Interconnected And Interdependent For Good Or Ill
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Dear Fellow Preacher,
The tension between individualism and the common good is especially pronounced in America. The self-made person, competition, rugged individualism, the "can do" attitude, the versatile pioneer, the "God helps those who help themselves" attitude, "we're number one" -- all are cliches of our tradition that mask our increasingly obvious interconnectedness and, at the same time, create knotty problems for us.
Such stereotypes are much less prominent in the Bible; in fact, they are noticeably suppressed in both Testaments in favor of activity and energy for the good of the community. In this issue of The Immediate Word, Carter Shelley draws on Paul's image of the parts of the body to reflect on our actual interdependence and how we can make the most of it, reflecting on the factors that prevent us from enjoying the fruits of a healthy communal life. Carter also comments on the other readings from the lectionary for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
We include in this issue also comments by team member George Murphy, worship resources by George Reed, and a children's sermon by Wes Runk.
Interconnected and Interdependent for Good or Ill
by Carter Shelley
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; Luke 4:14-21
Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth not only offers us a historical window into the organizational trials and theological questions a first-century church grappled with, but it also serves as a mirror into the kind of social dynamics and theological struggles churches face in January 2004. Paul writes to a congregation of people intent on asserting differences and cataloguing all according to superior spiritual gifts and inferior social and pious practices. This reminds us that an innate feature of human nature is to make distinctions, place greater value on one type of person or another, and reinforce one's own ego and self-esteem at the expense of others.
Paul masterfully addresses this hierarchical approach to life and faith with his vivid metaphor of the parts of the body. In a brief and obvious way, Paul makes the point that no one body par -- eyes, ears, foot, hand -- can be excised without the whole body being lessened in abilities, effectiveness, and potential. "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26). What is true for the physical body and for the Church, the body of Christ, also holds true for families, communities, and nations. In 2004 we are interconnected and interdependent for good or ill.
Like the members of the church in Corinth, we tend to deny our interconnectedness and interdependence as Americans and as citizens of the world. We admire individuals who "stand on their own two feet," don't ask for assistance, and make their own decisions. Perhaps we are both intrigued and dismayed by a Paul O'Neill who works with a particular president and administration and then publishes a book about his experiences that casts the former employer in an unflattering light. Perhaps we are both intrigued and dismayed by the Democratic presidential candidates who currently must criticize and tear down one another in order to secure the nomination, while we understand that by September those who fail to gain their place on the presidential ballot must support and campaign for the one among them who wins that honor. In both of these instances, an emphasis on loyalty and interconnectedness gets usurped by individual ambition.
Benjamin Franklin's famous words after signing the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately," resonate here. The presidency is weakened by such revelations in the former instance, and the possibility of Democratic presidential hopefuls actually defeating President Bush in 2004 gets undermined by the time and energy currently devoted to winning state caucuses and primaries.
My intention is not to rag on American politicians but to emphasize the point Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 12. To prosper and flourish as Christians and as citizens we need each other, and we need a vital ingredient that all too often is missing from church bodies as well as from the halls of Congress and the White House: "the same Spirit."
We have the freedom to view differences as bad or threatening. Ego has a lot to do with it -- or is it low self-esteem? If the Corinthians had felt good about themselves, had fully grasped the wonder of their new redeemed status as saved and beloved sisters and brothers of Christ, the need to establish a social register of spiritual gifts would not have been necessary.
Part of our corruption, perversion, and rejection of differences and diversity among human beings clearly stems from our own insecurity about our worth. Another part of it stems from our innate sinfulness and desire to be superior to or hold power over another person or peoples. We want to be smarter, prettier, richer, or somehow better than someone else.
The Same Spirit
The Bible reveals many different aspects of the notion of Spirit, and the changes in phrasing often indicate shifts in meaning. There's the Spirit of the LORD, the Old Testament charisma that rests upon a particular individual at a time of crisis. Reading about the Spirit of the LORD coming upon various judges and military leaders in the book of Judges, it's clear that God's blessing and presence make it possible for judges, kings, and prophets to manage and overcome the challenges life throws them, such as foreign invaders and corrupt rulers. The Spirit of the LORD gives the leader the chutzpah he needs to lead and also serves as a uniting feature for the people of Israel, who recognize the charisma of one leader over another. They affix their loyalty and obedience to the one who possesses the Spirit of the LORD. To lose God's Spirit is to lose the ability to lead and the confidence of God's support (think King Saul versus David the upstart).
In the Gospels, God's Spirit becomes incarnate in the promised Messiah. In Luke, Jesus announces his arrival through the Isaiah text Jesus reads in his hometown. Already a gifted teacher, Jesus announces the concrete presence of God's Spirit and will in his own person. This spirit-filled God-man embodies not only the Old Testament charisma of God but also the New Testament sonship of God, which comes complete with full knowledge of who God is and what God requires. Jesus' spirited reading of Isaiah further announces the radical changes God will implement: prisoners and captives will go free, and non-Jews as well as Jews will be known as favored children of God. As we know, such a radical and inclusive interpretation of Isaiah doesn't go down well with the hometown crowd. As with God's chosen prophets of old, the human face and Spirit of God gets challenged, rejected, and abused many times before his death. Luke establishes the unpopular nature of Jesus' ministry from start to its tragic finish. Jesus is the one who suffers in Spirit on behalf of others.
Later in the book of Acts, Jesus sends the Spirit as Comforter to his followers after his own ascension. It is this Holy Spirit that makes it possible for once cowardly disciples to become heroes, and for post-enlightened, post-modern Christians to believe the good news of the Gospel. It is this Holy Spirit that Christian creeds and confessions confirm as of one substance yet distinct from the Father and the Son. How the Spirit comes upon us varies a great deal, just as it did in Paul's day. It may be quiet conviction, an esthetic feeling, an unknown ability to speak in tongues, a shiver of awe as one walks into a great cathedral or falls to one's knees in gratitude.
Paul views the Spirit as a unifying source of mutuality and support for members of the Church. The beauty of the Corinthian congregation is that it helps us understand that conflict and disagreements were commonplace in the early church, just as they are today. In addition, there is an ongoing social tendency for us to seek validation for our own views, opinions, and practices by wanting others to be like us -- whether it's speaking in tongues, voting for Howard Dean, or becoming a vegetarian. Moreover, such disputes were not limited to the Corinthians; Peter also had his differences with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem when it came to criteria for admitting Gentiles.
What makes Paul's body metaphor so terrific is its simplicity and obviousness.1 The essential nature of each body part makes perfect sense when we think about the unique contributions each physical body part makes. It also makes sense for God's spiritual body, the Church.
We don't need to beat up on ourselves because we are not all cookie-cutter Christians with no need for different denominations or practices. The tricky part is being open and welcoming and accepting of all while maintaining what is meaningful about the tradition we support, the one that best expresses our own beliefs and practices.
I doubt that Paul could have envisioned anything as broad as the many, many churches and sects Christianity has spawned; yet he obviously understood the issue of diversity. It gave him both problems and opportunities -- problems with quarrels, anger, and pettiness, having to write long letters after long days traveling or evangelizing. Opportunities to witness to people from many different cultures -- Greek, Roman, Gallic, etc., each church existing in a context unique to the town or city in which it was established.
