January 26, 2025

Body Parts

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the old spiritual, “Dry Bones.”  Well, anyone who has spent much time typing at a computer keyboard, or clicking a computer mouse button, knows the timeless truth that “the wrist-bone (as the old spiritual says) is connected to the arm-bone.”  Sometimes, in fact, I can spend so much time typing and “mousing” that my wrist bone begins to complain about the connection.

But a wondrous connection it is.  Because of the connection between our arm-bones, and wrist-bones, and hand-bones, and finger-bones, humanity is capable of giving birth to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Tolstoi’s “War and Peace,” open heart surgery, robots taking soil samples on Mars, and who knows how much more?

Our body parts are magnificently woven together so that the whole is far greater the sum of the parts.  When the finger-bone is, through the chain of joints and tendons and nerve synapses, connected to the head-bone, the result is greater than this (the wagging of a finger) — it is this (the beautiful sanctuary in which we worship).

What is true for our individual bodies is true also for the “Body of Christ.”  That’s a term we use to refer to the Church of Christ in the world.  The Body of Christ is us — it is people, connected by the ligaments and tendons of our common bond in Christ.  The power of this body is a source of abundant hope in our world.

In the ties that bind us together as childtren of the Most High, there is a hope which lies beyond the rational assessment of optimum results and managed outcomes — a hope which confounds the purveyors of pessimistic probabilities.  I tell you that wonders beyond your imagining can come of the power of unity in love.

This is my message today.

No power on earth is greater than that of the people of faith united.  Even the seemingly impossible becomes possible when you and I are knitted together by the holy and inexplicable Spirit of the Lord.

That’s what we mean when we speak of being a member around here.  It means being a member of the body of Christ in the same way that your arm is one of your bodily members.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way: “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.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

These words were written to a church that was being robbed of its power.  The church at Corinth was weakened by the bickering of rival factions.  Some folks were lining up behind Paul, some were siding with Apollos, some were with Cephas.  It all sounds quite familiar to our twentieth century ears. There’s still a cancerous tendency on the part of otherwise intelligent, clear-thinking people to set up camp on opposite sides of an issue and take target practice at each other.

We also don’t find ourselves surprised at the echoes of avoidance and withdrawal in Corinth that we hear from Paul’s letter.  We’re not surprised at it because we encounter it, and perpetuate it ourselves.  It’s the tendency, if things aren’t going the way you like, and you don’t feel like fighting, to simply flee — run away, or drop out.

I’ve done it; I suspect some of you have too: “If he’s going to act like that, then to heck with him!” – or “I’ll show them, I just won’t go to their meetings.” – or the thousand other ways we have of opting out.

How about this one: “Who me? I’m too old to get involved.  Let some of the younger ones do that now” – as though the foot could say, “since I’m not a hand, I’m not part of the body.”

Here’s another oldie but goodie: “I’m not so much a part of things around here; I just don’t have the kind of real faith that some of these other folks have” – as though the ear could say, “If I’m not an eye then I’m not part of the body.”

I bet you’ve never heard this one: “Oh, I don’t know if I’ll go to church today; nobody there would miss me anyway” – as though the eye could say to the hand, “I have no need of you.”

The Deacons or the Mission Committee cannot say to the Trustees, “I have no need of you.”  A new member cannot say, “because I’m not a long-time member, I’m not part of the body.”

Such disembodiment takes the very life and power out of the church.  And it steals that same life and power from each one of us, because we are fed by one another’s dreams, sustained by each other’s smiles, and upheld by prayers as well as hugs.

Some insight might be sought from some of our long time members — those who have endured the hard knocks, cried at the funerals, danced at the weddings, and generally been knocking around this place for 20 or 30 or 50 years.  There is much they could tell us about the body, and what it is to be a part of it for a number of seasons.  I could not presume to know all they could say, so I encourage any of you who are newer to the church to ask them.  Hear some 30 or 40 year old stories about some former pastor, or some church project, or some tragedy or triumph and listen to what is not spoken.  Listen to the patience, and the love and the quiet power of that testimony.

