is by lying on the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot. Bruce was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying. My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Bruce put me on the stair monster. Why on earth would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Bruce told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other junk too.
THURSDAY: Bruce was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn’t help being a half an hour late, it took me that long just to tie my shoes. Bruce took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the men’s room. He sent Lars to find me, then, as punishment, put me on the rowing machine - which I sank.
FRIDAY: I hate that so-and-so Bruce more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world! Stupid, skinny, anemic little cheerleader wanna-be. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it. Bruce wanted me to work on my triceps. I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the stupid barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. (Which I am sure you learned in the sadist school you attended and graduated magna cum laude from, you Nazi.) The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?
SATURDAY: Bruce left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing him made me want to smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel.
SUNDAY: I’m having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my husband will choose a gift for me that is fun - like a root canal or a hysterectomy.
2. Aaah, our bodies…what a wonderful, delightful, unique and special gift from God. But then again sometimes a downright painful, agonizing and frustrating part of our existence.
3. Last Sunday we commenced a 4-part examination of Paul’s favorite description of the church as the Body of Christ. My purpose with these messages is to highlight at least 4 aspects of our human anatomy and physiology and make the application to our spiritual or Christian anatomy and physiology. With our human bodies being made up of at least 75 trillion cells I guess one could go on preaching and making application about this topic for ever – however, I just chose the 4 aspects of:
• THE UNITY OR ONENESS OF THE BODY
• THE SUPPORT THE MEMBERS GIVE ONE ANOTHER
• THE SHARING OF COMMUNICATION AND NOURISHMENT
• THE BODY CARRIES OUT THE WILL AND DIRECTIVES OF THE HEAD
4. Last Sunday we studied the Oneness of the Body and we reminded ourselves that:
• The church was never intended to be an exclusive club for noses or eyes or feet
• It was never intended to be a gathering of clones, exactly fashioned in our image
• But it is thankfully a remarkably diverse organism with many, many different parts and cells all working together for the mutual benefit of the one body
• We reminded ourselves that while we accept and are glad about that great diversity of body parts and functions in the natural – our physical bodies, when it comes to the spiritual application in the church, we are not always as ready and eager to be accommodating. We are not always as accepting of one another’s differences – and Anne and I and our girls had first hand experience of that in the first church I pastored in this country in the rural Midwest. We were “furreners” and didn’t fit in and there was no way we were going to be accepted just for who we were and the leading folks in the congregation made certain that no one else dissented from their opinion. That painful experience led to our daughters to vow that they would never join another United Methodist Church in this country.
• This past Wednesday when I arrived in Morton there was a phone message waiting for me. I returned the call to a gentleman in the surrounding area. He told me they had recently moved into a home that an elderly couple had left and there were just all kinds of things left behind they did not want – cans of food, utensils, crockery, clothing, and so on. He wondered if we knew of someone who might want these things. I directed him to Jan’s Thrift Shop. Just before we hung up I asked if they were people of faith and had a church they belonged to. He replied that he and his partner were a gay couple – had moved here from the San Francisco area – had raised some kids and just wanted to live in a quieter location to raise their animals and that finding a church where they might be accepted was a very difficult thing. He asked whether our congregation might accept them and I had to answer that I really don’t know – that we have never taken a vote on the issue. But I assured him that the doors of the United Methodist Church are always open to whomsoever. That doesn’t mean that we are affirming and approving of every behavior, but that we have no right to filter out any individual that Lord would draw to Himself.
• I mentioned also that just as there is a process of a man and a woman becoming one in marriage – and learning through much understanding and patience and forgiveness and acceptance to become one, so there has to be a similar process within the church multiplied many times over by the number of members in that body – because we all bring into this relationship not only the good and admirable qualities each of us certainly possess, but also our quirks, our idiosyncrasies, and our sin – and when my issues rub up against your issues we tend to have conflict.
• And just as working through those issues without walking away from one another is essential to a healthy marriage, equally so are they essential to a healthy church. A healthy church is not one in which there are never any arguments or disagreements – but one in which we are committed to remaining engaged and connected and to working through those issues and never letting those disagreements tear us apart from each other.