Today's Second Reading begins after Paul's discussion of various spiritual gifts possessed by individuals in the church at Corinth. To Paul, it is all of a piece. There is no such thing as superior Christian gifts, because all gifts given by the Spirit are at the service of Jesus Christ and exist to foster the overall health of the entire church community. "For in the one Spirit were we all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (12:13).
One in the Spirit
The lectionary texts for this Sunday help clarify what it means to be "one in the Spirit."
1. Nehemiah suggests that we are one in the Law. Unique among the gods of ancient times is the law revealed to Moses. The celebration of the reading, interpreting, and hearing of the Torah by the Jewish citizenry in Nehemiah reminds those same people that they are one in the law. They may have lived as exiles in a foreign land. They may be returning with children and grandchildren homesick for the customs and culture of Persia that are all they've ever known. They return with negligible prospects to their wasted homeland, yet they have survived as God's people. They are one in the law. God's law sets the Jews apart, makes them distinct from citizens of other nations. God's law also links them to one another by what they believe and how they are called upon to live. Class, wealth, education, property, life experience -- all will serve to separate and divide the Jews of Nehemiah's day, as it still does Christians and Muslims who share this same law. But obedience to the laws of God provides one way to overcome differences and to demonstrate unity.
2. Psalm 119 suggests we are one in the Spirit because we worship and praise one God and creator. The wonders of creation loudly testify to and celebrate God's glory and accomplishments. God's wisdom and will are offered to humanity via the law and the Spirit, making it possible for sinful, limited human beings to have an ongoing relationship with the one true God. The word of God provides wisdom, enlightenment, joy, obedience, and consequence "in keeping with God's creation and God's plan for humanity. To be perfect or blameless is not to be sinless but to live in dependence upon God and in harmony with the universe" (J. Clinton McCann, Texts for Preaching, Year C, ed. Charles B. Cousar [Louisville: Westminster, 1995] 117). We are one in declaring the greatness and graciousness of the one true God.
3. We are one in the Spirit, because we proclaim one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Luke begins his account of Jesus' adult life and ministry with Jesus' announcement of himself as the one who will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus to preach good news to the poor and liberate the captive. The earlier, revolutionary words of Mary's Magnificat echo here. The radical nature of what Jesus calls for allows for no compromising, no editing down to palatable sound bytes or sanitizing one's meaning in order to hold onto constituents. Jesus will indeed give physical sight to the blind and insight to others. What Jesus calls for goes beyond mutual respect and cooperation among believers, to a complete overhaul of the way we live in the world. We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord when we place the needs of the disenfranchised and rejected before our own.
4. We are one in the Spirit because we are all part of one body, the Church. Paul outlines the way we Christians are part of one body through his affirmation of a diversity of talents and gifts given to individual human beings by God. Our talents and gifts are unique, yet they are needed for the welfare of others as well as ourselves. To maintain the good health of this one body, all its parts need to care for one another and look out for each other. We are never as healthy or whole on our own as we are together. Nor does the body function best when some parts are granted greater status than others. Quite the contrary: mutuality and recognition of the value and contribution all make are essential ingredients in keeping the body unified and whole. Folk singer Holly Near sings of the possibility of unity in the midst of diversity in a song, "Unity. It doesn't always mean agreement. It doesn't always mean the same. Unity."
We live in a far smaller world than that known to our ancestors. CNN, satellite communications, NPR, video recorders, and the ubiquitous sign of Coca-Cola or McDonald's in Thailand or Afghanistan show us just how interconnected and interdependent a people we earthlings are.
How do we live in the body of Christ when we don't agree with, or sometimes even like each other? We begin with what we have in common. Some examples of common ground for American Christians include faith affirmations. We are one in the Spirit, one in the Law, one in worshiping one God and Creator, one in proclaiming one Lord and Savior, and part of the one Church, which is one body. As American Christians we do not always agree on the motives or integrity of a Paul O'Neill or a Donald Rumsfeld. As American Christians we do not all agree on whether President Bush is doing a good job, whether pious gay Christians should be ordained or abortion should be considered a right of the mother to decide. Heck, as American Christians we can't always agree on the use of the King James Version versus the NRSV, whether to buy new hymnals, or to use inclusive and feminine language to talk. "Unity. It doesn't always mean agreement. It doesn't always mean the same." For Christians we are called to begin with what we have in common, learn about one another's differences of point of view, experience, culture, and context, and pray and worship as one body in order to serve our one Lord.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to combine all the best features of political candidates into one human being who was as handsome as John Edwards, as disciplined and focused as Wesley Clark, as insightful as Dick Gephardt, as experienced with Congress as John Kerry, as vocal for minorities as Al Sharpton, as clear about his views as Howard Dean, and as personally appealing as Joe Lieberman? Wouldn't it be nice to combine those strong personality features of George W. Bush with those of some other Republicans who might contribute a bit of introspection and direct life experience in dealing with poverty and war and the minimum wage? Now, one could say that that's the whole point of a Presidential Cabinet, but political appointees, irrespective of which side of the political aisle they occupy, tend to select individual's whose worldview, experience, and ambitions resemble their own. Thus, a Secretary of the Treasury like Paul O'Neill, who disagreed with the number of tax breaks offered by the Bush administration, may find his services no longer needed.
Interconnected and Interdependent for Good or Ill
I live in a part of the country where people sometimes express their anger towards another person by saying, "I got so ill at her!" -- the idea being that anger or irritation with another person makes one physically sick. Of course, most people don't really mean they got sick. They mean they are angry at another person. The actual word "anger" isn't used, due to the Southern tradition of masking strong emotions and dislikes under an outward fa*ade of good manners and graciousness. Yet the use of the word "ill" probably once meant exactly that. My anger makes me sick because it is unhealthy for my own peace of mind and physical well being. There's a reason why we are advised not to let the sun go down on our anger. The disharmony that results can ruin a good night's sleep and do further damage to those who are in conflict by allowing it to fester until dawn.
The same sense of disharmony and pain takes place literally when one of our body parts gets sick: kidney stones, a ruptured appendix, a broken arm, even the flu can cause everything to shut down. All these seemingly spurious musings lead me to the Apostle Paul's pastoral migraine: the members of the church at Corinth. Their squabbling and jockeying for position shouldn't sound at all odd to modern-day Christians; we're familiar enough with the issues they present. The surprise is how early in the gestation phase of Christianity these kinds of issues arise. And not much, if anything, has changed in the ensuing 2000 years. An apostle's headache, then, becomes a church committee's conundrum today. And if things can't be resolved internally, churches frequently require higher assistance, regrettably less from God than from official ecclesiastical bureaucracies: district superintendents, presbytery executives, bishops, or conflict management experts.
In creating humanity as distinct, unique individuals, God established a magically glorious world in which diversity and difference are altogether real and useful. In creating humanity as distinct, unique individuals imbued with free will, God gives us the seeds to sow good health and good relationships as interconnected and interdependent peoples.
Note
1. I have often used this text as a children's message, telling the story of the body with one child serving as the body and other children holding huge ears, eyes, hands, and feet made from poster board in the appropriate places on the first child's body. Then, as I tell the story, the children remove different body parts and I ask the children what the body can no longer do. Of course, I conclude that the body needs all of its parts to be able to function effectively. I have also modified the wording when children with physical disabilities are present.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: Paul's image of the church as the body of Christ in this week's text from 1 Corinthians 12 is itself important and is a helpful corrective to the individualism that is so pervasive in American Christianity. It takes on added meaning if we think about its connection with what Paul discussed in last week's reading from this epistle, the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who brings people to faith and incorporates them in one body.
