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)

The Spirit of the Triune God is in you and giving you the gifts to be and do your mission as God’s Christ in your world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, First Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 1 C
Texts: Luke 3:15-22; Acts 8:14-17; Isaiah 43:1-7 (and referencing Isaiah 11 as well)

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

Pentecost changed everything for the Church. That’s obvious.

The Church came to birth that day. But what isn’t as obvious is how deeply those first believers expected Pentecost to be repeated for any who came to trust Christ for life.

So, when those who heard on that first day asked what they could do, Peter invited them to repent and be baptized, receiving forgiveness, but also promised they’d receive the Holy Spirit. As the book of Acts unfolds, the early Church watches for the coming of the Spirit, names where they see the Spirit moving, and lives with confident expectation that the Spirit would continue to bless the Church, and individual believers. What we heard in Acts 8 today became the pattern: baptize, then lay on hands and pray for the Holy Spirit.

From the beginning this was always the promise of our baptism.

John the Baptist was clear: His baptism was an act of repentance, a symbolic washing. But Christ would bring a baptism not only with water, but into the very Spirit of the Triune God.

So when the early Church read Isaiah 11, which promised how the Spirit of God would come upon the Christ, they said, “That’s what happened at the Jordan with Jesus. And that’s what happened to us at Pentecost. And that’s what we see happening with all who come to follow the way of Christ.”

So they prayed Isaiah 11 as a prayer, and so do we, at baptisms, at confirmation, and today when we affirm our own baptism once more: “Stir up in your people the gift of your Holy Spirit:” we pray. “The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God, the Spirit of joy in your presence.”

What if this Spirit was and is your gift, your truth? What if you joined the early believers and expected, trusted that Pentecost was also your reality?

Somehow as the Church we lost our way with Baptism over the centuries.

Baptism became sometimes a talisman, sometimes a way to control whom God loved and chose, sometimes a way to guarantee a seat at the heavenly table after death. It caused fear if someone died without it, as if God was somehow bound by our inability to get the rite accomplished. It was often something to be done and then for the most part forgotten.

That meant the Spirit life expected by John and Jesus and the early believers as part of baptism, the mission that comes from baptism in water and the Spirit, was kind of dropped by the wayside. Many of us weren’t taught that our baptism was the beginning of our mission as God’s Anointed, just as with Jesus.

So what if we take the early Church seriously? They saw God’s Spirit active in Jesus, empowering and gracing. Everything he did, taught, shared, lived, came from the Spirit of God that was evident in in him.

Pentecost showed them that as with Jesus, so it would be with them, and even with those who were drawn to the community of Christ but weren’t at Pentecost. And the world was being changed.

The Spirit is frightening to contemplate, though.

It’s easier to believe in a God you can control. Get all your teaching straight, get the simple answers you want, and you’ve got God in hand. Once you introduce God’s Spirit blowing, moving, filling, fiery and changing, all bets are off.

You can’t control who thinks the right thoughts about God and what those right thoughts are when the way the Triune God lives and moves in the world is through the Holy Spirit, who can’t be controlled, or predicted, or stopped. The Spirit blows wherever she wills, Jesus promises in John 3. We can only see where the Spirit has been, we have no control. So to pray this prayer is to relinquish illusion of control. To trust that God will do what God will do and be open and willing to receive that movement from God. Willing to let go of our need to define God or the boundaries of God’s action in the world.

It’s scary. But it’s also the good news: if the Triune God is who Scripture says, who we claim God to be, God’s already doing everything without our say so. There’s nothing at stake in relinquishing except our stubborn clinging to an illusion that isn’t real anyway.

So what could your life be like if you expected these gifts of the Spirit?

Trusted the Holy Spirit is in you? Watched for signs of the Spirit’s moving in your life? What if you expected you’d be given wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of God, and joy in God’s presence? What would such gifts do in your life, your relationships, your service?

If you don’t think you’ve seen such gifts in you, ask someone who knows you well. We see things in others we often can’t see in ourselves. It may be that others might have seen gifts in you already.

But here’s your mission: expect the Spirit’s gifts and be ready to move.

Washed in God’s waters and given forgiveness and life, God has called you by name, and you are God’s beloved child; God is well pleased with you. And now God’s Spirit lives, and moves, and breathes, and loves in you. Name that. Watch for it, and expect to see great wonders.

Because Pentecost changes everything. And Pentecost is already your truth.

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