The Body
Text: I Corinthians
12:12-27
January 2, 2005, Dave Philips
St. Augustine once said, "People go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."1
We human beings are miracles -- each one of us. If God had only made one human being, he would deserve praise and thanksgiving forever. But he made billions of us, each of us unique, like snowflakes, each a marvel of creativity.
Lewis Thomas remarked when scientists in Britain had succeeded in producing a human embryo in a test tube and later transplanting it in a uterus, that while everybody was amazed at this technological marvel, it was minor compared to the real miracle of an egg and a sperm uniting to become a baby.
"For the real amazement," says Thomas, "is the process. You start out as a single cell derived from the coupling of a sperm and an egg, this divides into two, then four, then eight, and so on, and at a certain stage there emerges a single cell which will have as all its progeny the human brain. The mere existence of that cell," Lewis Thomas continues, "should be one of the great astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell. It is an unbelievable thing, and yet there it is, popping neatly into its place amid the jumbled cells of every one of the several billion human embryos around the planet, just as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do."2
And you know what else? We come to church on Sunday morning. We greet our neighbors. We sing three hymns, we listen to a sermon. Periodically we share communion. And we leave and go home to our Sunday brunches and the N.F.L. playoffs without giving a second thought to the marvel that God has created . . . in the Body of Christ, the Church.
The human body is incredibly resilient. That the human body has survived over several million years is a continuing wonder. According to Bruce Ames, professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California at Berkeley, the cells of our bodies live in a continuous barrage from the toxins in our environment. Most of these toxins are not man-made: they exist in nature. So, even without man-made pollution, humanity has existed from the beginning in a highly toxic environment. Each of our sixty trillion cells takes a "hit" from one of these poisonous toxins every ten seconds or so. In the time it takes to preach this sermon, the cells of your body will have been assaulted by poisonous toxins tens of trillions of times.
But your body will survive because your cells are constantly repairing themselves and the rest of the cells of your body. In most of your cells there are thousands of chemical reactions going on at any given moment that protect you from the poisonous environment in which you live.3
Equally amazing is the survival of the Body of Christ, the Church. How on earth have we survived for the past 2,000 years?
We survived the attempts of Roman emperors to stamp us out, and we ended up as the official religion of the Roman Empire.
We survived the collapse of that empire when barbarians overran it, and we ended up converting those very barbarians to Christianity.
We survived the scorn of Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire who predicted the death of the Church in a generation, and saw the day when the house where Voltaire lived when he made that prediction became the headquarters of a Bible Society.
In the past century we have survived the hostility of both Russian and Chinese Communism and have witnessed the astonishing growth of the Church in both those countries. And we will yet survive our own success and wealth in the western church and the hostility of a secular western culture.
Paul compares the church to a human body. The comparison is a good one. It is a miracle that either the human body or the church survives. On this first Sunday of the new year, I’d like you to think about how and why God renews the Body of Christ and keeps it vital and resilient when so much in our environment works against it.
GOD’S STRATEGY
God renews the Body of Christ because the Church is God’s strategy for renewing and saving the human race. It seems crazy, but there it is. Read the Bible cover to cover and you find no other indication. God could, if he chose, force the human race to behave itself. He could threaten us with immediate punishment if we stepped out of line. He could program us, much as he programs insects, to obey him in ways that conform perfectly to his plan.
But he didn’t do that. Instead, he gave us freedom to choose. And when we made wrong choices, he came among us personally through Jesus Christ. He took on our sin and rebellion, bore them to the cross, and defeated them there. Now he offers each one of us his Spirit so that we may be renewed. "To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good," says Paul in our Scripture lesson.4
We are God’s strategy for reaching the world. Every Christian here this morning has been given at least one gift by the Holy Spirit so that the Church can survive and grow. Did you know that? Every one of you who has trusted Jesus Christ and committed your life to him has been given at least one gift from the Holy Spirit. The reason you have been given this gift is, as Paul says, so that you can contribute to the common good of the Church.
There’s a legend Erasmus recounts that when Jesus returned to heaven after the resurrection, the angel Gabriel asked him how the story of his salvation was going to be spread around. Christ replied, "Through Peter, James, John, the other disciples." "But what if they fail?" asked Gabriel. "What’s your backup strategy?" Christ replied, "I don’t have any other strategy."
We’re it, folks. We’re God’s strategy for reaching the world. And, get this, that strategy has worked through the ages and continues to work today. Don’t ask me how. I haven’t the foggiest. I don’t understand it any more than I understand how human cells can survive. I just know that we are still here, we have survived incredible stresses and traumas, and we continue to grow all over the world.
What if we here at First Presbyterian were the only church in the world? Would God change his strategy because we are such a small group and have no spiritual giants among us? No way! Remember: Jesus started with an even smaller group with even less promise than we have.
Christ’s message to all churches is this: "Behave as if you were the only church in the world. Because you are my strategy for reaching the world with my good news and my healing touch."
GOD’S METHODOLOGY
That’s why God renews the Body of Christ. Now let’s think about how God works to renew us.
