A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany Year C

 

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.   For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.

 

In these January Sundays of the Epiphany Season, we get to hear what St. Paul wrote about the life of  the Church as we read his First Letter to the Corinthians.  That Paul wrote about the Church to the Christians in Corinth was not an accident nor an exercise in abstract theologizing:    the folks in Corinth really needed to hear what Paul had to say.  If you read between the lines of Paul’s letters to this church, its not hard to see that they were a fractious and conflicted bunch of Christians.  They had divisions over their loyalties to different leaders;  about what kinds of food to eat;  about marriage, celibacy and sex; about celebrating the Lord’s Supper; what Resurrection life was like,  and which spiritual gifts were the most important.

 

A lot of “holier than thou” one-upmanship went on as people asserted their superiority to other supposedly less enlightened types.  So Paul goes to great lengths to teach them  life in the Church is to be lived differently.  Last week, we heard Paul say that 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.

 

Notice the repeated words: varieties of… but the same…

 

Paul’s agenda is to get the Corinthians to see that the varieties of gifts, ministries and activities they live come from the same Spirit, Lord, and God.   The differences among them are not to be a source of conflict or competition, but of mutual help, support and shared ministry.

Their differences are to be celebrated as gifts bestowed by the triune God, and are to be used together for the common good.  

 

Diversity in unity; unity in diversity is Paul’s theme –   and he continues that theme in today’s reading:  Just as the body is one and has many members, he writes, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.   For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.  

 

The Church, Paul says, is like a body made up of different parts all of which are necessary.  Feet, hands, eyes and ears – all so different from one another – are equal and equally needed parts of the body.  Each different part is vital to the whole body’s functioning.  If the body were one big eye, it would see well – but it couldn’t hear!  If the body were one big ear, it would have wonderful hearing, – but it couldn’t smell!  No part of the body, Paul writes, can say to another part,  “I don’t need you.”  So, too, no member of Christ’s body, the Church, can say to another member:  “I don’t need you.”  

 

Each one of us, -- different as we are in talents, skills, gifts, culture, race, age, education, and professions – each one of us, precisely in our differentness, is absolutely necessary for Christ’s body, the Church, to live a healthy life and to do God’s work in the world.

 

Paul’s words about Church to the people in Corinth are a wonderful gift on Annual meeting Sunday – not, I am glad to say, because St. Francis is seriously infected with the conflicted and competitive sprit of the Corinthians,   but because Paul’s teaching gives a framework for us to reflect on our life and ministry together in the past year and the year to come.   In particular, Paul’s teaching calls to mind for me our Stewardship theme for this year, Growing Together.  

 

Many of you will recall the Growing Together the spiritual growing together of last Lent, Holy Week and Easter--   holy seasons which we will enter into again quite soon.  During Lent, a significant number of you participated in the Ways of Praying series I led.  We grew together in Christ as we tried out varied approaches to prayer, shared our experiences, and discovered, as Christians usually do in such groups, that each of us found different ways of praying to be more or less fruitful for each.  Yet the diversity of our experience of prayer didn’t divide us --  to the contrary, it made us more aware of belonging to the same body in Christ.

 

In the liturgies of Holy Week, those present took part in what for many may have been new experiences in worship.   Seating was rearranged so that for much of the time, the whole congregation was gathered in this area around the Altar.  Light and darkness; fire, candle light and bells were used to make real the drama of the events of the last days of Jesus’ life.  The goal was worship that deepened the growing together of our diverse community and, more importantly, our connection to the life-giving power of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus.    I hope that in the Lent and Holy Week to come, we will grow yet more deeply together in our life in Christ --  for Jesus must be at the heart of all Christian growth worthy of the name.

 

In our Growing Together Stewardship Conversations in the fall, I heard the presence of Jesus and the Spirit, if less explicitly than in Lent and Holy Week, still very real.  You spoke of how much the support, fellowship and welcoming spirit of this part of the body of Christ called St. Francis’ mean to you,   and how rich you find the diversity of culture, gifts and experience of this parish family.   You shared how you value the opportunities to work together and to serve God in all those activities and ministries that are reported on in the Annual Meeting booklet being distributed today.   You reaffirmed the importance of our service to people in need in our community and the world in our outreach ministries.  

 

And you demonstrated your commitment to our life and ministry in the pledges you made at the conclusion of those conversations.  Our pledge total for 2010 is slightly above that for 2009 –   a result to be proud of in the current economic climate.  While we did not reach our goal of 100% participation, the 75% participation we did achieve is a sign of a congregation committed to growing together.

 

In the last of our Growing Together Conversations we named wishes for the future of St. Francis.   Most of those wishes focused on growth in the life of St. Francis in a variety of ways:   spiritual growth;   growth in hospitality, membership and worship attendance;   growth in leadership involvement; growth in giving; growth in outreach; growth in ministry with our young people, and more.

 

It’s a large list and we can’t tackle all of it at once  --   though, blessedly, many of these areas of growth are mutually reinforcing.     I see three keys areas of growth for the coming year:

Spiritual Growth through worship, prayer, and Christian Formation opportunities for all ages;   Evangelism, including growth in hospitality, membership and worship attendance;   and ministry with our Young People, especially in forming a Youth Group at St. Francis. 

I will have my part to play in this work, and so will all of you --  as St. Paul has reminded us today, we need each other’s different gifts to grow together in shared ministry in the Body of Christ.

 

And I’m very pleased to announce today that we are being joined by another member of Christ’s Body who brings distinctive gifts to our shared ministry:   the Rev. Marge Forsythe, who has been appointed by the Bishop to serve as Deacon at St. Francis.  The Book of Common Prayer says that Deacons are called to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely; to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world,   and to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.  [1]

That means that Deacon Marge will share with me and others in the pastoral care and outreach ministry of St. Francis.   She will also work – hopefully with many of you -- in developing our Evangelism ministry, an area where she has expertise and experience to share.    

 

In our worship, she will exemplify the Deacon’s servant ministry of connecting the Church to the world and the world to the Church by proclaiming the Gospel,   bidding the congregation to prayer and confession,   preparing the Altar for Eucharist and administering Communion, and, last but no means least, dismissing us all to serve God and God’s people in the world.

 

In closing today, I want to draw special attention to this last part of her liturgical ministry and what it means for all of us.  Every Sunday, at the end of worship, we are sent out in the name of Christ  and the power of the Spirit to love and serve the Lord in our daily lives in the world.  

The world, not the Church, is the place where the vast majority of God’s work gets done ---   or doesn’t.   The great risk in our theme of growing together is that we will focus way too much of our energy on ourselves, as if St. Francis’ were the most important thing in God’s universe.  It isn’t.  The world God made and loves is.  The Church exists, not for itself or its own members, but for the sake of others.  As we heard him announce today in Luke’s Gospel, the needs of the world’s people were the focus of  Jesus’ ministry:

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. [2]

 

This was the focus of Jesus’ ministry. An if we are to be faithful servants of Christ;  members of his Body using our differing gifts together for God’s purposes, then the ministry of Jesus in and to the world must be what we are about.  Annual Meeting Sundays are a time when we are tempted to focus only on our parish life.  Instead, in the Deacon’s dismissal may we hear today – and every time we gather – the call of Christ to serve God’s people in the world --  may we hear that call, and may we live it.

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni