Sermon: We are the Lord’s limbs and love is our ligaments

          Last week we read

—and experienced in skit form
—John’s account of Jesus’ first act of public ministry. Today, and next week, we read of Jesus’ first public act according to Luke. 
Returning from temptation in the wilderness, 
filled with the Holy Spirit, 
Jesus reads these words from Isaiah 61:

         “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

         And he concludes: “In your hearing of these words this scripture has been fulfilled.”

… or more to the point, 
because Greek verbs are slippery things… 
Isaiah’s words are fulfilled 
and continue to be fulfilled.

         In our hearing
—this very day
—Isaiah’s prophetic words, completed in Christ, 
continue to be completed.

         Pastor, how is that possible? Here? Us?

         I think Paul points us in the right direction on this: 
We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

 

Prayer

We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

         We, the Church, are the Body of Christ. 
         We, individual Christians, are members of that body.

         S, R, P
—after this sermon, 
before we sing “We are all one in mission”, I’ll be inviting you up to officially welcome you as members of this congregation.

         Member is such a common word in the English, 
that we don’t hear it viscerally, 
when Paul writes about “the many members of Christ.” 

         Think of it though
—members, 
pieces, 
limbs. 

         Christian mystic Teresa of Avila famously wrote: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

         Or think of Paul’s own experience. 
He was on his way to Damascus to kill and torture more members of the Early Church
—and in a vision Jesus said to him, “You’re not persecuting them, you’re persecuting me.”The Church is the Body of Christ.

         Congregations and churches get used in many different ways: 
as service and community centers, 
family reunion spots, 
a place to pass on values to children, 
or make friends…

         But ultimately, we are gathered together, 
because we are Washed into Christ through Baptism, 
together we commune with him Holy Communion.

 

We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

         I’m so glad I’ve never served a congregation like Corinth
—they were the most divisive and divided group of people you could imagine. 
There are at least 11 issues that they break into factions over, everything from: 
-where they meet, 
-to who gets the privilege of paying the preacher 
and (get this G) who gets to be the treasurer, they fight over that 
Issues such as: 
-the role of women in the church, 
-what spiritual gift was the best 
-and if you can marry a non-Christian.

         Such division
—and to this Paul uplifts a diversity of gifts! 
By and large, he does not urge conformity
—but instead the celebration of difference… 
The church ought to be strong enough to celebrate difference, because our unity is centered in Christ’s love.

         Celebrating one ministry doesn’t take away from another. 
Sunday School and VBS doesn’t diminish the Women of the ELCA or the Altar Guild. 

         The Finance Team and the 250^th Anniversary committee, 
or Worship & Music and Fellowship &Outreach… 
every inch of our annual report
—the account of our life together this last year
—ought to be seen as part of a larger whole
—empowered by the Love of Jesus Christ.

 

We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

         We need each other! 
Not just the congregation, 
but the whole body of Christ.

         This last week has been the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
—a week where we are in prayer that this global diverse body of Christ
—might see the gifts we each bring 
and recognize the ligaments that hold us together
—the ties that bind. 
Note more clearly how much we need each other.

 

         Paul makes a strange move in his 1^st letter to the Corinthians
—he points out that those parts of the body that are most often covered with clothing are the disrespected and weak parts—that covering he writes, 
is an act of honoring them…

         The weak and disrespected parts
—Isaiah might say the poor, blind, and oppressed
—ought to be honored as indispensable among us. 
—we ought to afford dignity and kindness to each other
—that should be obvious
—but especially to those to whom our larger society is unkind and disrespectful.

 

         We are one in Christ, and we matter to each other
—when one of us is hurting, we’re all hurting.

         Think on that metaphor of the Body
-toes are tiny, but if you stub one the whole body knows.

-When your nose runs, or your sinus gets an infection
—that isn’t just the problem of the nose or the problem of the sinus
—it is all our problem.

 

We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

         There are a wide variety of gifts among us
—song and service, 
stewardship and leadership, 
maintenance and mutual ministry.

         Many vocations among us,  just to name a few: Lab Tech, Trooper, Gardner, Pastor, Parent, Quilter, Citizen, Child, Spouse

         All guided and empowered by our Baptism into Christ
—our first sacramental connection to God’s love.

 

We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

         Behind all of it, 
one Spirit, one Body. 
Empowering it all
—rooted in love, or it is worthless.

         All that we do
—we in the biggest sense I can say, 
rooted in love. 
The love of Christ is the animating force that fulfills all that God is doing in the world.

We are the Lord’s limbs 
and love is our ligaments.

A+A

Saul and Ananias--A Skit

Scene 1:

Saul: (Sigh)

You see, I had everything figured out, before that fateful day, on my way to Damascus.

I believed that there was an answer to any question under the sun within my rigorous, zealous, version of the Jewish tradition—it was all found in the Law of God. This certainty was worth defending, even with torture, violence, and murder. 

