The Body
January 17, 2009
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
This
sermon has been getting born all year. We’ve been laboring
through these issues for the past year and it all came to a head in the
last six months. It is a relief to finally be hearing a word from
Scripture about all these things.
Rome was a cruel
place. It was a place where class was realated to status and no
one and no family moved from one class to the other. It was
impossible. Often times the scholars of the day would use the
body as metaphor for social class. However, there were parts of
the body that were deemed superior over other part. The head, the
heart over the knee, the armpit for example. Those who were from
the lowest stations in life were asked to subordinate to the head and
the heart, for the head and heart knew what was best. They
shouldn’t upset the body. However, Paul. Paul who we love
to hate, Paul rocks the boat here. Paul says, it takes us all to
work together in order for the body to function. No part is
greater than another. If any part is left out or put over
another, the body will not function. He blows class, status out
of the water calling for a system that works together, each part as
important as the other.
Our struggle here at First is that
we think everyone can be a head. We think everyone can be a
heart. When in fact, for the entire life of First Congregational
United Church of Christ all 129 years, God has been sending people with
a variety of gifts that we might be a body. Not everyone has the
gift of moderatorship. Not everyone can be treasurer. Not
everyone has the gift of Building and Grounds. Robin Hoover over
at First Christian has renovated the entire building, as well as a
number of properties that the church owns. It is amazing the
shape that building is in. It looks fantastic! If that were
part of my job description, it would be an utter failure. I
haven’t the foggiest how to get the shelves hung up so they are
actually in the studs this time. Or how to make sure the HVAC
units are all running correctly. It took us nearly 5 years to
find that squeaking vent in the Studio that was driving us crazy on
Sunday mornings! I do not have nor never will have the gift of
building and grounds. I don’t think it’s below me. I don’t
think it’s above me, it’s just not me. I don’t got it. I do
most definitely admire and at time even wish I had that gift, but I
don’t. Everyone is not sent to do everything. We each have
our gifts. We each must use our gifts for the body to function.
Today,
we celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr.
King was a man sent from God, showered with gifts, who will be
remembered for his eloquent words, his courageous deeds, and his deep
and abiding commitment to non-violence, even in the face of police dogs
with snarling teeth and the taunts of "nice, Christian" Americans –
twentieth century Americans who reacted angrily and self-righteously
when a people demanded justice too long delayed. Justice too long
delayed, Dr. King said, is justice denied. As this Sunday arrives
each year we spend time remember Dr. King. And it seems at times
we lift him up high above us and make him so singular or special that
we sort of miss the whole point. Of course, I'm setting aside the fact
that, before his death, many Americans who today admire and praise him
were highly critical of his prophetic stand against the Vietnam War,
for example. It became much more comfortable to put him on a pedestal
and appreciate his eloquence once he was safely dead. We put Dr. King
up so high saying, his leadership, his witness is beyond our own.
His gifts are definitely more important than our own.
But,
I don’t want Dr. King to be an icon, now that he’s safely dead.
." I want to believe that what Paul says in his letter to the church at
Corinth, is true not just for the early church, not just for great
prophets but for us. I want to believe that Dr. King, while he was a
great and gifted man, a prophet even, did things that we can do, too. I
do believe that there are everyday gifted people who are responding to
human need, using the gifts God has given them – because everything we
have, Paul says earlier in his letter, is something we have received –
using the gifts God has given them to meet human need, to work for a
better and more beautiful and more just world, to speak for those who
have no voice or, better, to make sure the voiceless are heard, to
stand with those who are stepped on and pushed out, to walk with those
who are making their way to a better day. And I cannot emphasize
enough how ordinary and everyday these efforts are.
