Many Parts Make Up One Body of Christ
Today's sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
In 1978, Nancy Hastings Sehested, Paula Clayton Dempsey, Debra Griffis Woodberry, Linda Weaver-Williams, and Reba Cobb birthed a movement within the Southern Baptist Convention, a movement with the sole purpose of supporting women in church-related vocations.
The movement gained traction and support and grew beyond the SBC to become the nonprofit organization, Baptist Women in Ministry, most well-known by the acronym BWIM.
BWIM supports the work of women in ministry through resources like an annual state of women in Baptist life report, and programs such as peer learning groups where women in similar ministry roles can meet with a small group to support and encourage each other,
and the Mentoring Program which connects women in ministry with each other and a mentor for a retreat and 18 months of virtual meetings together, culminating in anther retreat at the end of 18 months.
I have had the tremendous blessing of participating in both the peer group and the mentoring program. Last week, I participated in the first mentoring program retreat with a group of women in various ministry roles, hearing their stories, learning from our mentor who will lead my small group of 6 women serving in different places in the US and one in the Philippines.
One of the most meaningful parts of the retreat for me was watching the documentary, Midwives of a Movement, which is the story of Nancy, Paula, Debra, Reba and Linda’s tireless work in founding Baptist Women in Ministry. As they tell their story, reliving the pain of being told - in really hurtful language - that being women limited the things that they could do in and for the kingdom of God.
The emotional retelling of nicknames they were given, like Jezebel, and tools of the devil was brave and moving, as several of us in the room, forever indebted to these women, gasped at the things people said to these women who had discerned a call from God, in attempts to break their spirits into going back to the drawing board, certain they’d discerned incorrectly, and encouraging them to try again to really listen for a different call.
Many of them went on to pastor churches within the SBC where they found support for their work, and they paved the way for countless women following in their footsteps to boldly step into the call of God to minister from pulpits, in churches, as chaplains and as missionaries, resilient against the harmful theologies belittling their callings and invalidating their work.
This organization provides needed support to women in ministry and the churches who journey with them, embodying the words of Paul - these ancient words of admonition for loving one another, recognizing the unique giftedness of each person who would join God in God’s work in the world;
words of invitation to unity and celebration rather than competition, division and gatekeeping. An invitation born of Paul’s life spent patterned after the way of Christ.
Please join me in prayer.
Holy god May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be pleasing in your sight O Lord our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
This is a passage of a letter, written to the church at Corinth by their founding pastor, Paul. It is a reminder of their belovedness of God, their call to be the presence of Christ to the world around them, and most of all, it is a call to unity among the believers, a sense of unity in call and purpose, rather than the bickering he’s been hearing so much about.
He begins this part with a metaphor, using the human body as representative of the body of Christ, the church. Imagine the people gathering together around pots of olive oil seasoned with salt and herbs, and freshly baked warm bread, enjoying the hospitality of one of the women of the church as the letter is read aloud.
If you think of the church of Jesus Christ on earth in terms of a body, what does that look like? A body needs all of its organs to function well, and the various parts of the body support its functions in the world. Sometimes, a body part has an issue and it is tended to and cared for. In those times, the rest of the body works extra hard to ensure the care of that one body part or organ.
If healing is not possible, in the way the body would prefer, there is grief and the whole body adjusts to a new way of life. But, you’ll never see a healthy arm just decide one day, you know what, I don’t need the rest of you - other arm, legs, eyes, yall are just weighing me down. That would be preposterous.
Just as the human body finds ways to support and sustain itself as one unit made of many smaller parts working together, so the body of Christ, the church in the world, is one unit made up of many people - with different backgrounds and experiences, different ways in which they approach a biblical text, the practice of worship, a discipline of prayer, and with different gifts and affinities.
We are many, and we are also one, because of the baptism that we share. The baptism into the Spirit of God through Christ unites us. It unites us - unifies us in our purpose to be the presence of Christ in the world around us.
This doesn’t and shouldn’t mean that we are all the same. In fact, the diversity among believers in the kingdom of God is the beauty of heaven here on earth.
If we were all the same, how would we experience different representations of the love of God?
If we were all the same, how would sustain worship, with everyone sounding and looking the same? It would be pretty hard to practice the spiritual growth of learning to see the face of God in another, particularly in someone different from us.
If we all had the same gifts to bring to the table, there would be competition and comparison, fights over the best way to use those identical gifts, instead of a kaleidoscope of diverse gifts and talents that we share collaboratively with one another.
So, like the human body with many appendages, there are many people and one church.
We can’t say to one another, because we disagree, I can’t be in fellowship with you at worship, we don’t say, you do this in this way and I’ve always known it this way, so we are at an impass. We don’t stir up drama and disagreement, but rather, dialogue and consider our mission and call to love the world around us.