First, God renews us through making us aware of our own identity. Through scripture, through preaching, through teaching God gets the message through. That’s Paul’s objective in this twelfth chapter of I Corinthians: to make us aware of who we are. "You all are the body of Christ," says Paul, "and each one is a member of it."
Paul doesn’t say to Christians, "Some of you are the Body of Christ." He says, "All of you are the Body of Christ." Paul doesn’t say, "All of you may some day become the Body of Christ." He says, "All of you are the Body of Christ." We’re it, folks! What we see is what we are. We’re not all there is, but we have among us the capabilities for carrying out God’s plan, not just for our neighborhood but for the whole world.
It’s just like a human cell: each human cell has in its DNA the entire program for building a complete human body. God has everything he needs right here this morning for changing the world. And if we were the only church in the world, God could and would change the world through us.
Second, God renews us by making us aware of each other. Paul gives us one of the most memorable metaphors of the Bible. He tells us to think of the parts of the body. He gives us a beautiful picture of the body connected by its central nervous system. "When one part suffers, all the parts suffer. When one part is honored, all the parts rejoice together."
Nolan Ryan had one of the greatest arms in baseball pitching history. But Nolan Ryan’s arm, apart from Nolan Ryan, would be dead meat! And Nolan Ryan apart from his arm would be a cripple. But when Nolan Ryan’s arm is honored for being perhaps the greatest arm in the history of baseball, the rest of Nolan Ryan gets to celebrate.
We Christians come to life and get renewed when we become aware of the rest of the Body of Christ. We realize that no part of the body is so important that it can tell the other parts to take a hike. If the eye is so stuck on its beauty and power to see that it insists on standing alone, what you’ve got is a monster out of a science fiction movie.
I used to not like my nose. I thought it was lacking in character and nobility. I used to think that the noses of Victor Mature and Charlton Heston were much more satisfactory.
I remember once getting interviewed by a local newspaper. After the interview, the reporter said, "Let’s get a couple of pictures of you." He pulled out a camera and took me with my face to the camera. Then he said, "Let’s get you in profile." I turned my head to the side. Then he said, "Well, let’s try the other profile." I turned my head the other way. Then he said, "Well, I think your best side is facing front." What a blow to my fragile self-esteem!
But something happened to change my mind about my nose. Cathy fell in love with it. She thought it was the greatest nose in the world. I’d laugh at her. But after about fifteen years of hearing her go on about how great my nose was, I came to realize she was right. My nose is really pretty O.K.
My fragile self-image was enhanced because of the love of my wife. It’s the same in the Church. God’s love, mediated through you and me, helps each member know that we are important, that we are beautiful, that we are loved.
Think about one final way God renews the Body: through the commitment of the members to healthy living. The cells of the Body of Christ, like the cells of the human body, are constantly taking "hits" from the world. We need to eat right, exercise vigorously, worship, and rest to be healthy Christians.
We need to avoid the toxins that kill the cells of the Body. Think about cells of the Body of Christ you’ve known, and maybe you’ve been one of those cells, who have been driven away from church by toxins in the church’s environment.
Like gossip. One of the very worst. We love it! Gossiping makes us feel good, because it elevates us at the expense of another human being. There’s a rush like you get from a drug that we experience when we’re able to pass on a particularly juicy bit of gossip about another Christian.
Or fighting. I believe in expressing anger in the Body of Christ. Jesus expressed his anger, and he did it in a healthy way. But there’s an unhealthy joy in constant conflict that some of us love to experience. We really probably ought to go out and chop wood, but instead we take out our anger on fellow family members or church members.
Paul makes several lists of these toxins in his letters that add to the many toxins we Christians are already battling.5 The worst kind of toxic attack doesn’t come from outside the Body. It comes from inside the Body.
We need to avoid these toxins and maintain a proper balance of diet, rest, and exercise. We need to feed on God’s word daily as we read Scripture and meditate on it. Bible study is fun! Ask the people who come early on a Sunday morning to share the word together in our adult class. It’s a joy to share the great things that come out of God’s word.
We also need rest and exercise. Attending worship on Sunday is one form of rest as you relax among friends and worship God. Then you exercise by taking what you get on Sunday and putting it to work on the job or in the various ministries of this church.
As we take communion this morning, remember your need for spiritual anti-oxidants to help repair the damage caused by the toxins in our environment. Communion is an outward sign of what is going on inside you. Think of the bread and the wine as living cells of Jesus Christ that are entering us to repair our damaged spiritual cells and to renew the Body of Christ.
People travel the world to see its wonders, but hardly ever wonder at themselves. Christians are impressed by the power of athletes such as Brett Favre, or historical characters such as Churchill. But we may never take time to marvel at the astonishing power of the church.
But this morning you have the opportunity to wonder at the amazing person that God made when he created you. And you have the chance to be filled with awe at the astonishing power and resilience of the Body of Christ.
Most of all, you have the chance to feed on Christ, to take his living cells into your own life by faith, to be renewed by Christ as you begin a new year, and to be repaired, and healed, and equipped for the rough and tumble of the life he calls us to live.