• It was because the unity and oneness of the body is so important that Jesus spent the entire night before His crucifixion praying for us that we might be One as He and the Father are one.
THE SUPPORT THE MEMBERS GIVE ONE ANOTHER
1. As I said last Sunday, aren’t you glad that the members of your body were not just thrown together any old how – they all have their own unique place and function and they are all very firmly connected to one another with joints, muscles, and ligaments.
• Wouldn’t it be terrible if we could easily lose a body part without noticing it? You suddenly discover that you can’t hear and someone points to where your ears used to be and they are gone – they must have fallen off someplace.
• Or you shake a hand with someone and it suddenly disconnects from your arm.
2. Now without those joints, muscles, ligaments and connecting tissues we would be a whole lot more fragile than we are.
• So what are the connectors that hold us together in the Body of Christ? I suggest to you that it is the covenant commitments and the vows we make with and to one another.
3. When a couple gets married and makes their vows to one another, they do so before God, the pastor and in the presence of other witnesses. They also ratify that covenant of marriage by giving and receiving of rings and by signing a marriage certificate.
• Those outward signs and symbols then become visible reminders to them of the commitments they have made to each other.
• They need to spend a lot of time investing in the relationship and strengthening the bonds of mutual understanding and support and encouragement and patience, etc.
• Because in every marriage there come times when the couple doesn’t "feel" the same surge of affection for each other – when there are conflicts and squabbles over various matters – and the joints and ligaments and sinews of the vows and commitments they made to each other are put to the test. Are they going to be strong enough to endure the strain and hold the two together?
4. Well, the same is true in the church in our relationships with one another. We are in this congregation – in this relationship with one another first and foremost because of our love for God and our need of His mercy and grace – and He was the one who brought us here!
• And through our baptism and confirmation we all renounced sin and the spiritual forces of wickedness and acknowledged Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord and promised to serve Him in the church which He had opened to people of all ages, nations and races and we committed ourselves to be loyal to the United Methodist Church and to uphold it by our prayers, our presence, our gifts (time, talents, treasures), and our service.
• But none of us has arrived at perfection yet and so there often are - and until Jesus returns there will likely be - differences of opinion and viewpoint and perspective that we have to learn to live with and work through and find a way to resolve so that they do not totally gum up the works and cause us to go into seizure. We’ll deal with this some more in 2 weeks when we look at how we carry out the will of the head.
• But the way we remain committed to each other and get to function with one another is through the vows we make to one another, the prayers we pray with one another, the times of breaking bread and sharing in the cup around the Lord’s Table together, the hugs we give each other, the time we take to listen to and really hear each other, the tears we share, the laughter we enjoy, and the labor we engage in with each other.
5. But I wanted to make one final point about our support for and dependence on one another and that relates to the fact that just as each of my body parts has its own unique and specific place and responsibility in my body, so it is true also within the Body of Christ – but it takes a little more discernment and work.
• None of us ever questions how come our fingers are attached to our hand and not to our feet or why our kidneys, heart and lungs are inside the protective cover of our ribcage and not hanging somewhere on the outside. They are each immediately attached to specific other body parts though they serve the entire body.
• In the church – in a congregation – there is no way that each of us can be immediately and specifically jointed to every other member – that would be a mess. Can you imagine every body part wanting to be attached to your right foot or have their own immediate connection to the heart?
• But each of us I am sure already has something of an idea of those other members whom God has placed in our lives and with whom we have a much closer bond and connection than with others.
• That is most likely the other body part to whom God has knit you and joined you and that is a good thing. No one in this congregation should ever feel they do not fit in or don’t know where they belong. There is a place for you and someone else in this congregation has been waiting and having to do without the connection with you until you came along and began to understand just what body part God has fashioned you to be and to which other part He intends to join you.
6. The Care Groups or cell groups that I have spoken about – and that I strongly believe everyone should participate in - are intended to be the smaller and more localized components that make up the larger structure of the body.
7. So let me leave you with this thought – this question: To which other members in this body has God knit you and what are you doing to strengthen and enhance that relationship? And if you honestly have no clear idea of where you fit in, come and tell me and we will pray together for Jesus the Head of the Body to give us the answer.
AMEN.
