Henrietta United
Rev. David Inglis 1
Corinthians 12:1-20
Stewardship Ingathering
“Embodying Christ”
Once upon a time there was a body. It was kind of puny, kind of purposeless, and kind of pushed around. “You know,” the nose said, “I’m tired of going around pointed toward the ground all the time. Why, look at me. I’m the most prominent part of this body. I was created to be held up high and proud. We don’t have to be a no body that just gets pushed around and forgotten. We can be some body to be reckoned with.”
“How are we going to do that?” the other parts of the body wanted to know.
“We need to lead with our strengths. Take me, for instance. I must have been put out in front of all of you for a reason. Which one of us is always the first to arrive at where we’re going? See, I’m a natural leader. Plus I have a nose for news. I can sense what’s going on, sniff out danger, sniff out the trail, and lead us all to success. Are you with me on this?”
The nose seemed so sure of itself, it was hard to argue with it. “All in favor of me being the leader of this body say Aye.” And the ayes had it. No, the eyes didn’t have it, the nose had it. What I mean is, leadership of the whole body was going to be a nose job.
Anyway, the body was now “led around by the nose.” But it seemed to be a good plan. By sticking itself in the business of the other bodies around, the nose knew what was going on, and was able to use this knowledge to curry favor with those who wanted to know what Nose knew. By always keeping its nose clean, but knowing the dirt on everyone else, it was able to control any body that might challenge it. This body was becoming some body to be reckoned with.
The nose made it its business to know the business of all of the parts of its own body too. The right hand might not know what the left hand was doing, but the nose knew what both of them were doing, and was quick to nose in and offer lots of “helpful advice”--don’t do it that way, that’s not quite right, let’s try it my way. The hands got so much helpful advice, they didn’t feel handy or appreciated any more. So they stopped working so hard. This resulted in even more helpful advice, which resulted in less effort. Pretty soon the hands would hardly lift a finger when something needed doing.
As the body stepped out into the world, the nose was always telling the feet to make sure to put the best one forward, which both of them were more than happy to do--at the same time. This kept tripping the body up, which made the rest of the body mad at these most lowly of the body parts who just couldn’t seem to do their job right. Well, the feet put themselves down and said they weren’t going to stand for such disrespect. So they sat down on the job. Without the feet to keep the body moving forward, the body felt, well, de-feeted.
The mouth began complaining how nobody seemed to be able to do their job right anymore. This only intimidated all the parts further. The worse things got, the more the loud mouth’s complaints turned into biting comments about this part and that.
The knees were thinking it had been better before the nose had started running...everything. But when the knees tried to stand up to the nose, the nose really got out of joint, and became very snotty with everyone.
Every part of the body was unhappy. Every part could see that the nose had blown it as their leader, and nothing is as sore as a blown nose, especially when the nose has been overblown. Even the nose showed signs of getting tired of always running...everything. “If you all can’t do your jobs right and keep me from looking like a fool, I’m going to quit trying to lead you, and then we can all go back to being a puny, purposeless body like before.”
One of the hands went up. “Well, we all did pick the nose. So we all share in responsibility for this. But maybe that was our problem--not picking the nose, but picking just one part of the body to try to run the whole body. Maybe that’s not the way we were designed to work.”
“Well, who will run us then? How will we know what to do and how to do it, so we can really be some body?”, the other parts wanted to know.
The brain reasoned, “Whoever directs us, it would have to be someone that is greater than any of our parts, but that truly cares about each of our parts.”
“That sounds good,” the other parts said, “But we’ve never seen or heard anyone like that.
The heart said, “Maybe there is something more than we’re seeing here. I’ve been feeling so empty and alone the way we’ve been living. I keep having the feeling we were made for something more important than each of us competing with each other, or even with other bodies out there.”
“If that’s true, how would we find out what our purpose was?” the other parts wondered.
“I don’t know,” the heart said. “Maybe we should try asking the One who made us.”
“Where would we find such a One?” they wondered.
