On Being One Body

My sermon for tomorrow :-

I’ve been out buying new clothes, Ann having informed me that half the contents of my wardrobe were on their way to the skip. Optimistically I bought new clothes the same size as my old clothes. Post-Christmas, my body could be a bit trimmer than it seems to be, and I need to get a bit more fit.

When I watch a great athlete in action I can’t help but be amazed at their grace and co-ordination. Joints and muscles, all the different components of the human body, are working together in an effective and beautiful harmony. It’s not been like that for me, so far. All the different components of my body seem to be working against each other, and I have aches and pains all over. It’ll get better I’m sure, but just now my body is not a well-oiled machine, it’s more like a sackful of old worn-out bits.

Paul describes the Church as a single body with its many limbs and organs. This is one of his great images, a helpful and challenging way of understanding this thing called “church”. In fact, the church he was writing to in Corinth was more like my body just now than what the Church ought to be. Its members weren’t co-operating with each other, instead they were fractious and argumentative.

Paul wasn’t happy with them, therefore. A disunited church can’t bear a good witness to Christ. So Paul wrote to tell them to get their act together, but as he wrote he found these words that are a high point in his writing. His very finest words, about love, are in the next chapter, but first we have this great image: the Church is the body of Christ.

So each one of us is a limb or organ of that body. And therefore no-one is complete as a Christian without the rest of the body; and every individual member should be supporting the whole body; as members of Christ we have a responsibility for one another and to the whole body.

If we think of church as a building to come to, say prayers at and then go home from, or as an organisation we pay our subs to, this isn’t how Paul saw it. Church is who we are together; and what we are is the body of Christ.

The parts of my body are rebelling just now at my new attempts to get fit. But there are other times when parts of a body just stop working as they should, and maybe the owner of that body lands up in hospital. What's true for an individual human body is true as well for the individual church. Our churches should be lively, attractive, warm and loving places, where God’s word is actively lived, but I’ve known too many that have become unhappy, argumentative, divided. A person looking for faith and meaning there won’t find much to help them.

What about the Church with a capital C, nationwide or worldwide. We’re in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity just now. Sadly, we don’t have Christian unity; if we had we wouldn't need the week. The body of Christ finds a variety of expression and tradition and practice, and that’s fine. Our faith crosses many boundaries of geography and culture, and it's by no means the end of the world if we don't all sing the same hymns. But I do pray for unity of purpose and community, and that we recognise each other as sisters and brothers, as fellow pilgrims, sharing one Lord, one faith, one baptism, the vital essentials of faith that bond us together.

Even within our own denomination, the Anglican Communion, there’s disagreement and tension. Here’s what the Archbishop of Canterbury, said to the gathered primates of the Anglican Communion the other week: “We so easily take our divisions as normal, but they are in fact an obscenity, a denial of Christ’s call and equipping of the Church . . . the world does not see the spiritual Church but a divided and wounded body.” Strong words which we really do need to hear and take on board.

Conservatives might respond that we can only have unity when those who need to repent of their liberal errors and join them in believing the true Gospel. Liberals might say that unity depends on a spirit of tolerance that accepts diversity and makes space for minorities. We all read the same scripture, but there are some deep divisions as regards interpretation and practice. How do we deal with that? It may be hard and uncomfortable, but the Church has to work at being united in spirit and purpose even when we don’t always agree. As Archbishop Justin went on to say: “There has never been a time when the Church was one in view, but it has often been one in heart.”

Paul’s great image of the Body of Christ challenges the Church at every level, local, national, international. It challenges the divisions between denominations, and the divisions within denominations. And it challenges us to be more aware of our responsibility for one another in each local fellowship and congregation.

We need the same discipline in the Church, as I need as regards getting my own human body fit. For we need to be pulling our weight as the body of Christ in mission. I’m personally challenged here, as a minister; after all, I'm quite an old fashioned priest, and therefore something of a one man band. But a Church growing as the Body of Christ needs a new sharing of ministry, a willingness to recognise the ministry of others, and a commitment to enable that ministry.

In First Peter we read that the Church is to be a kingdom of priests, in other words we all have an investment in ministry. We need that if the Body is to thrive and grow. Every part of the body is important, including the parts which are thought of as lowly and humble. And maybe some of the parts that are sure of their own importance need to learn a bit of humility.

Jesus himself told his disciples he was among them as one who served, and that the greatest among them should learn to be the servant of all. A Church whose members are serving each other, and are compassionate and caring towards one another, is a body that is straight away Christ-like. Where service is central to the ethos of the church, then service is what the church will be doing in the world. Such a church will be a healing Church, a compassionate Church, and a welcoming Church. As we re-learn what it means to be one active body together, we become more attractive to those who are searching for God, including those who don’t yet realise that’s what they’re doing. They’ll want to know more of what we are about; and if we are one Body, with limbs and organs in place and harmonious and supporting each other, then those who look will see not us, but our Lord.