Christ’s love ligaments us together as one Body, inseparable by us or anyone else, with diverse gifts and realities sent by the Spirit in mission to the world to bring healing and life.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 3 C
Texts: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (adding 13:1-13); Luke 4:14-21
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Religion isn’t much in favor these days.
With so much violence and hatred levied by religious people in the world, including lots of Christians, many simply reject the idea of being a part of any religion. For awhile now polls have shown a growing number of people who identify as “spiritual, not religious.” Given the history of how religious people have acted, created destructive institutions, and harmed so many, it’s hard to blame anyone for walking away.
And yet here we are, openly Christian people, gathering to worship a God who created and loves all things. We’re clearly part of a religion, and yet we’d say we’re also spiritual. How is our faith practice life-giving for us – and, we hope, for those we care for in Christ’s name – if it’s part of a religion?
Maybe we should start with the word.
The root origins of the word “religion” are unclear, and there are various ancient theories. But in the third and fourth centuries Christian teachers St. Augustine[1] and Lactantius[2] argued that it derives from re-ligio, literally to “reconnect.” (Ligio gives us our word ligament.) Religion calls us to re-ligament, to remember what binds us to God, connects us to each other and to the world.
And suddenly we’re talking like Paul today. What if the word “religion” reminded us of this Body of Christ, of the ligaments that make us inseparable from each other and from God? Doesn’t that sound very different, maybe hopeful?
That’s the power of Paul’s vision of the Body of Christ.
The eye can’t say to the hand “we don’t need you,” or worse, the ear can’t say to itself, “I don’t belong in this body.” Paul says none of us can exclude ourselves or others from Christ’s Body. A body can’t be separated and still exist.
And Paul doesn’t mean “don’t separate yourself or exclude someone else.” He means “you can’t. I can’t.” It’s impossible. The Spirit has joined us together in this Body in baptism with each other and all Christians, and Paul’s promise is that in Christ we cannot separate ourselves, even if we wanted to.
And Paul envisioned a unity of this Body transcending diversities within the Body.
We see him call all his congregations to understand this vision. A unity that doesn’t wash away the diversity, melting it down into sameness. No, the diversity of the members is critical to the life of the Body, and needs to be honored, delighted in, respected. And it’s more than just diversity of spiritual gifts. Often that’s all we hear in these verses. You’re good at some things, I’m good at others, we’re all needed. And of course the varied gifts we have that differ are important.
But there’s an existential diversity deeper than that, which is what caused problems with this vision in all Paul’s congregations. In verse 13 of chapter 12 Paul reminds that in one Spirit they were all baptized into one body – Jews, Greeks, slaves, free. It’s not just their gifts that differ. It’s their culture, their language, their traditions, their political status, their ethnicity. Eyes, in Paul’s example, are completely different from ears. Hands and feet have different structures and realities. The diversity in the Body goes to the root of who you are, who I am, no matter the category. Today we might add gender fluidity and diversity of sexual orientation to Paul’s list, among others. And in his letters Paul repeatedly says those differences are beautiful and vital to the whole Body.
But over all this diversity is our oneness in Christ. Never can our diversity cause us to split away, to exclude others, or to assume we don’t belong.
And it’s because of the ligaments that bind us, the word religion says.
And the ligaments are Christ’s love.
The love Christ Jesus repeatedly commands of us as the fulfilling of all God’s law. The love of the Triune God Christ revealed at the cross and empty tomb. That’s what joins us. That’s how Jews and Greeks can be one together and still be Jews and Greeks. How straight and queer folks, trans and cisgendered folks, can belong to each other and rejoice in each other’s reality. How people of all colors and cultures are joined together while embracing and respecting each other’s beauty and grace.
Christ’s love ligaments us together. A love that doesn’t erase another’s truth but embraces it. A love that joins astonishingly different people into one Body, one mission, one grace, one hope for the world.
A non-negotiable love in this Body that is patient and kind. Never boastful, arrogant, or rude. Never insisting on its own way. Rejoicing in the truth, not in things that are wrong. A love that bears, trusts, hopes, endures all things.
These ligaments bind you and me together in this community, and bind us to the Body of Christ around the world. And because ligaments also help the body move, these ligaments of love empower what this Body of Christ is meant to be in this world.
The same Spirit Jesus claims today is the Spirit poured out on you and me that ligaments us into one Body.
So our mission is the same as Jesus’: to bring good news to those who are poor, proclaim release to those who are captives, help those who cannot see to see, and free those who are oppressed.
This won’t be easy. As our sister Bishop Mariann Budde found, when you ask for mercy, love, and graciousness to those most vulnerable, you face criticism, scorn, and hatred. In these days we should expect that if we act as Christ’s Body to protect the vulnerable and the fearful, to stand for those who are being trampled, we will also face blowback. Jesus anticipated that, saying that you are blessed if “people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad – they always do that to the prophets,” he said. (Matthew 5:11-12)
See that’s the other grace of being in the Body: the ligaments of Christ’s love that bind us to people like Bishop Budde, to each other, to all those protecting and offering mercy and hope, cannot be broken by anyone else, either. Together, in Christ, in the power of the Spirit, with all our diverse truths, realities, and gifts, we can do amazing things as one Body for the healing of God’s world.
And if that’s a gift that the word religion can remind us of daily, I’m not so eager to let go of it.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
[1] St. Augustine (354 – 430 CE), City of God X.4 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120110.htm)
[2] Lucius Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325 CE), Divine Institutes, IV.28 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07014.htm)