Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

Sunday, January 24, 2010
Third Sunday after the Epiphany

 

SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 12.12-31a

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

14Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot would say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear would say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." 22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

27Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31But strive for the greater gifts.

Paul to the Corinthians, Part II

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

Beginning last Sunday, continuing this Sunday, and concluding next Sunday (Reconciling in Christ Sunday) we are spending our sermon time with Paul of Tarsus – specifically in a letter that he wrote from the then Greek city of Ephesus to a small congregation of followers of Jesus in the then and now Greek city of Corinth. 

As we do this, we have to get inside Paul (as it were) to see if we can understand what he was trying to say in his time (about half way through the 1^st Century, and clearly 20 years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth) … see what Paul of Tarsus was trying to say in his time and somehow discover if there is anything that he has to say to us in our time (i.e. 2010) given the fact (which many people forget) … given the fact that when Paul sat down to write his Corinthian Correspondence he did so without ever thinking of us!  When putting pen to parchment (or dictating his letters to a scribe, which is probably how it went) the 1^st Century Paul of Tarsus never imagined us 21^st Century followers of Jesus as his readers.

Paul never thought that here in this congregation of mostly non-Greek, mostly non-Jewish followers of Jesus in Santa Fe – that we would ever read what he was writing to them!  In fact, he never conceived of such a thing as congregations in the future (since he expected fully that the end of things was about to take place in his own lifetime, thus there would never be a future that included you and me) and he certainly would not recognize much of what we do in our liturgy today as having anything to do with what Paul was familiar with in his own time.  That is, this congregation would have very little similarity to what Paul of Tarsus called a congregation in his age.

I mention all this to underscore a very important thing to understand: that when we read parts of Holy Scripture aloud in the congregation, we do two things:

The first thing we do is read whatever we are reading from the Bible as an ancient text or story (sacred, yes, but ancient none the less) … in other words, it is not from our time, it is from a time long ago … the complete understanding of which has been severed by the mere accumulation of years.

In other words, we can read it but we can’t really be there in that moment (the moment in which it was written) to understand the nuances of meaning, the way that Paul really thoughts, the doubts he had, the concerns he addressed, and all that … oh yes, we can interpret it all from what we have before us, but we can’t really know it fully … because we don’t have Paul here to interview in person.

The second thing we do when we read parts of Holy Scripture aloud in the congregation is that we make alive what we are reading from the past, or (as I have said previously) we bring Paul (or at least the written words of Paul) to life in the midst of the liturgy.

And we do these two things simultaneously.

Why?  Why do we do these two things?  Because we believe that the testimony of those believers who have gone before us (ancient as they are, up to interpretation as they may be, beyond our immediate ability to interrogate the writer as it is) … we believe that the words of those ancestral believers can speak to us, can teach us, can guide us, can help us, can move us … toward faith, and the results of faith, the deeds of love and mercy that bring healing to the world (Paul the Jewish follower of Jesus would have said תיקון עולם  (tikun olam, “the repair of the world”) healing to the world and healing to our neighbors.

So last Sunday we read a bit of the 12^th Chapter of his letter to the Corinthians where Paul spoke of the gifts of God’s Breath (or Spirit).  And this Sunday we have the piece from Paul which passes all mis-understanding … where Paul of Tarsus tells his Corinthian brothers and sisters that the cure to their mis-behaviour, their mis-understanding of the Gospel, their mis-directed living out of the faith … is to remember that they are all interdependent upon one another.

And in order to make his point, Paul of Tarsus does a very creative thing, he says that Jesus, even though he has died and is raised into the presence of God, even though that … Jesus still has a body … and the body is his followers!  Now we have heard this passage so many times that we tend to say, “Well of course, what’s the difficulty?  Everyone can see what Paul is talking about!”

We do that because we see Paul through the Fresnel lens[1] of a lifetime of sermons on this very text.  Usually something like this: 

“Well, we are the body of Christ.  And we all have to work together.  Think of it!? What if the whole body were a nose, or an ear, or a kneecap?” … and so forth.

But you see we miss the intensity of the symbol as Paul of Tarsus intended for it to be heard (since his letters were read aloud in the congregation).  We miss the intensity of it and so we have to recreate it a bit.

Imagine if you will that you are the grumbling, malcontent believers in that congregation in the Greek cosmopolitan (even for its day) city of Corinth.  And one Lord’s Day as you have gathered together with your brothers and sisters (although you don’t really think much of them) … you are there with the rest of the group and into the middle of the prayers stands up a Reader.  Let’s make this Reader a female.  And let’s make this female a youngster … say a teenager.

I’d like to think this is the way it happened, but I have no proof one way or another, but then neither do you, nor does anyone else … so what if my interpretation is right … at least it gets to the whole point of Paul’s remarks … which are intended to completely upset the status quo of the Corinth Congregation.

So Sarah the Teenager (I had to give her a name) stands up and holds in her hand a parchment, the skin of a goat upon which are some Greek letters … and Sarah the Teenager knows Greek (she’s been studying it at night when her parents were not looking because she believes, as did Jesus, whom she follows, that women are equal to men).

She reads the words of Paul, and because they are the words of Paul, everyone begins to listen … intently.

And then she comes to the bitter parts, where Paul accuses the Corinthians, brings up their complete lack of understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, attacks them in the words of his letter.

And then Sarah the Teenager reads Paul’s zinger … where he tells the Corinthians that they are nothing less than Jesus’ body in their community … his body … not just something said in the taking of Holy Communion, but more than that … they become the body of Christ, they become his body in the city … they take on everything that Jesus was and is and will be in themselves and they take what they have taken on … and carry it into the city, where people can watch them, see them, observe them … working together, loving together, accepting together, welcoming together …

I’m certain as Sarah the Teenager read this part of what we know as the 12^th chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians, a couple of the more … shall we say … POFANS^© (a term I have created that means Persons of Fear and Nastiness) … a couple of 1^st Century POFANS^© decided to leave the congregation and see if the Order of Gnostics might be more to their liking, or maybe it was the Order of Fear and Nastiness Purity of Religion to which they fled.

In any case, we need to imagine the impact that this letter had upon that congregation … and at the same time, we can imagine that hearts were moved, and lives were changed, and faith was lit on fire so that the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth actually became a reality within the persons of that Corinthian Collection of Believers.

They knew that they had a relationship not only to each other, but to the rest of the world … and the relationship that they had, …  were called to have … was one of compassion and love, not judgment and odium.  

If they were indeed the body of Christ, then they had to see the face of that body in other people, and Paul of Tarsus was hinting rather strongly that the body was alive not just inside the congregation but in the homes and in the streets and alleys and marketplaces and … well, just about anywhere one could look in Corinth.

That’s where the body of Christ was living, both inside the congregation, and outside in the places to which the congregation was called to be loving.

Much as we today have come to worship in this lovely Nave that is a sanctuary from the world … and throughout our liturgy we see facing us the photographs of brothers and sisters who have no home, but yet are (if Paul of Tarsus can speak any living word to us today from the past) … but yet are a part of the body just as we are.

We cannot look beyond each other … rather we see each other, we behold each other in such a way that there is no longer us and them, but a body that needs healing and calls to us in holiness to be the healers.

Next Sunday, which is Reconciling in Christ Sunday for us, we will hear more of what Paul of Tarsus has to say in the matter of what exactly is the grist of that healing.

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.

Let us pray.  Amazing God, Living Christ, Holy Sprit.  Fill us, enliven our bodies and form us as ever more faithful members of your body.  Send us to be your loving word spoken in our world.  Amen.

 

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III

Pastor

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