Week 4: “Many Members, Yet One Body”

Vicar Emily Beckering, Wednesday, 2 April 2014; texts: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Mark 10:35-45

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Now our Lord would like us to really learn what “together” can mean. That is where we left off last week, and that is our focus this week. To help us learn this, we are given one of the most vivid and cherished metaphors in scripture of life together: the Body of Christ. We claim this for ourselves each Sunday in the liturgy of sending, when we say, “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, sharing one bread, one cup.”

Though we know this to be true, we do not always live like it is so. 

We do not live as the body of Christ when we dismiss ourselves. Some of us may find ourselves asking: “Lord, why couldn’t you have made me more like her?  A little more like him? If only I could be more articulate, more confident, more accomplished, more attractive, more interesting, more friendly, more approachable, then I could really matter here. Then I could really be part of the body.” In other words, we say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body.”

For some of us, the problem is not overlooking our own value, but the value of the members of the body around us.

We do not live as the body of Christ when we dismiss one another. Here at Mount Olive, it is evident that we are deeply committed to loving each other and to being a welcoming congregation. I have seen the people of Mount Olive visit the sick, comfort the lonely, and feed the hungry. I have also witnessed time and time again how people at Mount Olive seek out newcomers and welcome them into life together. The circles of conversation on Sundays and Wednesdays are more open than not, but do these circles always overlap? Are there some people with whom we always visit, and some with whom we never do? Are there some people who we always invite to our parties and some whom we don’t? Are there some opinions that matter to us more than others? Sometimes, out of frustration, do we find ourselves tuning out, rolling our eyes at, or explicitly shooting down the feelings and ideas of our brothers and sisters?

Although we want to love and welcome everyone, by following these patterns, we live as though some of us do not have much to offer.  When we disregard ideas, ignore certain opinions, or do not make an effort to have relationships with every person in this community, we are, in effect, saying exactly what Paul warns against, “I have no need of you.”

These same patterns of dismissing ourselves and each other, which we see in our relationships with one other, can also manifest themselves in our relationship with the Church as a whole. Sometimes at Mount Olive, we dismiss ourselves as a member of the whole body of Christ. Now, we are aware of our membership to the whole body in our deep commitment to being rooted in the tradition of the greater Church, which is expressed particularly in our worship together. Sometimes, however, we can dismiss ourselves in relation to other Lutherans. Because not all congregations in the ELCA have found how we worship to be as life-giving as us, there is sometimes a tendency for us to anticipate rejection. We might expect other congregations and leaders in the ELCA to write us off. We may even begin to bristle before we enter into relationship with other Lutherans in anticipation of being dismissed.

While these patterns come from a place of deep hurt from being misunderstood by some of our brothers and sisters, the question before us becomes this: what do we lose by resigning ourselves to not belonging, to feeling dismissed, or to being content on our own?

It is a very common human reaction when we feel attacked to rise up and defend ourselves. One of the ways that this can happen in our life together is that we sometimes dismiss the particular worship styles of others congregations. Here’s something that I’ve heard people from Mount Olive ask a newcomer on more than one occasion:  “Have you ever experienced God’s presence like that?” On the one hand, that question comes from a deep place of love. It comes from the joy of experiencing God’s presence with us, of God leading us out of our deserts and bringing us together in order to drink deeply of Christ’s love. We desire for everyone who worships with us to experience this love and presence as well.
On the other hand, when we ask, “Have you ever experienced God’s presence like that?” the underlying assumption is that they haven’t, and it can be experienced as a dismissal of how God has encountered them in the past.

What do we lose when we dismiss others in this way? How can we honor how other congregations have been met by God while still being faithful to who God has called us to be?

In response to our individual and communal patterns of dismissing ourselves and one another, Jesus gives us the same words that he gives James and John in today’s Gospel: “It is not so among you.”

Notice that this is neither a command, “Let it not be so among you,” nor a future promise, “It will not be so among you.” Instead, it is a present condition of fact because of who the Triune God has made us to be. In our baptisms, God the Father has claimed us as his own. God the Holy Spirit has poured out gifts on us and united us with Christ in his death and resurrection. We are raised to live as Christ. Week after week, Christ comes to us in the Eucharist and makes us one again at his table. We are a new creation. When Jesus says, “It is not so among you,” he is saying, “This isn’t who you are.”

Who we are is the body of Christ. We are arranged in this body just as God chose. “You did not choose me,” Jesus tells us, “but I chose you and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” Because it is God who chose us and bound us together, none of can say, “I don’t matter” and none of us can say “you don’t matter.” Each of us, and every congregation, is a vital part of the body.

When we doubt our place in this community or in the Church at large, God asks us: “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?” God would have us stop comparing ourselves to others and instead see ourselves, one another, and Mount Olive as God created us: valuable, irreplaceable members of the body.

But then, when we are frustrated with or embarrassed by members of this congregation or the whole Church and wish to distance ourselves from those Christians, God asks us, “If you were the whole part, where would the body be?” God values the body itself. The goal is not that we can function independently by being every part, but instead that we are part of the body. The body is what God desires because the one body, and only the whole body with all of its members, can be Christ in the world. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you” because in fact the eye does need the hand. The eye cannot do what the hand can do and the hand cannot offer what the eye offers.  Each will suffer without the other.

We are most commonly drawn towards people who are like us, but God knows that we are strengthened by our differences. We are given one another so that we can nourish and be nourished. We need the gifts and perspectives of each other, even—and perhaps especially—the perspectives of the people, congregations, or denominations that we think are the most off track, because we can’t see what they can see and they can’t see what we can see.

Therefore, we can’t dismiss one another. We need to take everyone’s concerns seriously and treasure what they bring to the table. Unlike in other organizations and groups that we are a part of, we don’t get to choose who belongs to the body of Christ. We don’t get to say, “He’s just a jerk,” or “she’s ridiculous,” or “Thank you, God, that we aren’t like them” because God has bound us together; we belong to each other. God would have us look beyond ourselves and discern the whole body of Christ: that is, attend to the gifts and needs of all of our brothers and sisters. We are to trust that we all have something to offer and something to learn.  We depend on one another, so by binding us together, God has given us just what we need. God knit us together in baptism. We are fearfully and wonderfully made for each other.

Our need for each other goes even deeper than what we do or how we function. Just as the Trinity is inherently relational, so too are we, as creatures in God’s own image, created for relationship. 

As such, we long to love and be loved. God knows that more than anything else, what we  most need is relationship so honest, so truthful, so real that we are loved—not because of what we do or in spite of what we do—but for who we are.

This is how God loves us, and this is how we love one another.

Christ makes this possible. We no longer have to fear if we are enough or if we will have enough because Christ promises that we are and that he and his body will provide what we need. We no longer have to put up barriers between us to protect ourselves, to assert our identity, or to hide certain parts of ourselves in order to be loved. In Christ’s death and resurrection, all of these threats that would otherwise prevent us from loving each other have been overcome: they have no power over us. We are defined by Christ and Christ alone. Just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are bonded into one by their love for one another, so too are we, in our union with Christ, bound by love to the Triune God and to each other.

Now with threats overcome, barriers broken, and God’s love binding us, we can be a community where we reveal our deepest pain and brokenness to one another because we trust that our weeping will be met with tears, our joy with rejoicing, our sin with forgiveness, and our love with love for who we are in Christ.

We can be a congregation where we are so secure in one another’s love that we never have to doubt our worth, suppress our thoughts, assert our place, or forget how much we need one another.

We, with all the people of God, can risk being a Church that gives itself away for the world.

The body of Christ is an invitation to dream what life could really be like together and then to wake up and realize that it is not a dream after all, but a reality that the Triune God makes possible through love. 

We are the body of Christ, and we, though many, are one.

Amen.

Week 3:  “Knowledge Puffs Up; Love Builds Up”

Pr. Joseph Crippen, Wednesday, 26 March 2014; texts: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Matthew 18:1-7

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Isn’t it interesting, then, that the apostle Paul, later in this first letter to Corinth, says “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)  It seems as if we have opposing points of view.  Are we to become like children in faith?  Or are we to mature, grow up, and set aside childish ways?

And what are we to make of Paul’s accommodations to those who are weak in the Corinthian community, that is, those who are still threatened enough by the presence of idol worship that they are at risk of losing their faith?  Surely the mature response of faith is the one Paul describes first, that idols are non-threatening since they obviously aren’t real.  There is one God, made known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.  So even if someone has offered meat in a temple to an idol, and now sells that meat in the market, it’s perfectly fine for Christians to eat it.  That’s clearly the more mature faith stance.

And yet Paul argues against it, on the basis of love.  He tells his people in Corinth that they are to pay attention to their weaker members, those whose faith or understanding or knowledge isn’t quite what the others have, and accommodate them, lest they falter in faith.  Yes, it’s okay to eat meat previously offered to idols.  But, Paul says, don’t do it if it’s going to cause someone else to stumble.

It turns out both Jesus and Paul agree on their one major concern: that believers do not cause other believers to stumble in their faith.  Both believe the community of Christ is shaped by a deep and abiding concern for all members, even those who are perhaps seen as weaker, less strong.