The word "spirit" has a mysterious quality about it for many people. Because of misunderstanding of Paul's spirit-flesh distinction, it is often thought of in contrast to that which is physical, and therefore ethereal and other-worldly. Of course, in one way this is correct, because spirit is not something that can be grasped: Jesus' words to Nicodemus in John 3 about the action of God's Spirit make this point. But in connection with 1 Corinthians 12 there is a more down-to-earth way of talking about spirit that can help people to get a handle on the concept.
We speak quite commonly -- and non-religiously -- about "team spirit," "community spirit," or "family spirit." The spirit of some group is again not something that can be grasped or literally seen, but we all have a sense of what it is. It is the intangible something -- call it an atmosphere -- that holds the group together and makes it more than simply a collection of individuals. If a school has "spirit week" before the big game, it's a celebration of something that students can feel even though they can't put their fingers on it.
"The big game" coming up on the Sunday after this one, February 1, is the Super Bowl. In fact, "Super Bowl Sunday" has become one of the major American festivals. A preacher on this Sunday can jump the gun a bit and use the Super Bowl for one illustration of Paul's image of the body of Christ and its connection with the work of the Holy Spirit in the earlier part of 1 Corinthians 12.
It may be obvious to say that football is a team sport, but some exploration of that obvious point can be helpful. For all the good qualities of Tom Brady and Jake Delhomme (the quarterbacks of the Patriots and the Panthers), they wouldn't be able to accomplish anything without their blockers and receivers. But there's more to it than just putting other skilled players on the field, because they have to be able to work together. Because of the nature of professional football today, with players moving from one team to another, there's little of the old-fashioned sense of tradition that's often connected with the idea of the spirit of an organization. But the members of a team really do have to be together. Quarterbacks and receivers seem sometimes to have developed almost a telepathic connection, so that each knows what the other is going to do, and an offensive or defensive line comes to work together as one. They often refer to it as developing a "chemistry," but it corresponds to the old-fashioned idea of team spirit.
"Spirit," by the way, can convey the idea of excitement and enthusiasm for a cause, and for religious groups can take on questionable features. "Enthusiasts" in a religious sense, those who claim to have a direct gift of the Spirit unmediated by word and sacraments, can split communities. It seems that that is one of the things that Paul had to confront at Corinth, and one of the reasons for his emphasis on the body image. All spiritual gifts are important, and they build up the body rather than just produce gifted individuals. Players on a football team may be "spirited" in the sense of being enthusiastic and optimistic about their chances in a game, but that won't accomplish anything unless there is a genuine spirit that has made them a cohesive unit, more than just the sum of its parts.
There are, of course, other more formal ways of talking about spirit and its role in a community. Wolfhart Pannenberg has frequently emphasized the analogy between spirit and the concept of the "field" in physics (see, e.g., pp. 123-161 of his "Toward a Theology of Nature" [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993]). An electromagnetic or gravitational field is again something that cannot be seen directly, but it has very definite physical effects. Without the sun's gravitational field, the solar system would quickly disperse.
Teilhard de Chardin, on the other hand, emphasized the analogy between the Pauline image of the body of Christ and what has happened with life in the evolutionary process. A billion years ago, from what we can tell, there were only single-celled organisms on earth. Somehow some of them began to come together in symbiotic relationships so that over millions of years multi-cellular organisms developed. (The mitochondria in our cells are probably descendants of what were once independent entities.) Teilhard suggested that the formation of the Christian community, the body of which Christ is the head, from individual human beings is the next step in evolution, the development of a super-personal organism.
Our emphasis on the value of the individual and bad experiences with collectives in which individual personality is crushed out may make us wary of such a concept. But what Paul means, and the way Teilhard interprets him, is not an homogenization in which all the members of the body are interchangeable units. Paul's point is precisely that because the members have different gifts and different functions, they can form one body that has abilities that no single individual possesses.
We can have this experience in other communities, like a family. You may have met someone who, as an individual, seemed quite undistinguished and uninteresting. But then later, when you see her in the family of which she is a part, she really "comes alive." You observe her real personality, who she really is, when she is a distinctive member of that group. In the same way, the heart or foot is able to be most fully what it is as part of the body. As an isolated organ it would be able to do little. Teilhard sums this up by saying that union differentiates, creates, and personalizes.
With all of the analogies that we may draw with various groups and organisms, there is something distinctive about the Christian community that should not be forgotten: The "team spirit" of the church is the Holy Spirit of God.
Related Quotations
"The 20th century will be remembered chiefly, not as an age of political conflicts and technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the health of the whole human race as a practical objective."
-- attributed to Arnold Toynbee
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"I would hope our country would get beyond group thought and we'd herald each individual, regardless of their heritage and regardless of their background."
-- George W. Bush, January 26, 2000, Republican debate in New Hampshire
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"Society is an organism, not a machine."
-- Henry George (1836-97), U.S. economist
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"Be an individualist -- and an individual. You'll be amazed at how much faster you'll get ahead."
-- J. Paul Getty, How to Be Rich (1966)
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"A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic."
-- H. L. Mencken (1956)
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"We have exchanged our communities for jobs, our stable social connections for the ability to purchase products." -- Steven E. Miller (1996)
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"There is no such thing as Society. There are individual men and women, and there are families."
-- Margaret Thatcher (1987)
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"The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is absolute."
-- John Stuart Mill (1859)
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Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing." Words: Charles Wesley, 1739; music: Carl G. Glaser; arr. Lowell Mason, 1839. Public domain. As found in UMH 57; Hymnal '82 493; LBOW 559; TPH 466; AAHH 184; TNNBH 23; TNCH 42; CH 5.
"Jesus Shall Reign." Words: Isaac Watts, 1719; music: John Hatton, 1793. Public domain. As found in UMH 157; Hymnal '82 544; LBOW 530; TPH 423; AAHH 289; TNNBH 10; TNCH 300; CH 95.
"Maker, in Whom We Live." Words: Charles Wesley, 1747; music: George J. Elvey, 1868; Public domain. As found in UMH 88.
"How Like a Gentle Spirit." Words: C. Eric Lincoln, 1987; music: Alfred Morton Smith, 1941. Words (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 115; TNCH 443; CH 69.
Songs
"The Steadfast Love of the Lord" Words: Edith McNeill; music: Edith McNeill, arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1974 Celebration. As found in CCB 28.
"Emmanuel, Emmanuel." Words and music: Bob McGee. (c) 1976 C. A. Music. As found in CCB 31.
"Our God Reigns." Words and music: Leonard E. Smith, Jr. (c) 1974, 1978 L. E. Smith, Jr. New Jerusalem Music. As found in CCB 33.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: The heavens are telling the glory of God;
People: And the firmament proclaims God's handiwork.
Leader: Day to day pours for speech,
People: and night to night declares knowledge.
Leader: The law of God is perfect, reviving the soul;
People: the decrees of God are sure, making wise the simple.
Leader: More to be desired are they than fine gold.
People: They are sweeter than the drippings of the honeycomb.
Leader: Come and worship, people of God.
People: We come to worship and share our lives.
