The text this morning is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the twelfth chapter:
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 in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Paul’s admonition today condemns us all. I know that’s not really what we want to take from the text today, but it holds true nonetheless. The reality is, if we are all the one body of Christ, then we utterly and richly fail our other members day to day. We have failed them in the past, and we fail them even now.
The beauty of the body of Christ is this: we all individually members of the one body. We are of the one body. It doesn’t matter if we’re black or white, rich or poor, slave or free, tall of short, fat or skinny, old or young. It doesn’t matter at all. Christ in all of His wisdom and love has taken each of us and put us in the very right place we should be that we might do the work necessary for the body. Think about it: God has put you exactly where you are that you might fulfill His purpose.
Now, of course, we can take this the wrong way and start ascribing to God the things that are evil, that He has made us in evil ways. People do this all the time, that people who identify with the sin of homosexuality claim that God made them that way, therefore their sin must be alright. But, God is not the author of evil; He does not put it in mankind’s heart to do evil. Mankind has placed evil in our hearts, it is passed on from our first parents to your grandparents to your parents to you to your children. More than that, even given the choice to do good or to do evil, we would choose evil. We shape ourselves in the form of the devils that we might conquer the likeness of God. God does not make us evil, we do this.
So, when we start to think of all the things that are in us, homosexuality, racism, abuse, addiction, we must realize that God did not make us this way, but these come as consequences to sin. Sin begets sin, so our inward parts seek after what it knows. Yet, despite our sin, God has mercy on us and even uses this sin, not that He delights in the sin itself, but that the Word of God comes to convict us of our unrighteousness, to break us down, to show us how far we’ve fallen from the grace of God, that the Gospel might then be preached and we would find the mercy of God in the forgiveness of sins won for us by the death of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ.
When we are lifted by the Gospel, when we are freed from our captivity to sin and its master, the devil, then we are brought ever more fully to the body of Christ. It isn’t that we aren’t in the body, or haven’t been there, but that we might begin to see it for what it truly is. My kids and I discovered the live-action version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast this weekend. There are, as always, issues with it, yet it’s quite enjoyable. The moral of the whole tale is that underneath the scary, warty, rough exterior of the beast, there is a prince who has been transformed by the one who loves him, and underneath the beauty of Gaston, the war hero, the beautiful, strong, desirable man, there is a beast who can never love anyone but himself. The beautiful, evil man dies for his own desires, but what the beast will be is not revealed until the end, when the love he has received strips away all the grossness of his sinful nature, the nature that sought pleasure for pleasure’s sake, who was vain, who was an absolute monster. But, by love, the beast is transformed, seeing that all his sin prepared him to reject it all for the sake of love.
It is not so different for the Church of Christ. When we look at the Church and all her members, we see the warts, the rough exterior. We see the arguing, the infighting, we see the neglect we’ve had towards those around us, we’ve seen the lack of love. We see the weak. We see the forgotten. We see that she is not perfect, but is, instead, fallen from grace. Yet, the Lord of Life has chosen to love her, to love us. And though we are part of a diseased body, and diseased because we ourselves have made it so, by the love of Christ, we are transformed. We are brought out of our sin, we are changed, we are like Him. His love strips away all the sin we bring to the table. It strips away our own pleasure-seeking desires. It strips away our vanity. The monster is gone, but we are left standing there naked, bare, unadorned.
Yet, in the very same love that removes our sin from us, the love of God comes to us and clothes us with righteousness. Our sin is taken, but we need more, we need righteous works, and our Lord gives them to us, that we might be His bride, the Church, the body of Christ. He leaves not a one of us naked, covering us in the waters of Baptism, clothing us in the robes of His righteousness.
And He does this for us together. It is why we need each other. It why the eye cannot reject the ear or the leg the hand. We are all clothed in the one righteousness that is found in Jesus Christ. It is His righteousness, there is one, and we must all be found together to receive it. It why we must take care of the ones among us who are weaker, not sacrificing them, but caring for them. It is why we must bestow great honor upon those who seem irredeemable. It is why we take care of, especially, those who might seem to bring dishonor to the house of God.