The
first time I preached on MLK Sunday was at Orchard Ridge UCC in
Madison, WI. I had gone home from seminary to preach to my home
congregation. The week prior to my visit, one of the pillars of
our church died. His name was Art Mauer. I remembered
him. He was they guy with the twinkling eyes. He was the
guy I remembered out shoveling the walk on Sunday mornings when it
wouldn’t stop snowing. He was the guy putting out salt to melt
the ice. He was the guy, one morning, I found scrubbing the floor
in the women’s toilet on his hands and knees before worship. Yes,
that was Art Mauer. But, it turned out he was also Dr. Mauer who
worked at the University of Wisconsin and had invented liquid
smoke. He was beloved by his colleagues, his students, his
staff. His life partner, Ellen and he had tired of the wretched
news in Central America and launched a program in Nicoragua that taught
women how to sew and run a buisisness of their own. These sewing
circles as they were known allowed women and girls to make a way in the
world that wasn’t before possible. And, when Art died of an
unexpected heart attack that weekend, Ellen was in Nicaragua delivering
another dozen sewing machines to a new group of women in a new part of
Nicoragua to begin their new business. That was also Art
Mauer. He could have been way too important to scrub
toilets. He could have been way too important to scrub them on
his hands and knees. He could have been way too busy with his
work to worry about people in a country that was a long way from his
front door, where they didn’t speak English, where war, poverty and
violence had ravished them for generations. But, Art believed
that every job was part of service, and every job required all our
attention and that every job we could do, we must do. He was a
man who used his time to be a Trustee of our church. He was also
a man who scrubbed toilets, shoveled walks and made sure everyone could
get to church on Sunday morning. He put his whole heart into
being in worship on Sunday mornings as well as his hands, his feet, his
head, and his heart.
Oftentimes, we think that we give and
that’s that. We should have to give anything else. But,
that’s just not true. There’s all sorts of stuff that has to get
done in community. This congregation has paid for most of those
tasks to be done for us for nearly a century. And now, we are
finding out, that it’s going to take the whole body to create a
community here. God has sent us all to breathe life and hop into
this world and it begins here, with scrubbing toilets, folding
bulletins, raking the yard, picking up trash, taking out the garbage
cans. Yes, we also need a Treasurer, Yes, we also need a
moderator, and we can’t have one without the other.
This
week we had another lesson in how crazy we are in America. It’s
the lesson of Haiti. Haiti where hell has come to earth and Haiti
where people are singing hymns in the streets. They are so
grateful to be alive, that they have breath in their bodies, they are
singing and thanking God. We looked at Haiti before the
earthquake and thanked God we don’t live there. It’s too
hard. It’s too unreliable. It’s too risky. And now,
what could they possibly have to sing about. And that’s just
it. They have their bodies. They have life. They
understand the fragility of being on this planet. They live close
to the earth. They see death around them every day. They
understand the function of the body. They understand what toll it
takes when one is swallowed up into the earth. And we feel
hopeless. But, we should not. We in the UCC have covenant
partners there. Just like Ann will be in Zambia. We already
had people in Haiti, people living there with the people. And, as
this tragedy struck we already had access to people, our partners,
people who could help. I can’t think of a disaster where this
hasn’t been true. We don’t need to wait for our people to get
there, they are already there.
They are a part of the
body, those partners in Haiti. Ann is a part of the body, as she
travels to Zambia. Barby Goldschmid and Kathy Padilla are part of
the body working with orphans in Zambia. Melissa is part of the
body as she works at being Moderator in this important moment.
Yvonne is part of the body, she makes the coffee every week. Bud
is part of the body, he picks up the bulletins after service every
week. It is going to take all of us to do these things and more
to be witnesses to the Holy One. We are going to have to take
care of our community that we might serve beyond it.
"Every
now and then," Dr. King said, "I think about my own death, and I think
about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. Every
now and then I ask myself, 'What is it that I would want said?' And I
leave the word to you this morning….
"I'd like somebody to
mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life
serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin
Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day,
that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to
say that day, that I did try, in my life, to feed the hungry. And I
want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe
those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try,
in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I
tried to love and serve humanity.
Let it be so.