“I don’t know if we have to look outside ourselves, or look inside ourselves, or look among ourselves, or what,” the heart said. “I just have this heart-felt sense that the answer is closer than we think. Why don’t we all just admit that we’re unhappy being wrapped up in ourselves, and try to open ourselves in all directions, and see what we find?”
“Yes, let’s try that all together,” all the parts agreed.
And so they all got very quiet. Each one felt the steady rhythm of the heart, beating out its heart-felt prayer, “Please come, please come, please come.” Each one felt the body parts next to it open up in humble waiting. The lungs eased into deep, rhythmic breaths. The muscles released their tension from all the anxiety and antagonism that had been rippling through them. The nerves calmed down and began sending quiet signals of peace and hope. Each organ and tissue felt the warmth of the blood coursing through it, bringing them the gift of life. It felt good to be connected in this way. And quietly, mysteriously, through this sense of deep connectedness they began to hear a message they had never noticed before: “You are my beloved. You are a part of me, and I am a part of you.”
Where was this message coming from? Was it outside of them? Was it inside of them? Was it among them? They couldn’t tell. So they opened to it more. The whisper deepened into a feeling, a knowing. It was the feeling and knowing of Love itself, touching each part and connecting each part into a whole. They felt it with each beat of the heart, which was answering its own prayer of “Please come, please come,” with “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”
Was this the body’s Maker answering the body’s call? It was greater than each of the parts, and yet it deeply cared about each of the parts. It was outside them and inside them and among them all at the same time. It made them feel united into a whole, so that each of them was a part of each other. No part was all-important, and no part was unimportant. It was the whole that was important, and that made them each important.
They listened some more and opened some more. And the more they listened and the more they opened, the harder it was to tell where the whole that they were a part of ended. It didn’t seem to end with their skin. It was bigger than that. It felt big enough to include all the other bodies around them--big enough to unite all of them into a whole just like their parts were united into a whole. And it didn’t seem to end with that. Maybe they were meant to be a part of something bigger still. Maybe something as big as all of creation. Maybe even something as big as eternity.
The love they felt flowing through them and among them felt that big, that deep, that whole, that uniting. It had no limits, no boundaries, no beginning, and no end.
Had this truth been there all along, and they had never gotten humble enough, quiet enough, and open enough to know it?
In time the legs signaled that they needed to stretch, and the stomach signaled that it needed to eat, and the eyes signaled that they needed to sleep, and the life of the body went on, much like it had before.
But in some ways it was very unlike life before. The sense of puniness and purposelessness was gone. In its parts and as a whole, the body knew for certain that it was some body, loved and blessed by its Maker. And the sense of antagonism was gone. There was only one purpose worth living for now, and that was to live more and more into this incredible unity that made them feel so complete and whole, which they and everything there was were created to be a part of. Why would they want to be jealous or dominating or controlling when their highest joy was to offer their gifts to enhance the unity they were part of? Now, whenever they found themselves getting out of joint, they only had to get humble and quiet and open, and they could hear the gentle voice outside them, inside them, and among them whispering, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” And they would remember who they were and what they were here for.
So, here we are today, the various parts of this body that we call the church. Our pledges and gifts of time, talent and treasure are the ways we connect and unite our lives and our substance with each other to create the whole body of the church. If we as the parts of this body didn’t each give something of ourselves, this body here wouldn’t exist. And if we, as the parts of the body, stopped actively listening to the voice of our Maker, we would lose our unity, our power, and our purpose. So now let us all listen together, and open our awareness in all directions–outside of us, inside of us, and among us. . . . Do you hear it? Do you sense the heartbeat of God quietly sending its message: “I am here, I am here, I am here. You are my beloved--each of you and all of you and all of creation. I am in you, and you are in me. Live this love; become this love; spread this love.”
As we continue to grow into this awareness of who we really are, and what we are a part of, and what our purpose is, we will discover an amazing thing. We are not only members of this body we call our church. We are members of the body of the living Christ, whose boundless love embraces us and through us embraces the world.