Leader: Sing to God a new song of praise.
People: We sing and lift our voices together.
Leader: God calls us to be one people of our Spirit.
People: We are God's people filled with God's Spirit.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God who is perfect unity in diversity of persons: Grant that we, your people, might be united by your Spirit in the midst of our wonderful diversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
You have called us, O God, to be your people, your image in creation. Send your Spirit upon us to renew that image and to enable us to live together with one another in the perfect unity of the Trinity. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"Where Charity and Love Prevail." Words: 9th cent. Latin, trans. Omer Westendorf, 1961. Music: Alexander R. Reinagle, 1836; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861; trans. (c) 1961 World Library Publications, Inc. As found in UMH 549; Hymnal '82; LBOW 126; TNCH 396.
"Many Gifts, One Spirit." Words: Al Carmines, 1973; music: Al Carmines, 1973. (c) 1974 Al Carmines. As found in UMH 114; TNCH 177.
"Blest Be the Tie That Binds." Words: John Fawcett, 1782; music: Johann G. Nageli, arr. Lowell Mason, 1845. Public domain. As found in UMH 557; Hymnal '82; LBOW 370; TPH 438; AAHH 341; TNNBH 398; TNCH 393; CH 433.
"Let There Be Peace on Earth." Words: Sy Miller and Jill Jackson; music: Sy Miller and Jill Jackson, harm. Charles H. Webb, 1987. (c) 1955. Assigned to Jan Lee Music; (c) renewed 1983. As found in UMH 431; AAHH 498; TNNBH 298; CH 677.
"What Does the Lord Require." Words: Albert F. Bayly, 1949; music: Erik Routley, 1968. Words (c) 1949 Albert F. Bayly; music (c) 1968 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 441; Hymnal '82 605; TPH 405; CH 659.
Songs
"Unity." Words: Tim Reynolds; music: Tim Reynolds, arr. J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.
"We Are His Hands." Words: Mark Gersmehl; music: Mark Gersmehl, arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1984, 1996 Bug and Bear Music. As found in CCB 85.
"Make Me a Servant." Words and music: Kelly Willard. (c) 1982 Willing Heart Music. As found in CCB 90.
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: Let us confess our sins to God and before one another.
People: We confess our sins to you, O God, but we confess them before each other. We acknowledge our connectedness with our brothers and sisters around us and how our unfaithfulness to you undermines the integrity of the Church as a whole. We want to keep our sins secret and to think they only have consequences for our relationship with you. But we know that when we act sinfully, we weaken the work of the whole people of God. When we are selfish and give in to the forces of wickedness, the reign of God which we all live in is impaired.
Forgive us our foolish ways and by the power of your Holy Spirit enable us to band together with these, our brothers and sisters, that we might truly be your people, your image, Christ's body. Amen.
Leader: The God who loved you enough to send Jesus to redeem you grants you forgiveness and grace and the Spirit of Jesus to bind you together with all God's people.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
We worship and adore you, Three In One, for you are diverse in your persons and yet unified in your substance. You are complex in expression as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and yet complete in existence as God.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess that we do not mirror your reality very well in our lives. Although you have given us your own image, breathed into us your own life-breath and filled us with your Spirit, we are separated from one another as well as from you. Renew us with your Spirit and make us one with you and each other.
We give you thanks for the love that is expressed through your Church in so many ways. We thank you for those who told us about your love and who shared their lives with us. We thank you for the many ways you send your love to us and for the many people you send it through.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to your love all the cares of our hearts and the pains of our world. For those who are tired or sick or dying, we pray for strength. For those who are lost, direction. For those who are without the necessities of life, we pray for substance and for a collective will to meet their needs. For all we pray for your love and grace to be evident.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray together, saying, "Our Father ...."
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Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone." (verses 4-6)
Object: A chair that has arms, legs, spindles, pillow, seat, and back
Good morning, boys and girls. Is there anyone here this morning who thinks he or she is important? (let them answer; encourage them to volunteer as an important person) How important are you? (let them answer) Are you the most important person here in church this morning? (let them answer) Is your dad or mom more important than you? (let them answer) Do you think the organist is an important person? Is the choir director an important person? Are the ushers important? Are the choir members important? Is the church secretary important? Are Sunday school teachers important? Is the custodian important?
Everyone seems to be important, don't they? I brought along a chair with me that has a number of parts. Which part do you think is the most important? Is it the legs, the arms, the back, the spindles that keep the legs together, the pillow, or the seat? Which one do you think is the most important part of the chair? (let them answer) They all seem important, don't they? The seat is not very important if the legs are broken. The back seems to be pretty important and so do the arms and the pillow and the spindles.
We have a lot of important things here today. We have the parts of a chair and we have a lot of important people, and you even think that you are important. And there are other things that are important in our church. We have a Bible, hymnals, an organ, an altar, a cross, special windows, pews to sit in, a church bulletin, offering plates, a piano, flowers, vases, and just a lot of things. But I have to say that the most important thing we have is people. People like you and your parents and all of the other people that are here. The only thing more important than us is the presence of God. We have asked God to be here with all of us.
St. Paul said that just as there are many people there is one Spirit and the Spirit gives each one of us a special gift or maybe two gifts. Only God can give these gifts and each one of us has at least one of them. Some of us have the gift of learning and another the gift of teaching and another the ability to heal people, like a doctor or nurse. And some are preachers and some can do miracles and others can pray. There are people who have the gift of ministry to help people who are poor or who are hurt in some way. These are all gifts of God and when we use them together we form a wonderful church that serves God.
A chair is a special piece of furniture that allows us to sit and learn, allows us to sit and worship, allows us to sit when we are tired, allows us to sit and have conversation with others and allows us to do all kinds of things like watch TV or read the paper. Each chair has parts, and every one of them is important.
A church is a special gift from God. It also has many parts like a chair does. Its parts are people and they have special gifts given by God to all of us so that we can help each other when we need help and also glorify God when we worship God.
The next time you sit in your chair I want you to look at all of the parts and then remember that you are part of our church and share in the gifts that God has given all of us. Amen.
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A Subscriber's Response to The Immediate Word for January 25, 2004
Subject: Luke 4:14-30; crime and reaction
As I was preparing this week's message (I combined the Gospel passages for this week and next), I was struck by what Jesus omitted (the day of vengeance) and how apropos the Scripture is to my life this past week. You see, last Monday at 1:45 in the afternoon in the church parking lot, the church secretary and I were carjacked at gunpoint. God blessed me with the calmness, wisdom, and words we needed so we were unharmed even though the thieves got her SUV, purse, and cell phone.
But the reaction of family, church members and others who claim the name of Christ has been very disturbing. It seems that a call for vengeance, use of racial epithets, and talk of carrying guns and killing someone has been the response of a significant number of persons. I fear that we have forgotten the one who proclaimed healing, deliverance, and freedom and, most of all, love for one's enemies and those who wrong us in favor of being those who look forward only to the day when God will wreak vengeance on the ungodly.
The Jesus who read the Scripture in Nazareth that day is the Christ of restoration, not retribution. The incident this week has reminded me of that in a mighty way. It's not easy, but we are called to stand on the edge of the cliff with our Lord, not be one of the angry mob seeking to push him off! Blessings and peace.
