One Body

SERMON PREACHED AT St JOHN’S, EAST BENTLEIGH 

ORDINARY SUNDAY 3 (January 22^nd) 1989

 

 

READINGS:

Nehemiah 8: 2-4, 5-6, 8-10

1 Corinthians 12: 12-30

Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

 

There are many stories, repeatable and unrepeatable, about rivalries between various parts of the body, and contests to demonstrate supremacy. Whatever version of the story we choose, the implication of the story is always the same: no part of the body is redundant.

Modern science of course would tell us that this is not strictly true. Limbs and even some organs can be removed without impairing or threatening life, and tonsils and appendix redundant whether they remain or are removed. But Paul’s central thesis remains unchanged: we are all members of one body, incorporated into or added onto that body by virtue of our baptism.

And from that observation I wish to emphasise just two things. The first is the need within a body, in this case the body of Christ, for all members to pull weight, while the second is the interconnectedness of all people within the body. Where one part hurts or is strained, so all are affected.

1.        It is a truism in every community that there is always a core of people who take it upon themselves to shoulder the greatest burden of work within that community. That it is true of the church is both inevitable and yet a source of great sadness to me. It is inevitable because, though we are a baptised and forgiven people, we are also a sinful people, marred in our humanity by all the classic human failings, all the so-called seven deadly sins. But it saddens me because I believe the hitchhikers within the church are cheating on their more generous sisters and brothers, cheating by increasing enormously the load of those same few prepared to labour for Christ, and cheating themselves by missing the opportunity for love and koinonia that Christian cooperation and teamwork offers.

2.        It is also a truth that as Christians we cannot afford to neglect the connection between our lives and the lives of all humanity. We cannot see ourselves as a tiny and self-sufficient community, but must instead realise that we are connected by a vast web to every other community. By our baptisms we are grafted onto the death and resurrection of Christ, together with every baptised Christian. And by our birth we are grafted onto the vast web of human life, which Christ enters and, as it were, baptizes, takes into the being and nature of God in the ultimate expression of God’s love for and identification with humanity. For that reason, we pray for the church and the world. For that reason, we give of our resources to a missionary church and a suffering world. For that reason, we cannot afford to become limited in our outlook merely too Saint John’s or to Bentleigh, to Melbourne, to Victoria, or even Australia. We are, in the words of that dreadfully sloppy but well-meant song, “we are the world.” We are all members of humanity, and to all humanity we must be responsible.

 

It is with those notions that Saint Paul challenges us when he lays down the law. We are the body of Christ – his Spirit is with us. The world and all humanity is Christ’s, and through us he breathes peace into it. Let us be agents of his peace not merely in Saint John’s or in Bentleigh, but within God’s world.