Being the Body was the title to my sermon on Sunday. For some reason, I struggled greatly to write the thing, and wasn't completely satisfied with the way it came out. I have an idea of what a sermon is supposed to do as the public proclamation of the promises of God for the people of God. I also grew up in a fire-breathing, Bible-beating denomination (no offense to those of you who are still a part, but you know what I mean). The two are always at war within me and it seems the latter got the better of me this round. Even though I dont really care for this sermon...I wanted to put it out there for public critique...so here it is.
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One of the wonderful things about the word and works of God is this, they are alive. We do not serve a Lord who is only crucified, but one who is living and active in our midst. As reigning Lord of heaven and earth, His word too, the book of Hebrews tells us, is living and active. Let us pray that we would hear the message God is speaking to us today, not what Jake Clawson is speaking. Let us pray.
Father, speak to us through your word this day. Open our ears that we might hear your voice, and open our hearts that we might accept the message you bring us. Use me as your vessel this morning, and may your Holy Spirit rest on me as I bring the word you have placed on my heart to your people. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
A few months ago I met a man in this very building named Benjamin Alan Best. I had just returned from a youth event when a gentleman who wanted to speak to the Pastor approached me. Well, no Pastor was available so he got to talk to a Director instead. The story goes that he is riding his bicycle across the country on the generosity of churches and other Christian individuals. And my word does he have the church system down to a tee. He knew about the discretionary funds that larger churches give their pastors. He even knew that he had a better chance of receiving cash from an Episcopal church than the gift card or soup kitchen meal that he might receive from other denominations.
Basically, Ben wanted me to put him in a hotel for the night. I told him that I couldn’t do that, but that I knew of several places I could take him in the city to get him a bed for the night. The thing was, he refused to go into the city. When I pressed him to tell me why, Ben told me “Jesus isn’t there.” He said that when you go into the city, you have to go to churches with buzzers and big locks on the door where you are viewed as a nuisance and shelters where they treat you like a criminal. He told me that Jesus can be found in the wealthy suburbs. He told me he was looking for “real Christians,” and to Ben a “real Christian” was someone who would give him the help that he was looking for.
Ben believed the myth that the institution of the church was the thing that could meet his needs. Ben desired to have the help of the church of Christ, rather than the dignifying purpose of the Risen Christ who is the head of the church. I think there is a little bit of Benjamin in all of us. I think that at we are guilty of encouraging people to believe the myth that the organization can meet their need because it takes the pressure off of us to meet the need.
Eventually, we find ourselves hiding behind this building, the staff we employ, and the programs we run. If we hear of a need, our response is to take it to the deacons; if we have a problem, we take it to a committee; if we meet a person who is in need of help, we take it to the church. Sometimes this isn’t a bad thing, and the appropriate action is to take the problem to a committee or take our need to the deacons. But let us remember that it is we who are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ and he has chosen to work through us!
However, if we continue neglecting the reality of our personal call and purpose, we will be in danger of losing our identity as members of the body of Christ. We will be tempted to cash in our purpose as members of that body for some stock in the institutional church. We are often so involved in the life of the church – with our committees, trips, campaigns, and even Bible studies - that we lose sight of the fact that we are the life of the church. Our lives are the life of the church, yet we denigrate the dignity that God has given us by boiling the dynamic life of the church down to meetings and luncheons. The programs that we run here at Lebanon are not bad things; in fact I have been impressed with the willingness of the people in this community to get involved. However, we must be mindful that these programs are always an overflow of the purpose that God has given the individual members of His body that call this particular community home. Let us not lose sight of what - or shall I say whom - the church truly is, why we have come here, and more importantly, who has called us here in the first place.
When we overemphasize the organizational aspect of the church, we realize that it is easier to defer to the church to supply for the needs around us than it is to confront them ourselves. We’ve also realized that if we come here on Sunday morning, it is easy to perform a noteworthy invisibility act and shuffle out as soon as we see that blessed asterisk in the bulletin telling us to stand near the end of the service. This seems good to us because we are only as involved as we care to be and never forced to be vulnerable. Again, we find ourselves hiding behind the church and neglecting what the church truly is.
When we buy into the myth of the “purveyor of spiritual goods” model of the church, we are not fully living out our call as individual members of the body of Christ. When we buy into externalizing the church we not only rob the church, the body of Christ, of her full potential, but we are also robbing ourselves of the fullness of life that Christ has promised us as members of His body. Ephesians 1:22-23 says this “And God has placed all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is His body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Paul writes that you and I, the church, the body of Christ, are the fullness of Christ. God has chosen to work through human beings to the extent that we are referred to as His “fullness.” We believers are also referred to as the “bride” of Christ, and while we men feel that being called a “bride” is tantamount to being referred to as a “nancy boy” to put it lightly, it’s time to put the insecure child to bed and run with the analogy. All of us have felt the strange sensation of infatuation before. You know where you say things, and sometime even mean them, like “I feel like a piece of myself is missing when you are not with me?” This is the feeling behind the “bride of Christ” and “fullness” imagery. God literally longs for you to fulfill your calling as a member of His body. You are a beloved child who has been called and given a purpose by your Father in Heaven.
Sometimes we miss that purpose because we never realized, or were never told, that we have one. When Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected, his followers, a fledgling group of believers in this new way of life, knew they had a purpose. They carried on Christ’s message that the kingdom of God is near and they began to live their lives as indicators of this new reality. They acted differently than those around them and so this group of different people, who were pledging allegiance to someone other than Caesar and loving their enemies, began to live in community with other individuals who had proclaimed Christ as their Lord. When the church was referred to, it was the people who realized they were the church, because they didn’t have a building or programs to run that would confuse their identity as the church. I believe that when we talk about the church today, we think of the buildings, programs, and staff people we can see. We come to the church believing that we are going to find purpose there, while in reality it is God who gives you purpose as a member of the body of Christ. It is God who gifts you the skills and strengths that you possess. It is God who will give you the imagination and creativity to come out from hiding and live as faithful member of His body. And it is God who can pick you up, weaknesses, frustrations, and all, when you do not feel you have lived up to your calling.
So what does it mean to be the body of Christ? It means that Christ has called you and united you to Himself, sharing with you the mission of God to proclaim, and join in with, God’s kingdom breaking in on the world. Be encouraged by this fact; rather, be emboldened by this truth. Allow God’s love and mission to consume you. Hide no longer behind the walls of this building, neither allow this place to become an idol for you. Rather go from this place encouraging your children, friends, and family to grab onto the full life that God has already equipped them to live in His name. Amen.
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