-- Rev. Carole L. Elrod, Sandusky United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
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The Immediate Word, January 25, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503
The tension between individualism and the common good is especially pronounced in America. The self-made person, competition, rugged individualism, the "can do" attitude, the versatile pioneer, the "God helps those who help themselves" attitude, "we're number one" -- all are cliches of our tradition that mask our increasingly obvious interconnectedness and, at the same time, create knotty problems for us.
Such stereotypes are much less prominent in the Bible; in fact, they are noticeably suppressed in both Testaments in favor of activity and energy for the good of the community. In this issue of The Immediate Word, Carter Shelley draws on Paul's image of the parts of the body to reflect on our actual interdependence and how we can make the most of it, reflecting on the factors that prevent us from enjoying the fruits of a healthy communal life. Carter also comments on the other readings from the lectionary for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
We include in this issue also comments by team member George Murphy, worship resources by George Reed, and a children's sermon by Wes Runk.
Interconnected and Interdependent for Good or Ill
by Carter Shelley
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; Luke 4:14-21
Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth not only offers us a historical window into the organizational trials and theological questions a first-century church grappled with, but it also serves as a mirror into the kind of social dynamics and theological struggles churches face in January 2004. Paul writes to a congregation of people intent on asserting differences and cataloguing all according to superior spiritual gifts and inferior social and pious practices. This reminds us that an innate feature of human nature is to make distinctions, place greater value on one type of person or another, and reinforce one's own ego and self-esteem at the expense of others.
Paul masterfully addresses this hierarchical approach to life and faith with his vivid metaphor of the parts of the body. In a brief and obvious way, Paul makes the point that no one body par -- eyes, ears, foot, hand -- can be excised without the whole body being lessened in abilities, effectiveness, and potential. "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26). What is true for the physical body and for the Church, the body of Christ, also holds true for families, communities, and nations. In 2004 we are interconnected and interdependent for good or ill.
Like the members of the church in Corinth, we tend to deny our interconnectedness and interdependence as Americans and as citizens of the world. We admire individuals who "stand on their own two feet," don't ask for assistance, and make their own decisions. Perhaps we are both intrigued and dismayed by a Paul O'Neill who works with a particular president and administration and then publishes a book about his experiences that casts the former employer in an unflattering light. Perhaps we are both intrigued and dismayed by the Democratic presidential candidates who currently must criticize and tear down one another in order to secure the nomination, while we understand that by September those who fail to gain their place on the presidential ballot must support and campaign for the one among them who wins that honor. In both of these instances, an emphasis on loyalty and interconnectedness gets usurped by individual ambition.
Benjamin Franklin's famous words after signing the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately," resonate here. The presidency is weakened by such revelations in the former instance, and the possibility of Democratic presidential hopefuls actually defeating President Bush in 2004 gets undermined by the time and energy currently devoted to winning state caucuses and primaries.
My intention is not to rag on American politicians but to emphasize the point Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 12. To prosper and flourish as Christians and as citizens we need each other, and we need a vital ingredient that all too often is missing from church bodies as well as from the halls of Congress and the White House: "the same Spirit."
We have the freedom to view differences as bad or threatening. Ego has a lot to do with it -- or is it low self-esteem? If the Corinthians had felt good about themselves, had fully grasped the wonder of their new redeemed status as saved and beloved sisters and brothers of Christ, the need to establish a social register of spiritual gifts would not have been necessary.
Part of our corruption, perversion, and rejection of differences and diversity among human beings clearly stems from our own insecurity about our worth. Another part of it stems from our innate sinfulness and desire to be superior to or hold power over another person or peoples. We want to be smarter, prettier, richer, or somehow better than someone else.
The Same Spirit
The Bible reveals many different aspects of the notion of Spirit, and the changes in phrasing often indicate shifts in meaning. There's the Spirit of the LORD, the Old Testament charisma that rests upon a particular individual at a time of crisis. Reading about the Spirit of the LORD coming upon various judges and military leaders in the book of Judges, it's clear that God's blessing and presence make it possible for judges, kings, and prophets to manage and overcome the challenges life throws them, such as foreign invaders and corrupt rulers. The Spirit of the LORD gives the leader the chutzpah he needs to lead and also serves as a uniting feature for the people of Israel, who recognize the charisma of one leader over another. They affix their loyalty and obedience to the one who possesses the Spirit of the LORD. To lose God's Spirit is to lose the ability to lead and the confidence of God's support (think King Saul versus David the upstart).
In the Gospels, God's Spirit becomes incarnate in the promised Messiah. In Luke, Jesus announces his arrival through the Isaiah text Jesus reads in his hometown. Already a gifted teacher, Jesus announces the concrete presence of God's Spirit and will in his own person. This spirit-filled God-man embodies not only the Old Testament charisma of God but also the New Testament sonship of God, which comes complete with full knowledge of who God is and what God requires. Jesus' spirited reading of Isaiah further announces the radical changes God will implement: prisoners and captives will go free, and non-Jews as well as Jews will be known as favored children of God. As we know, such a radical and inclusive interpretation of Isaiah doesn't go down well with the hometown crowd. As with God's chosen prophets of old, the human face and Spirit of God gets challenged, rejected, and abused many times before his death. Luke establishes the unpopular nature of Jesus' ministry from start to its tragic finish. Jesus is the one who suffers in Spirit on behalf of others.
Later in the book of Acts, Jesus sends the Spirit as Comforter to his followers after his own ascension. It is this Holy Spirit that makes it possible for once cowardly disciples to become heroes, and for post-enlightened, post-modern Christians to believe the good news of the Gospel. It is this Holy Spirit that Christian creeds and confessions confirm as of one substance yet distinct from the Father and the Son. How the Spirit comes upon us varies a great deal, just as it did in Paul's day. It may be quiet conviction, an esthetic feeling, an unknown ability to speak in tongues, a shiver of awe as one walks into a great cathedral or falls to one's knees in gratitude.
Paul views the Spirit as a unifying source of mutuality and support for members of the Church. The beauty of the Corinthian congregation is that it helps us understand that conflict and disagreements were commonplace in the early church, just as they are today. In addition, there is an ongoing social tendency for us to seek validation for our own views, opinions, and practices by wanting others to be like us -- whether it's speaking in tongues, voting for Howard Dean, or becoming a vegetarian. Moreover, such disputes were not limited to the Corinthians; Peter also had his differences with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem when it came to criteria for admitting Gentiles.
What makes Paul's body metaphor so terrific is its simplicity and obviousness.1 The essential nature of each body part makes perfect sense when we think about the unique contributions each physical body part makes. It also makes sense for God's spiritual body, the Church.
We don't need to beat up on ourselves because we are not all cookie-cutter Christians with no need for different denominations or practices. The tricky part is being open and welcoming and accepting of all while maintaining what is meaningful about the tradition we support, the one that best expresses our own beliefs and practices.
I doubt that Paul could have envisioned anything as broad as the many, many churches and sects Christianity has spawned; yet he obviously understood the issue of diversity. It gave him both problems and opportunities -- problems with quarrels, anger, and pettiness, having to write long letters after long days traveling or evangelizing. Opportunities to witness to people from many different cultures -- Greek, Roman, Gallic, etc., each church existing in a context unique to the town or city in which it was established.