When one of us is sick, or suffering, or in pain, our empathy and oneness with them causes us pain. In compassion, we feel for one another and carry each other’s burdens.
And, within the church, we each bring our gifts to the table to be used by God, in ways we couldn’t even know how to dream about. Some are gifted at bible study, encouraging each of us toward deeper connection with Christ through study. I’ve seen that gift, not one I naturally possess, in many of you.
Some are tremendous singers, others serving as liturgists help bring the scriptures alive to our ears, others serve in quieter ways, through an ever present encouraging smile.
We aren’t all called to the same avenue through which we will embody the life and teachings of Christ on earth, but we are all called to embody the life and teachings of Christ on earth, in the ways in which God has gifted us to do so. And, the most excellent way for us to do that, as we will learn next week, is through love.
Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth because of some infighting that he had heard about. There were internal battles happening all the time, conflicts keeping them from their identity as the church of God, formed by the Spirit, to be the hands and feet of Jesus to one another and to the people of Corinth.
Paul writes of all the gifts he sees in the congregation, and reminds them that there is plenty of each one to go around; that instead of arguing over whose gift gets to shine, that they should be excited for one another’s gifts to shine, and to be put to use in connection with all the other gifts and talents present within this group of believers.
Some conflict is natural, and healthy conflict can help to sharpen two disciples who need one another to help them see from a different angle. Dissent on the other hand, is when opposing views take up defenses and set up camps around their beliefs, staunchly clinging to to what is familiar and refusing to entertain another perspective. Paul warns against dissent, but not against conflict that nurtures and invites growth.
In doing this, Paul celebrates, and invites the congregation to celebrate with him, the diversity present in this church, the plethora of gifts with which the people can serve God.
He reminds us again, that unity is the focus, and the foundation of that unity is our interconnectedness in Jesus Christ.
One of the most tangible examples of this unity - this idea of many individuals with many stories, coming together as one in Christ for weekly communion is described in my Spiritual Director, Seth Clark’s book, Church at The Wall: Stories of Hope Along the San Diego-Tijuana Border.
In it, Seth delineates some of the history of how this practice of meeting together at the US/Mexico border at Tijuana/ San Diego for communion came about, and then talks about how a typical communion Sunday looks now, as the fence continues to expand and grow, as the humanity of immigrants at the southern border continues to be trampled on.
Border Church participants on the US side and the Mexico side gather together, and pass the peace through the fence by holding up their pinkies to one another. When the pinkies touch, it is called a pinky kiss.
When the peace has been passed, the ministers on either side of the fence disperse the communion elements and everyone takes it together.
There is a shared meal on the Mexico side, a deeply embedded practice of hospitality that is quintessential to Mexican and other Latin cultures. There is laughter and there are tears, and there is one God, one Christ, on baptism of the spirit, and one church on two sides, a church unified in the belief in a Christ who will one day eliminate the barriers that stand in our way of being truly unified.
Paul reminds us that our job is to work toward that day, using our gifts and talents as best we can, not in comparison to or in competition with one another, but in collaboration with, and indeed, because of each other. We belong to one another as much as we belong to God, as much as we belong to Christ.
When we limit the humanity of another based on their sex, the color of their skin, who they love, their immigration status, how they present themselves to the world, we limit the God who created them and us.
We limit the God who calls us to be the body of Christ in the world around us - the broken, bloodied, crucified and resurrected body of Christ - God with us - who lives in the world through us and who invites us into the holy practice of imagining a world where all God’s children belong and know they are beloved.
In the book Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color, Jung Eun Sophia Park describes her practice of cross cultural spiritual direction by introducing the concept of third space. When a Spiritual Director and a Directee come together, they bring their individual stories and backgrounds, the spaces they occupy in the world, the experiences that have shaped them to the meeting. And in the process of meeting together, of offering to one another elements of their own lives, a third space is created - a sacred holy space where two stories connect and create a third story - the story of the work of God in the directee’s life.
The third space that is created when Seth and I meet is a place where my Mexicanness is seen as crucial to my spiritual identity and formation, were his experience as pastor to the US side of the Border Church at the US-Mexico border in San Diego and my experience of being a biracial adoptee mingle together to create a new experience of discerning the presence of God and the movement of the holy spirit in my life.
When we all worship together, the third space we create together is a time for our individual experiences, upbringings, theologies, hopes, sorrows, fears, joys, and dreams to mingle with one another’s to create a beautiful, rich experience of discerning the presence of God in our lives and the movement of the holy spirit among us as a congregation.
Please join me in prayer
Holy God, remind us that unity is a worthy goal, a holy task to which we were called when we clothed ourselves with Christ at our baptisms, and each day that we awaken to your new possibilities for us. Bless us as we prepare to discuss the business and mission of our church. Be with us today and always as we pattern our lives after the example of Christ our Lord. Through him we pray, Amen.