You never know how weak parts of your body are until you have a kid. And then, seemingly, their heads like bricks, you realize just how fragile your eye socket is, how fragile the bridge of your nose is, how easily your ears can get boxed and you check them all night making sure your son didn’t just give you cauliflower ear. You never know how modestly we are to keep our unpresentable parts until someone makes it overtly clear they’re checking you out or that they’ve seen too much, and then it’s all you can do to pull that sweater tighter to you, closer to you, further down your backside. So it is with the body of Christ.
You never know how much someone is needed until they’re absent. You never know how much influence someone has until they’re sin drags many down with them. You never know how much someone is doing until they’re gone. You never know how well someone is thought of until they fall into sin. This is why we must take care of those who are around us, to seek after their good. Perhaps this admonition is good that we might seek out those who have strayed from our family. This week, especially if you’ve been around a while, why don’t you call that person we haven’t seen here in a couple weeks, a couple months, a couple years? Take it upon yourself to get up in their business and bring them back to the Church, not for the sake of filling the pews, but for their sake, that they might hear and remember the Word of the Lord.
Oh, I know, we’re good Lutherans, we leave people alone. Stop that. Get up in their business and get them back to hearing the Word of God, that they might repent of their sin and find the forgiveness of Christ. If they’re in a good Church home that rightly preaches the Word of God and administers the Sacraments, amazing. It’s amazing how the Lord has worked to keep them faithful and they are part of the one body of Christ with us. But if they are not, if they are in a junky church that teaches them what they want to hear, that teaches them to seek after their own desires, that fills them with sweet, sugary nothingness that will lead them to hell itself, then admonish them with the Word of God and remind them that they are important and that you love them and that you want to spend eternity with them. What have you to lose?
If you’re cooking at home, and your finger gets sliced off while you’re cutting the veggies, are you just going to sit there and go, “Oh, well. Guess it wasn’t really a part of my body after all.” Or, “Well, it must’ve had a good reason for leaving.” Of course not. You’re going to put that baby on ice, get to the hospital and get some tender, loving care and get them to sew it back on! So it is with the body of Christ. This is where are condemned under the Law of God for not caring for our brothers and sisters as we should. Yet, there is still time of us to seek our errant and missing siblings. If they reject the Word of God, it’s not because you weren’t well-spoken or because you messed up somehow, it’s because they choose the reject the Lord. They choose to give into their sin, to hold fast to whatever identity the devil has concocted for them. This is what sin does–removes us from our Lord and delivers us to Satan. Yet, do not fear, the Lord is with you; He has given you His identity. He has set you free from fear; you cannot fail in Him, you can only be the instrument of His peace and His power–how He uses that is up to Him.
We are all necessary in the body of Christ, for He is the one who has placed us here. It’s true, it’s our own fault if we reject His Word and wander away, but it our fault for not seeking to restore those who have rejected Him. We can do good for our neighbors by bringing Christ to them. It may be that they’ll reject you, so also was Christ. It may be that they’re be angry with you, so were others toward Christ. It may be that they fight you or show your violence, so was Christ also subject to these. Yet, the year of our Lord’s favor, His salvation, is here. It is won for them, and it is won for you. He has brought it to you, and He has set you free with it.
Now, the one truth we don’t want to admit in all this is, maybe you’re the weaker member. Maybe you’re the one who needs the most care. I’ll readily admit that my heart wants to wander from God, and if it were not for the Word of God and His Sacraments, coupled even then with the wisdom and love shown to be by amazing children of God, perhaps I would. Maybe it’s the same for you; I suspect it could be. So it is that God has placed each and every person you see around you here to take care of you. There is not one person in here who would not love you with the love of God, for they have been shown great love.
This is how we live our lives as the body of Christ, taking care of those around us for the day may come when we must be given care as well. This is a wonderful and freeing thing, for if you have received care and love from this place then you have been served by the body of Christ who sees you as a member of that same body. You have been called by the love of God to live righteously in His name. The shackles of your sin have been cast off and you are made beautiful. You are a member of His body, the Church, and you are important and loved, not just by us, but, most importantly, the Lord of Life, who has redeemed you and called you by name into Himself, to be with you forever. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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