I would be so bold as to offer at least an observation or two about what we might hear from some of that accumulated wisdom on the subject of member-ship.

One of the things I suspect we would hear is: don’t get all distressed or worked up about whether we get a pastor, or if that person is going to meet all your expectations.  Pastors come and go.  Folks who have been around here a long time have seen plenty.  The church is a much bigger thing than whatever pastoral leadership we may have at any given time.  That’s a message most ministers fresh out of seminary are not delighted to hear.  I have been around the block enough times to not only have heard it, but to know it and to trust the wisdom in it.  The church is a gathered body of believers, and its elegance, creativity, power, faithfulness, humility (all the things that make for greatness) derive not from the brilliance of the clergy, but from those people who, over the course of the years, pour their very souls into its sustenance.  That’s you.

I think you’d also hear from some of these long-tenured folks how much they have depended on one another over the years.  Spending time together, people tend to learn a lot about each other’s gifts, and come to depend on the strengths of others.  There is nothing quite so overwhelming as the first time you land in a hospital, and receive cards, and phone calls, and visits, and you learn how many people are praying for you.  There’s nothing quite so empowering as to know that, when the chips are down, there is someone you can call who will take you to a doctor’s appointment, or watch the grand-kids, or lead the meeting you have to miss, or any of a dozen other things.

Gary Inrig, tells the story of two students who graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law several years ago.  “The highest ranking student in the class was a blind man named Overton and, when he received his honor, he insisted that half the credit should go to his friend, Kaspryzak. They had met one another in school when the armless Mr. Kaspryzak had guided the blind Mr. Overton down a flight of stairs. This acquaintance ripened into friendship and a beautiful example of interdependence. The blind man carried the books which the armless man read aloud in their common study  . . . After their graduation, they planned to practice law together.”

Like those two, we need each other.  You may at times be blind to the critical realities staring you in the face, but someone near you can show you the way; you may at times be unable to grasp something of key importance, but someone with a firmer grasp of reality can give you a hand.  Some of us are prophets, some are leaders, some apostles, some of us are pains in the butt.  But every one of us is a treasure.

Another thing I suspect we would hear from those who’ve been “knocking around this place” for long years is: don’t sweat the small stuff.  For someone who’s been a member for 30 years or more, “small stuff” is not being able to meet the annual budget, planning programs that completely fail, a nostril flaring, name-calling fight over which committee has control of the downstairs closet, or what kind of hymnal we’re going to choose.  For someone who’s been a member for 30 years or more, “small stuff” is all those things most folks spend sleepless nights worrying about.  Truth is, even the big stuff, the church survives.

To be a member of the body that has endured for 2,000 years is to ride out storms.  It is to be eager to forgive, and patient in the face of incompetence or insensitivity.  It is to be gentle with our foes, and just as gentle with ourselves.

And then there are things that the “old timers” can learn from those who haven’t been around so long.  Creative ideas, fresh energy, new ways of looking at old problems.  These are just a few of the many gifts that new people bring along with them.  Those ideas, that energy, those visions, deserve respect, and add critical strength to the body.

To those newer folks among us I offer a word of encouragement.  Bring your ideas, bring your passions, bring your dreams; you are terribly important to the church of Jesus Christ.  And I offer you this hope: If you persevere, if you succeed in achieving a record of long service as a member of one of Christ’s churches, you will have earned the right to quietly move over and make room for someone new in your pew — a pew you may have sat in for decades.  You will have earned the right to pour your soul into another struggle through another mind-bending, heart-wrenching social issue, when maybe you have already struggled through prohibition, and war, and integration, and Viet Nam, and “ban the bomb.”  You will have earned the right to valiantly do your best to sing some new-fangled hymn that some new-fangled preacher has decided to foist upon you, when you’ve sung thirteen dozen new-fangled ones already.

And at the end of the day, you will have earned the right to sit back in your chair with a soft tear rolling out of the corner of your eye, recalling how lives have been changed in all those years, not least of them your own, and you will thank the Lord for the power and grace of being a part of the body.

All of us are “body parts”, and O how that makes us important.  Because the body of which we are a part is the very hope of the world.