But it’s Jesus’ words about children that actually cause us to see another level of understanding of the community: it isn’t only that we are to accommodate those who are weaker.  The community of Christ actually needs all believers, of all kinds and all strengths and all developments.  We all actually have things to teach each other.  And that’s the key to all of this.

Let’s start with the controversy, though, and with the recognition that this sort of thing happens in the Church today.

We may not have problems with meat offered to idols, but we’ve got the same pattern of condescension and dismissive behavior to those whom we consider “less” advanced.

I remember when I first came into ministry that there were basically two kinds of older pastors who related to me.  One kind were the ones who were a great gift – my supervisor on internship, other clergy in colleague groups in my first call – because they respected me, while sharing their knowledge and experience.  They treated me as if I belonged at the table, raw as I was, and yet were also able to share what they’d learned on the road, with respect and care.

The other kind were the ones I learned to avoid.  They were the ones who said, “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you’ll feel differently.”  Or, “When you’ve been around the block a few times you won’t have that enthusiasm.”  Or, “When you’re a little older you’ll see that just can’t work in the church.”  Things like that.  The tone was always that I was naïve (which I probably was) and inexperienced (which I certainly was), and therefore my hope and excitement for ministry was inappropriate.  Or at least dismissable.

And that latter piece was the part where they lost my interest in listening.  Both types of pastors had experience and knowledge I needed, and would have been worth having me know.  Only the ones who respected me and treated me with kindness and weren’t patronizing or dismissive actually were helpful to me.  And I think a big part of it was they believed I had something to offer as well, that it wasn’t only their experience that was important in the conversation.

The same thing happens when you are a young parent.  There are some people who simply can’t help dismissing the concerns of parents of toddlers with the injunction: “Wait until you have teenagers – then you’ll know what hard parenting is.”

Which as a parent of four children, most of whom are adults now, I can say is completely ridiculous.  Every age of our children was both a challenge and a joy.  It was no harder dealing with the painfulness of adolescent teen children finding their way than it was to deal with the emerging personality of a two year old who needed to be able to say “no”.  If anything, each age of our children was just enough challenge and joy for our own age and experience.  A parent of a baby has just as much wisdom about how to love that baby as a parent of an adult, even though they obviously will learn much more as the years go by.

But this is not unheard of in congregations, either, and Paul would want us to recognize that.

I’ve led a lot of Bible studies over the years, and I’ve noticed that there are sometimes tendencies among participants that are exactly as Paul describes in this situation, with similar results.

How often have you seen it, too, that in a Bible study someone makes a comment or asks a question that another person, who’s perhaps studied the Bible more or even might have a professional degree, then shoots down as wrong or incorrect?  Or dismisses as unimportant?

The first person not only starts to learn that their contributions aren’t welcome, he or she also begins to believe that they have no insight, that they’re not of value.  That their concerns aren’t important, because “smart people” have already figured it out.  It’s not far from there to stumbling in faith.

So you have the situation where I’ve had any number of conversations with people over the years who fear coming to Bible studies because they don’t know enough, they’d feel dumb, they don’t have anything to offer.  Surely Paul would say that those are precisely the people we hope come to Bible studies?

This problem in a Christian community Paul describes is not unknown to us, because it’s a human tendency, a sign of our human brokenness.  We like to show off our knowledge and understanding, and often at the expense of those who don’t have what we have, often dismissing those who are asking questions we feel we’ve learned already.  Children also bear the brunt of this in congregations, their questions often dismissed as worthless, as unimportant, as ignorant, instead of being honored and listened to and carefully answered.

But here’s the really compelling thing about God: God, according to the Scriptures, seems very interested, committed even, to the idea that we best become who we are meant to be by growing up into it.

None of the people of God in the Scriptures start out where God needs them to be.  They always have growth they need to do, places they need to go, learning they need to accomplish.  Even the greats like Moses, Elijah, Sarah, any of the disciples, they all are invited into a path of growth.

And of course, God has designed us to be infants first, then children, then adults, and placed us together in families and communities where all ages are found.  That might tell us something.

But perhaps most significant is the coming of the Son of God.  Jesus doesn’t appear on the clouds, fully formed and ready to be Messiah.  Even the Son of God has to start out at the beginning, as a vulnerable infant.  Even the Son of God had to learn to spell, to think, had to learn how to get along with others, to ask questions in order to learn and understand.

It seems clear that becoming human is something we have to learn, we can’t start at the end.  Which at the very least suggests that we respect and love our fellow sisters and brothers at whatever stage they are, because it’s where they need to be.