Today's Second Reading begins after Paul's discussion of various spiritual gifts possessed by individuals in the church at Corinth. To Paul, it is all of a piece. There is no such thing as superior Christian gifts, because all gifts given by the Spirit are at the service of Jesus Christ and exist to foster the overall health of the entire church community. "For in the one Spirit were we all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (12:13).
One in the Spirit
The lectionary texts for this Sunday help clarify what it means to be "one in the Spirit."
1. Nehemiah suggests that we are one in the Law. Unique among the gods of ancient times is the law revealed to Moses. The celebration of the reading, interpreting, and hearing of the Torah by the Jewish citizenry in Nehemiah reminds those same people that they are one in the law. They may have lived as exiles in a foreign land. They may be returning with children and grandchildren homesick for the customs and culture of Persia that are all they've ever known. They return with negligible prospects to their wasted homeland, yet they have survived as God's people. They are one in the law. God's law sets the Jews apart, makes them distinct from citizens of other nations. God's law also links them to one another by what they believe and how they are called upon to live. Class, wealth, education, property, life experience -- all will serve to separate and divide the Jews of Nehemiah's day, as it still does Christians and Muslims who share this same law. But obedience to the laws of God provides one way to overcome differences and to demonstrate unity.
2. Psalm 119 suggests we are one in the Spirit because we worship and praise one God and creator. The wonders of creation loudly testify to and celebrate God's glory and accomplishments. God's wisdom and will are offered to humanity via the law and the Spirit, making it possible for sinful, limited human beings to have an ongoing relationship with the one true God. The word of God provides wisdom, enlightenment, joy, obedience, and consequence "in keeping with God's creation and God's plan for humanity. To be perfect or blameless is not to be sinless but to live in dependence upon God and in harmony with the universe" (J. Clinton McCann, Texts for Preaching, Year C, ed. Charles B. Cousar [Louisville: Westminster, 1995] 117). We are one in declaring the greatness and graciousness of the one true God.
3. We are one in the Spirit, because we proclaim one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Luke begins his account of Jesus' adult life and ministry with Jesus' announcement of himself as the one who will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus to preach good news to the poor and liberate the captive. The earlier, revolutionary words of Mary's Magnificat echo here. The radical nature of what Jesus calls for allows for no compromising, no editing down to palatable sound bytes or sanitizing one's meaning in order to hold onto constituents. Jesus will indeed give physical sight to the blind and insight to others. What Jesus calls for goes beyond mutual respect and cooperation among believers, to a complete overhaul of the way we live in the world. We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord when we place the needs of the disenfranchised and rejected before our own.
4. We are one in the Spirit because we are all part of one body, the Church. Paul outlines the way we Christians are part of one body through his affirmation of a diversity of talents and gifts given to individual human beings by God. Our talents and gifts are unique, yet they are needed for the welfare of others as well as ourselves. To maintain the good health of this one body, all its parts need to care for one another and look out for each other. We are never as healthy or whole on our own as we are together. Nor does the body function best when some parts are granted greater status than others. Quite the contrary: mutuality and recognition of the value and contribution all make are essential ingredients in keeping the body unified and whole. Folk singer Holly Near sings of the possibility of unity in the midst of diversity in a song, "Unity. It doesn't always mean agreement. It doesn't always mean the same. Unity."
We live in a far smaller world than that known to our ancestors. CNN, satellite communications, NPR, video recorders, and the ubiquitous sign of Coca-Cola or McDonald's in Thailand or Afghanistan show us just how interconnected and interdependent a people we earthlings are.
How do we live in the body of Christ when we don't agree with, or sometimes even like each other? We begin with what we have in common. Some examples of common ground for American Christians include faith affirmations. We are one in the Spirit, one in the Law, one in worshiping one God and Creator, one in proclaiming one Lord and Savior, and part of the one Church, which is one body. As American Christians we do not always agree on the motives or integrity of a Paul O'Neill or a Donald Rumsfeld. As American Christians we do not all agree on whether President Bush is doing a good job, whether pious gay Christians should be ordained or abortion should be considered a right of the mother to decide. Heck, as American Christians we can't always agree on the use of the King James Version versus the NRSV, whether to buy new hymnals, or to use inclusive and feminine language to talk. "Unity. It doesn't always mean agreement. It doesn't always mean the same." For Christians we are called to begin with what we have in common, learn about one another's differences of point of view, experience, culture, and context, and pray and worship as one body in order to serve our one Lord.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to combine all the best features of political candidates into one human being who was as handsome as John Edwards, as disciplined and focused as Wesley Clark, as insightful as Dick Gephardt, as experienced with Congress as John Kerry, as vocal for minorities as Al Sharpton, as clear about his views as Howard Dean, and as personally appealing as Joe Lieberman? Wouldn't it be nice to combine those strong personality features of George W. Bush with those of some other Republicans who might contribute a bit of introspection and direct life experience in dealing with poverty and war and the minimum wage? Now, one could say that that's the whole point of a Presidential Cabinet, but political appointees, irrespective of which side of the political aisle they occupy, tend to select individual's whose worldview, experience, and ambitions resemble their own. Thus, a Secretary of the Treasury like Paul O'Neill, who disagreed with the number of tax breaks offered by the Bush administration, may find his services no longer needed.
Interconnected and Interdependent for Good or Ill
I live in a part of the country where people sometimes express their anger towards another person by saying, "I got so ill at her!" -- the idea being that anger or irritation with another person makes one physically sick. Of course, most people don't really mean they got sick. They mean they are angry at another person. The actual word "anger" isn't used, due to the Southern tradition of masking strong emotions and dislikes under an outward fa*ade of good manners and graciousness. Yet the use of the word "ill" probably once meant exactly that. My anger makes me sick because it is unhealthy for my own peace of mind and physical well being. There's a reason why we are advised not to let the sun go down on our anger. The disharmony that results can ruin a good night's sleep and do further damage to those who are in conflict by allowing it to fester until dawn.
The same sense of disharmony and pain takes place literally when one of our body parts gets sick: kidney stones, a ruptured appendix, a broken arm, even the flu can cause everything to shut down. All these seemingly spurious musings lead me to the Apostle Paul's pastoral migraine: the members of the church at Corinth. Their squabbling and jockeying for position shouldn't sound at all odd to modern-day Christians; we're familiar enough with the issues they present. The surprise is how early in the gestation phase of Christianity these kinds of issues arise. And not much, if anything, has changed in the ensuing 2000 years. An apostle's headache, then, becomes a church committee's conundrum today. And if things can't be resolved internally, churches frequently require higher assistance, regrettably less from God than from official ecclesiastical bureaucracies: district superintendents, presbytery executives, bishops, or conflict management experts.
In creating humanity as distinct, unique individuals, God established a magically glorious world in which diversity and difference are altogether real and useful. In creating humanity as distinct, unique individuals imbued with free will, God gives us the seeds to sow good health and good relationships as interconnected and interdependent peoples.
Note
1. I have often used this text as a children's message, telling the story of the body with one child serving as the body and other children holding huge ears, eyes, hands, and feet made from poster board in the appropriate places on the first child's body. Then, as I tell the story, the children remove different body parts and I ask the children what the body can no longer do. Of course, I conclude that the body needs all of its parts to be able to function effectively. I have also modified the wording when children with physical disabilities are present.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: Paul's image of the church as the body of Christ in this week's text from 1 Corinthians 12 is itself important and is a helpful corrective to the individualism that is so pervasive in American Christianity. It takes on added meaning if we think about its connection with what Paul discussed in last week's reading from this epistle, the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who brings people to faith and incorporates them in one body.
