Rev. Michael Phillips’ Sermon – January 25, 2004

The year before I went to seminary I taught the 7^th and 8^th grade at a school in Ft. Worth, Texas. At the time, I was dating a young woman from east Texas and was from a Lebanese family. I had known her slightly during college, but had gotten to know her better after graduation through a circle of schoolmates. On weekends I would drive to east Texas and we would visit, or go to a dance or a movie. I think her mother liked me better than she did. The mother was always encouraging me to come for a visit and be part of the family. I got some great Lebanese food out of the deal.

One Friday I had plans with my best friends for the evening, so I called her to see if I could drive over the next day. The young woman answered that she was busy, and that she would be busy every weekend for the foreseeable future…if you get what I mean. I was devastated. No, I was worse than devastated; I was torn apart. I had been so nice to her. I had such hopes of becoming good friends. Her mother had been so encouraging.

In spite of my emotional state I decided to keep my engagement with my best friends. We were all to meet at Joe Rodriguez’s house, so over I went. When I arrived, no one was there but Joe’s wife, Janet, someone I didn’t know all that well. In spite of being in the same circle, I had never felt that she and I had connected personally.

She took one look at me, saw the sadness, and asked if I was okay. I thought about dismissing her question by saying that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine, and I decided to open up. I told her everything. She listened. She understood. She was great. She put me back together and helped me see that there wasn’t anything wrong with me, its just that we can’t always have things as we want them. My distress was lifted, and although it took me a couple of weeks to feel back in balance, I was able to have an enjoyable evening.

I learned what true community was all about that evening, by my willingness to risk being honest and real, and Janet’s caring response.

Human life begins in community.

There are a minimum of two people present at every birth, a mother and an infant. There’s no other way of getting here, at least not yet. Under ideal conditions, at the moment of birth and for the few minutes following, that sense of community is reinforced, so says our good friend and midwife, Angela Colclough. Ideally, she says, as soon as the baby is born, with umbilical cord still attached, the newborn baby is placed on the mother’s abdomen, in effect, putting it back in the same place from where it came, only on the other side of the skin. In this way, the newborn is gently welcomed to the world, with the familiar sounds of the heartbeat and warmth it has known for the first nine months of its life.

Community is also the basis of all spirituality. The principal spiritual question is not just “How am I going to live my life?” but “How am I to live my life in the midst of other lives?” or “How am I to be in community?” Spiritual teachings are usually set in the context of community, such as: love your neighbor as yourself, or do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

The Bible is not a series of individual biographies, but rather a narrative about friends, families, disciples, and nations. The Hebrew scripture is not about the man, Israel, but about the Israelite people. The gospels are not just about Jesus, but include his companions, the disciples, his adversaries, and the multitudes.

Life has very little meaning outside of community. If all we had to do was worry about our next meal, sufficient rest and sleep, and our relative comfort, in other words, ourselves alone, life would be pretty boring. What makes life interesting are living with other people – people we enjoy and …. people who present a challenge to us. (That’s as nicely as I can put it.) Our families, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, these are the people we care about, and who care about us. These are the people who touch our emotions, and make it all worthwhile. Why do we travel great distances at holiday times to see family and friends? Thanksgiving weekend and Christmastime are among the most hazardous times to be on the road. Yet, there we are, steady behind the wheel, in order to make community happen, and happen again.

Even business is based on community. In ancient times, villages were formed so that life would be easier. Families could specialize in one area so that everyone would not have to do everything him or herself. One family could bake the bread while another family made bricks, while yet another family tended the sheep, and on and on. Then, these specialties were exchanged. A slaughtered lamb was exchanged for a month’s worth of bread, or eight sheep were exchanged for enough bricks to build a new house. This shows the simplest form of economics – a Greek word that does not mean “money.” It means “household” or “tightly bound community.”

In this morning’s epistle reading, St. Paul is writing to the small Christian community in the Greek city of Corinth. The ancient city of Corinth sat on a narrow isthmus, or bridge between two larger masses of territory. It was a city with a port on either side, as goods were brought to one side, transported across the bridge, and loaded onto ships waiting on the other side. The Corinth isthmus was a shortcut that saved weeks and weeks of travel by sea. Therefore, the city was inundated with travelers from all over the Mediterranean, and elsewhere. All sorts of languages were spoken there, all sorts of clothing worn. All sorts of skin colors, and foods, and spices, and manufactured goods, and gods, were known as they passed from one side of the isthmus to the other.

In this highly diverse setting, where differences between people were outwardly apparent every moment of every day, St. Paul is telling the fledgling Christians that …we are one. In Christ, there is no longer slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female. All distinctions disappear. In a setting where one can look around and see nothing but distinctions, Paul adamantly claims that we are one in Christ. The differences, he says, are the same differences we see in our bodies. We have arms. We have legs. We have ears. We have eyes. But there is one Body.

In a setting where one knows one’s friends and knowing one’s enemies might be the difference between life and death, Paul says we are one. In a culture where knowing one’s place in society, one’s place in the pecking order, is essential to a healthy and unencumbered lifestyle, Paul says we are one.

The consequence of Paul’s vision is that Christ reorders organization. If the freemen benefit monetarily from their slaves, and suddenly that distinction disappears, their business collapses. If the infantry are about to attack an invading army, and suddenly there is no distinction between friend and foe, warfare ceases. If a dishonest merchant who has been skimming a little extra profit from his sales by utilizing falsely weighted scales suddenly recognizes that in cheating others he is cheating also himself, a new integrity emerges in the marketplace.

Paul articulates the radical nature of the message of Christ, the reign of God. Such a vision, if carried to its end, would change everything. The vision of the reign of God, in ancient times, was therefore seriously resisted by those in power – hence the persecutions. And it was irresistibly embraced by those masses of people who were outside the spheres of power – hence the phenomenal growth of Christian communities all around the Mediterranean basin.

The same is true in our own day. The message of Christ changes everything. The gospel offers a new life. That message is seriously resisted by those who like their life exactly the way it is. In fact, they have worked very hard to secure the life and lifestyle they have, and their place in the community. On the other hand, the gospel is enthusiastically embraced by those honest folk who recognize that however good their life is now, it could be so much more, and their experience of community could be enriched, if they surrender themselves to their cross, to their agent of transformation.

The gospel we read today illustrates those transformations: good news to the poor, release to the captive, sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed. St. Paul knows that the transformation is real, and is now. In the next five Sundays, the adult forum we will be looking at the spirituality of community: practicing faith as a people called out. We will spend time understanding how community both comforts us and challenges us. We will engage the community as an agent for the reign of God. We will move forward in our understanding of what it means to be one in Christ. We will share what this community at Christ Church means to us, and how we might participate in it, and shape it for the gospel. I hope you can join us after the 10 o’clock service today.

You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.

Amen.

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