That is, it would be better if the Corinthians didn’t dismiss those who struggled with idols.  That they chose to avoid eating meat not just because Paul told them to, but rather because they loved them and appreciated where they were.

In fact, the deeper we grow into Christ, the more we mature spiritually, the less we need to puff ourselves up about how wise we are.  It’s typically a mark of immaturity that someone needs to put themselves or their knowledge or development over against another.  But perhaps Jesus is inviting us to take even one more step and relish the differences as essential to the life of the community.

This seems to be the center of these readings today.

There is certainly a call by both Paul and Jesus to honor and accommodate each other at whatever stage of development and maturity we are.  That’s obvious.

The Christian community, shaped by the cross ourselves, called to love sacrificially, is a community where all are loved and respected and honored, whatever they bring, wherever they are in their growth.  And we aspire to adjust our behaviors if they are causing problems to others, even if we think we could justify them theologically or ethically or spiritually.

Because of the love of Christ we have for each other, that’s how we are together.  That much is clear.

But the next logical conclusion, given God’s need for us to learn as we grow, is actually to see how we need everyone at every stage because of what they bring.  So, for example, Jesus tells us that if we want to know what faith is all about, we should look to the children.  They know how to trust without any proof, they know how to be loyal even when it seems illogical, they know what it is to depend fully on another.  They’re beautiful models to cynical, weary adults of what it would be to trust God with our whole hearts, lives, everything.

And so it is with everyone else in our community.  So it is that those who haven’t studied the Scriptures much sometimes ask the questions we most need to hear.  I can’t tell you how often that has happened to me when leading a Bible study, that the simplest, perhaps least informed question, has been the one thing we really needed to consider, the one thing the Spirit of God needed us to hear.

So it is also that people who feel more on the outside of a community are often the ones who have the eyes to see what’s really going on, and those inside need to hear them and learn from them.

And so it is that the young among us see with joy and enthusiasm, which those of us who sometimes feel very tired on the journey need to have infused into us.  And those who have walked this journey of faith for eight or nine decades have such a gift of wisdom and long-vision that some of us who are impatient in getting where we are going need to hear and learn from.

This is the gift of our community in Christ: we’re all growing into maturity of discipleship, together.

And our call is to love each other at every stage of that growth, because every stage is needed for the community, and every one is needed.  We don’t want to cause others to stumble, that’s true, both Jesus and Paul say that.  But even more, we want to help each other when stumbling happens, catch each other, and learn from each other where the cracks in the road are, where the potholes are, and where the good paths are.  And you never know just who it may be in the community who can see that at any time.

This is the great gift of our Lord, that we live this faith together.  Now our Lord would like us to really learn what “together” can mean.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Week 2: “Why Not Rather Be Wronged?”

Vicar Emily Beckering, Wednesday, 19 March 2014; texts: 1 Corinthians 6:1-8; Matthew 18:15-22

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week, we heard that we have been formed by the Holy Spirit in our baptisms to be the body of Christ. As that body, we are to pattern our lives after Christ and his cross: we too, will give of ourselves for the sake of the world.

This week, this call comes to life in very real ways, for we hear from God what it means to be a servant community when we face difficulties in our relationships with one another.

In today’s reading from 1 Corinthians, Paul is counseling the church of Corinth against using Roman courts to settle their disputes. The real issue here, however, is not the proper use of the legal system, but how we are to deal with one another when we disagree. What are we to do when we hurt each another? How are we to live when this happens?

The Corinthians have tried to address their hurt by bringing each other to court. The problem with these practices—settling arguments in court, demanding payment for wrong done, seeking their own interests at one another’s expense—is that all of this behavior is patterned after the world rather than after Christ. These are attempts to gain power rather than give it away.

The Corinthians are dealing with one another in ways that are incompatible with who God the Father, through Christ the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit has called and formed them to be. They have lost sight of who they are and how they are to live.

“Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?”

This is the crux of Paul’s argument, and through it, Paul offers the Corinthians a lens that can restore their sight.

The lens is Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, and he shifts everything into focus: how they see themselves, one another, and their disagreements. Through Paul’s letter, God is reorienting the Corinthians to the way of the cross.

God is doing the same for us today.

Through the words of Paul and Jesus, the Triune God is reorienting us to see through the lens of the crucified and risen Christ so that we can actually live as his body, especially in the face of difficulties and disagreements.  

Looking through the lens of Christ is not like looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. On the contrary, Christ exposes things as they really are.

Both Jesus and Paul take sin seriously. Both of today’s readings make it clear that we cannot do whatever we want in our relationship with God and with one another. We actually have to love each other in profound ways.