The word "spirit" has a mysterious quality about it for many people. Because of misunderstanding of Paul's spirit-flesh distinction, it is often thought of in contrast to that which is physical, and therefore ethereal and other-worldly. Of course, in one way this is correct, because spirit is not something that can be grasped: Jesus' words to Nicodemus in John 3 about the action of God's Spirit make this point. But in connection with 1 Corinthians 12 there is a more down-to-earth way of talking about spirit that can help people to get a handle on the concept.
We speak quite commonly -- and non-religiously -- about "team spirit," "community spirit," or "family spirit." The spirit of some group is again not something that can be grasped or literally seen, but we all have a sense of what it is. It is the intangible something -- call it an atmosphere -- that holds the group together and makes it more than simply a collection of individuals. If a school has "spirit week" before the big game, it's a celebration of something that students can feel even though they can't put their fingers on it.
"The big game" coming up on the Sunday after this one, February 1, is the Super Bowl. In fact, "Super Bowl Sunday" has become one of the major American festivals. A preacher on this Sunday can jump the gun a bit and use the Super Bowl for one illustration of Paul's image of the body of Christ and its connection with the work of the Holy Spirit in the earlier part of 1 Corinthians 12.
It may be obvious to say that football is a team sport, but some exploration of that obvious point can be helpful. For all the good qualities of Tom Brady and Jake Delhomme (the quarterbacks of the Patriots and the Panthers), they wouldn't be able to accomplish anything without their blockers and receivers. But there's more to it than just putting other skilled players on the field, because they have to be able to work together. Because of the nature of professional football today, with players moving from one team to another, there's little of the old-fashioned sense of tradition that's often connected with the idea of the spirit of an organization. But the members of a team really do have to be together. Quarterbacks and receivers seem sometimes to have developed almost a telepathic connection, so that each knows what the other is going to do, and an offensive or defensive line comes to work together as one. They often refer to it as developing a "chemistry," but it corresponds to the old-fashioned idea of team spirit.
"Spirit," by the way, can convey the idea of excitement and enthusiasm for a cause, and for religious groups can take on questionable features. "Enthusiasts" in a religious sense, those who claim to have a direct gift of the Spirit unmediated by word and sacraments, can split communities. It seems that that is one of the things that Paul had to confront at Corinth, and one of the reasons for his emphasis on the body image. All spiritual gifts are important, and they build up the body rather than just produce gifted individuals. Players on a football team may be "spirited" in the sense of being enthusiastic and optimistic about their chances in a game, but that won't accomplish anything unless there is a genuine spirit that has made them a cohesive unit, more than just the sum of its parts.
There are, of course, other more formal ways of talking about spirit and its role in a community. Wolfhart Pannenberg has frequently emphasized the analogy between spirit and the concept of the "field" in physics (see, e.g., pp. 123-161 of his "Toward a Theology of Nature" [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993]). An electromagnetic or gravitational field is again something that cannot be seen directly, but it has very definite physical effects. Without the sun's gravitational field, the solar system would quickly disperse.
Teilhard de Chardin, on the other hand, emphasized the analogy between the Pauline image of the body of Christ and what has happened with life in the evolutionary process. A billion years ago, from what we can tell, there were only single-celled organisms on earth. Somehow some of them began to come together in symbiotic relationships so that over millions of years multi-cellular organisms developed. (The mitochondria in our cells are probably descendants of what were once independent entities.) Teilhard suggested that the formation of the Christian community, the body of which Christ is the head, from individual human beings is the next step in evolution, the development of a super-personal organism.
Our emphasis on the value of the individual and bad experiences with collectives in which individual personality is crushed out may make us wary of such a concept. But what Paul means, and the way Teilhard interprets him, is not an homogenization in which all the members of the body are interchangeable units. Paul's point is precisely that because the members have different gifts and different functions, they can form one body that has abilities that no single individual possesses.
We can have this experience in other communities, like a family. You may have met someone who, as an individual, seemed quite undistinguished and uninteresting. But then later, when you see her in the family of which she is a part, she really "comes alive." You observe her real personality, who she really is, when she is a distinctive member of that group. In the same way, the heart or foot is able to be most fully what it is as part of the body. As an isolated organ it would be able to do little. Teilhard sums this up by saying that union differentiates, creates, and personalizes.
With all of the analogies that we may draw with various groups and organisms, there is something distinctive about the Christian community that should not be forgotten: The "team spirit" of the church is the Holy Spirit of God.
Related Quotations
"The 20th century will be remembered chiefly, not as an age of political conflicts and technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the health of the whole human race as a practical objective."
-- attributed to Arnold Toynbee
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"I would hope our country would get beyond group thought and we'd herald each individual, regardless of their heritage and regardless of their background."
-- George W. Bush, January 26, 2000, Republican debate in New Hampshire
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"Society is an organism, not a machine."
-- Henry George (1836-97), U.S. economist
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"Be an individualist -- and an individual. You'll be amazed at how much faster you'll get ahead."
-- J. Paul Getty, How to Be Rich (1966)
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"A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic."
-- H. L. Mencken (1956)
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"We have exchanged our communities for jobs, our stable social connections for the ability to purchase products." -- Steven E. Miller (1996)
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"There is no such thing as Society. There are individual men and women, and there are families."
-- Margaret Thatcher (1987)
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"The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is absolute."
-- John Stuart Mill (1859)
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Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing." Words: Charles Wesley, 1739; music: Carl G. Glaser; arr. Lowell Mason, 1839. Public domain. As found in UMH 57; Hymnal '82 493; LBOW 559; TPH 466; AAHH 184; TNNBH 23; TNCH 42; CH 5.
"Jesus Shall Reign." Words: Isaac Watts, 1719; music: John Hatton, 1793. Public domain. As found in UMH 157; Hymnal '82 544; LBOW 530; TPH 423; AAHH 289; TNNBH 10; TNCH 300; CH 95.
"Maker, in Whom We Live." Words: Charles Wesley, 1747; music: George J. Elvey, 1868; Public domain. As found in UMH 88.
"How Like a Gentle Spirit." Words: C. Eric Lincoln, 1987; music: Alfred Morton Smith, 1941. Words (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 115; TNCH 443; CH 69.
Songs
"The Steadfast Love of the Lord" Words: Edith McNeill; music: Edith McNeill, arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1974 Celebration. As found in CCB 28.
"Emmanuel, Emmanuel." Words and music: Bob McGee. (c) 1976 C. A. Music. As found in CCB 31.
"Our God Reigns." Words and music: Leonard E. Smith, Jr. (c) 1974, 1978 L. E. Smith, Jr. New Jerusalem Music. As found in CCB 33.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: The heavens are telling the glory of God;
People: And the firmament proclaims God's handiwork.
Leader: Day to day pours for speech,
People: and night to night declares knowledge.
Leader: The law of God is perfect, reviving the soul;
People: the decrees of God are sure, making wise the simple.
Leader: More to be desired are they than fine gold.
People: They are sweeter than the drippings of the honeycomb.
Leader: Come and worship, people of God.
People: We come to worship and share our lives.
Leader: Sing to God a new song of praise.