You hear me, right? Certainty was worth violence.

For example, God help me, there were these disturbances, first Peter and John in the Temple, then later… Stephen… and his trial…

Disturbances by those so called “Followers of the Way” who believed Jesus—this crucified man—was the Messiah, the Blessed One of God. I knew that couldn’t be true, after all it is written in Deuteronomy 21:23: “All who die upon a tree are cursed.” (Deut. 21:23) So I was certain that Jesus couldn’t be God’s Blessed One, for he died accursed. I believed that the Way must be destroyed by all means necessary!

So, I went hunting heretics. After we bundled Stephen up and stoned him to death, they scattered, and I followed where I could, forcing them to renounce Jesus—imprisonment, torture, execution—whatever I needed to do, I did, for the sake of clarity and certainty.

Then I heard gossip—intel—suggesting some Followers of the Way had set up shop at a synagogues in Damascus. So I rushed there to drag them back to Jerusalem.

And, along the road, I was imagining the throne of God—a common mystical practice for some of the devout… and then it was there. Heaven! Heaven slashed down to earth—a frightening Holy light. On the throne though—the King, the one enthroned in heaven… asked me the strangest of questions.

Jesus: Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?

Saul: Who are you?

Jesus: I am Jesus, who you are persecuting. Get up, go into Damascus, and you’ll be told your fate.

Saul: So, here’s the thing you need to know… while all that was going on, that vision of heaven that took away my vision, my traveling companions… my brute squad… were petrified, for they heard the voice of Jesus too!

Then blinded by the vision of Jesus as the Heavenly Messiah seated on the heavenly throne, my goons turned into my nursemaids. For three days, I could neither eat nor drink.

 

Scene 2:

Ananias: I’d heard about him, Saul the Zealot. He had a reputation as a fierce man—an Asian Jew, he was far enough from Jerusalem to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder about it. He was hyper aware of gentile culture, a despiser of it… even as that culture was the water he swam in… he would not bend to any rule or make any compromise, even as he was fluent in Greek and Roman affluence.

I’d even heard rumors he was coming our way… I’d heard rumors, then I heard something so much more.

Jesus: Ananias!

Ananias: Henenni! You see, that’s what you say when confronted with a supernatural force… Henenni! Here I am. Here I am, Lord.

Jesus: Get up, go to Straight Street. Go to Jude’s house and ask for a man from Tarsus, his name is Saul…

Ananias: Oh no!

Jesus: You’ll see him praying. He has seen in a vision a man named Ananias…

Ananias: Oh no… that’s me.

Jesus: Yes… yes it is… Saul has seen you coming and laying hands on him and healing his blindness.

Ananias: Well… Lord. I’ve heard about Saul, of Tarsus… A lot of people talk about Saul of Tarsus…  they talk about how he is persecuting your Holy Ones, your Disciples, in Jerusalem… and how he’s coming here frothing mad, waving paperwork from the chief priests back in Jerusalem. He wants to tie us up and drag us back there to do to us what was done to poor Stephen. Anyone who calls on your name, Lord, is captured. If I say “Jesus is Lord” is done for.

Jesus: Ananias, just go… Saul is the one I’ve chosen to carry my name before foreigners and rulers—and to his own people as well. I am also going to show him how he must suffer for my names sake.

Ananias: With that I skedaddled, to Straight Street and found Jude’s house, ducked in, found that persecutor, and laid hands on him.

 

Scene 3:

Annanias: Brother Saul, Jesus—who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—the Lord, sent me to you, so that you can see again and receive the Holy Spirit.

Saul: And just like that these things, like scales, fell from my eyes. I could again see. The first sight, this man, clearly terrified of me. Yet he helped me up and baptized me! He gave me food, and my weakness left me.

Community, baptism, meal… and with that I was sent to tell people the good news: Jesus is Lord!

 

Scene 4:

Annanias: With that he was off and running. Preaching in Synagogues and in the street, to zealots and Pharisees, philosophers, sailors, and kings.

He even changed his name to make himself more relatable to Greek Speakers… did you know Saul means something like Prancer in Greek…

Paul’s ministry to non-Jews, to a Pagan world, honed the Gospel message.

The Blessed One’s resurrection is the beginning of a new world—all the divisions and rules of the past were captive to Sin and Death, even the blessed Law that gave Paul so much certainty—infected by death’s perilous power.

But now, all the powers that enslave us—every category that causes us to act against the Spirit of God—are overcome by Christ—truly it is a new day, a new age, a new world. All those slave contracts of the old world are replaced with adoption papers—Through Christ we are all God’s Children!

He set up these small communities across present day Turkey and Greece, who strove to live reconciled lives together in the Spirit, redeeming all the Powers of the old age in preparation for and as a foretaste of the complete unfolding of the New Age of Christ. It is here and it is coming soon!

Amen!