In order to help us do that, Christ our lens reorients us first by functioning as a mirror in order to expose our own sin. 

When held up to these texts today, the lens reveals that we are not that different from the Corinthians or Peter; we share a common reflection.

At Mount Olive, we are not in the habit of suing one another, but how often do we willingly submit to being wronged? Who does that? Are we not more likely to insist on our own way? To defend ourselves, our reputation, our value to the group, to tear others down when we feel threatened? When we do this, we—like the Corinthians—hurt, wrong, and defraud one another. We, too, have lost sight of who we are and how we are to live.

And don’t we, like Peter, sometimes find ourselves praying, “How many times must I forgive? How long do I have to put up with this Lord? Where can I draw the line?” I, admit that I, along with Peter, would like a formula: a perfect absolute that I can apply when relationships don’t go according to plan.

For this reason, it is tempting to interpret Jesus’ words here as a list to check off:
Step 1: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” Check.  If they don’t listen to you…
Step 2: “Take one or two others along with you.” Check. If that doesn’t work…
Step 3: Bring them before the church. Check. If that still doesn’t work…
Step 4: “Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

At first glance, this may seem like good enough reason for justifying our anger, our bitterness, and our desire to give up on those who hurt us.

But when we take a second look through the lens of the crucified and risen Christ, things shift dramatically.

What did Jesus do to Gentiles and tax collectors?

He ate with them. He sought them out when everyone else gave up on them. He drew them back into the community.

We are to do the same.

This is made even clearer by the context in which we find today’s Gospel reading. Jesus’ words about disciplining members of the church are intentionally book-ended by two parables of mercy so that we do not lose sight of what is most important.

The first is the parable of the lost sheep, where Jesus warns us not to despise any of the little ones who are prone to wandering off. Instead, we, like God the Father, are to leave the 99 in order to seek the one. It is not the Father’s will that any one of these little ones be lost.

The second is the parable of the unforgiving servant, which we hear immediately after Peter asks how many times he must forgive his brother. Jesus’ answer is the same that the master offers the slave: “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?”

Through these bookends, we discover that the lens of the crucified and risen Christ reorients us not only to see our sin, but also shows us just what God has done to deal with that sin and brokenness. 

Christ chose to die rather than to have any one of us be lost. God has responded to our own sin through the foolishness of the cross. God deals with us by forgiving us and continually offering a relationship; that is how we are to deal with one another.

Framed in this way, we see that today’s gospel reading is not a proof-text to justify exclusion, revenge, or giving up on those who hurt us. These patterns will only lead to more hurt, to more broken relationships.

The way of the cross, however, which Christ has traveled to bring us all back in, leads to forgiveness, to mercy, to love, to healing, and to restored relationships.

So why not rather be wronged?

If we are to be of the same mind as Christ, then we will risk being wronged, looking foolish, forgiving, and offering relationship in the face of rejection—all for the sake of love.

We know what this love looks like from our relationships with those who are dearest to us. Because we love them, we make decisions which may cause us to suffer: we get up in the middle of the night to rock the baby no matter how exhausted we are because that’s just what you do when you love and are a parent or grandparent. We say no to ourselves in order to say yes to them. We give up our own pursuits or desires sometimes in order to care for them. To truly love our children, our parents, or our partner/spouse, or our friends, we will embrace their losses, yearnings, and brokenness.

Doing this for those whom we love the most is hard enough, let alone for the little ones—the ones whom, according to Jesus, we are most tempted to despise. But this is the call on our lives today. This is how we are to deal with disagreements. This is how we are to treat those who hurt us, those who perhaps even make our lives in this community difficult. This is how we are to love those who, for whatever reason, always seem to push on our bruises that are still tender.

God is reorienting us to seek out these little ones. They see themselves as outsiders, and we need to love them back in. We are to seek them as God the Father seeks us all, even if that means that we will be wronged.  For it is not the Father’s will that any one of them be lost.

This time when we hold up the lens of the crucified and risen Christ, we see ourselves and one another differently. 

We realize that we are all the little ones who are prone to wander off, yet we all belong to Christ. Reoriented to the way of the cross, we will say no to ourselves in order to say yes to them. We will embrace their losses, their yearnings, their brokenness, and we will expose our own.

When we deal with our disagreements in this way as a servant community, we might be wronged. We might be defrauded. But the Triune God will continually be reorienting us through it all so that we will feel, hear, and see the healing power of Christ’s radical forgiveness at work. Our vision will no longer be blurred by rage or clouded by insecurity. Through the lens of the crucified and risen Christ, we will see one another clearly and treat one another differently because of it. Then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we—and all the world—will witness God’s kingdom coming into focus.

Amen.