People: We sing and lift our voices together.
Leader: God calls us to be one people of our Spirit.
People: We are God's people filled with God's Spirit.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God who is perfect unity in diversity of persons: Grant that we, your people, might be united by your Spirit in the midst of our wonderful diversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
You have called us, O God, to be your people, your image in creation. Send your Spirit upon us to renew that image and to enable us to live together with one another in the perfect unity of the Trinity. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"Where Charity and Love Prevail." Words: 9th cent. Latin, trans. Omer Westendorf, 1961. Music: Alexander R. Reinagle, 1836; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861; trans. (c) 1961 World Library Publications, Inc. As found in UMH 549; Hymnal '82; LBOW 126; TNCH 396.
"Many Gifts, One Spirit." Words: Al Carmines, 1973; music: Al Carmines, 1973. (c) 1974 Al Carmines. As found in UMH 114; TNCH 177.
"Blest Be the Tie That Binds." Words: John Fawcett, 1782; music: Johann G. Nageli, arr. Lowell Mason, 1845. Public domain. As found in UMH 557; Hymnal '82; LBOW 370; TPH 438; AAHH 341; TNNBH 398; TNCH 393; CH 433.
"Let There Be Peace on Earth." Words: Sy Miller and Jill Jackson; music: Sy Miller and Jill Jackson, harm. Charles H. Webb, 1987. (c) 1955. Assigned to Jan Lee Music; (c) renewed 1983. As found in UMH 431; AAHH 498; TNNBH 298; CH 677.
"What Does the Lord Require." Words: Albert F. Bayly, 1949; music: Erik Routley, 1968. Words (c) 1949 Albert F. Bayly; music (c) 1968 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 441; Hymnal '82 605; TPH 405; CH 659.
Songs
"Unity." Words: Tim Reynolds; music: Tim Reynolds, arr. J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.
"We Are His Hands." Words: Mark Gersmehl; music: Mark Gersmehl, arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1984, 1996 Bug and Bear Music. As found in CCB 85.
"Make Me a Servant." Words and music: Kelly Willard. (c) 1982 Willing Heart Music. As found in CCB 90.
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: Let us confess our sins to God and before one another.
People: We confess our sins to you, O God, but we confess them before each other. We acknowledge our connectedness with our brothers and sisters around us and how our unfaithfulness to you undermines the integrity of the Church as a whole. We want to keep our sins secret and to think they only have consequences for our relationship with you. But we know that when we act sinfully, we weaken the work of the whole people of God. When we are selfish and give in to the forces of wickedness, the reign of God which we all live in is impaired.
Forgive us our foolish ways and by the power of your Holy Spirit enable us to band together with these, our brothers and sisters, that we might truly be your people, your image, Christ's body. Amen.
Leader: The God who loved you enough to send Jesus to redeem you grants you forgiveness and grace and the Spirit of Jesus to bind you together with all God's people.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
We worship and adore you, Three In One, for you are diverse in your persons and yet unified in your substance. You are complex in expression as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and yet complete in existence as God.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess that we do not mirror your reality very well in our lives. Although you have given us your own image, breathed into us your own life-breath and filled us with your Spirit, we are separated from one another as well as from you. Renew us with your Spirit and make us one with you and each other.
We give you thanks for the love that is expressed through your Church in so many ways. We thank you for those who told us about your love and who shared their lives with us. We thank you for the many ways you send your love to us and for the many people you send it through.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to your love all the cares of our hearts and the pains of our world. For those who are tired or sick or dying, we pray for strength. For those who are lost, direction. For those who are without the necessities of life, we pray for substance and for a collective will to meet their needs. For all we pray for your love and grace to be evident.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray together, saying, "Our Father ...."
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Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone." (verses 4-6)
Object: A chair that has arms, legs, spindles, pillow, seat, and back
Good morning, boys and girls. Is there anyone here this morning who thinks he or she is important? (let them answer; encourage them to volunteer as an important person) How important are you? (let them answer) Are you the most important person here in church this morning? (let them answer) Is your dad or mom more important than you? (let them answer) Do you think the organist is an important person? Is the choir director an important person? Are the ushers important? Are the choir members important? Is the church secretary important? Are Sunday school teachers important? Is the custodian important?
Everyone seems to be important, don't they? I brought along a chair with me that has a number of parts. Which part do you think is the most important? Is it the legs, the arms, the back, the spindles that keep the legs together, the pillow, or the seat? Which one do you think is the most important part of the chair? (let them answer) They all seem important, don't they? The seat is not very important if the legs are broken. The back seems to be pretty important and so do the arms and the pillow and the spindles.
We have a lot of important things here today. We have the parts of a chair and we have a lot of important people, and you even think that you are important. And there are other things that are important in our church. We have a Bible, hymnals, an organ, an altar, a cross, special windows, pews to sit in, a church bulletin, offering plates, a piano, flowers, vases, and just a lot of things. But I have to say that the most important thing we have is people. People like you and your parents and all of the other people that are here. The only thing more important than us is the presence of God. We have asked God to be here with all of us.
St. Paul said that just as there are many people there is one Spirit and the Spirit gives each one of us a special gift or maybe two gifts. Only God can give these gifts and each one of us has at least one of them. Some of us have the gift of learning and another the gift of teaching and another the ability to heal people, like a doctor or nurse. And some are preachers and some can do miracles and others can pray. There are people who have the gift of ministry to help people who are poor or who are hurt in some way. These are all gifts of God and when we use them together we form a wonderful church that serves God.
A chair is a special piece of furniture that allows us to sit and learn, allows us to sit and worship, allows us to sit when we are tired, allows us to sit and have conversation with others and allows us to do all kinds of things like watch TV or read the paper. Each chair has parts, and every one of them is important.
A church is a special gift from God. It also has many parts like a chair does. Its parts are people and they have special gifts given by God to all of us so that we can help each other when we need help and also glorify God when we worship God.
The next time you sit in your chair I want you to look at all of the parts and then remember that you are part of our church and share in the gifts that God has given all of us. Amen.
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A Subscriber's Response to The Immediate Word for January 25, 2004
Subject: Luke 4:14-30; crime and reaction
As I was preparing this week's message (I combined the Gospel passages for this week and next), I was struck by what Jesus omitted (the day of vengeance) and how apropos the Scripture is to my life this past week. You see, last Monday at 1:45 in the afternoon in the church parking lot, the church secretary and I were carjacked at gunpoint. God blessed me with the calmness, wisdom, and words we needed so we were unharmed even though the thieves got her SUV, purse, and cell phone.
But the reaction of family, church members and others who claim the name of Christ has been very disturbing. It seems that a call for vengeance, use of racial epithets, and talk of carrying guns and killing someone has been the response of a significant number of persons. I fear that we have forgotten the one who proclaimed healing, deliverance, and freedom and, most of all, love for one's enemies and those who wrong us in favor of being those who look forward only to the day when God will wreak vengeance on the ungodly.
The Jesus who read the Scripture in Nazareth that day is the Christ of restoration, not retribution. The incident this week has reminded me of that in a mighty way. It's not easy, but we are called to stand on the edge of the cliff with our Lord, not be one of the angry mob seeking to push him off! Blessings and peace.
-- Rev. Carole L. Elrod, Sandusky United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
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The Immediate Word, January 25, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503
