Sermon Text

WHAT IS THE CHURCH? January 24, 2010
Nehemiah 8:1-4a,5-6,8-10
I Corinthians 12:12-30
Luke 4:14-21

If I went through this congregation this morning and asked every one of you here, “What is the church?” I would hear a multitude of responses. Some of you would say, echoing the children’s finger play, that the church is people. Others would say that the church is a building, and not just any building, but one that looks a certain way! Still others would say that the church is a business, more or less like any other business. We might even argue over that one! There might be a few who would say that the church is the “people of God,” or the “body of Christ,” or some other Biblical image.

But, in all our responses, what are we saying about the church?

Look at these lessons from Scripture again. The readings from the New Testament juxtapose Paul’s imagery of the church as the body of Christ with the sermon Jesus preached in his home church in Nazareth, near the beginning of his ministry. What can these Scriptures tell us about ourselves, the church?

First of all, they can remind us that the church is not just another voluntary social organization. The church is the body of Christ, called out of the world to a special ministry. We like to feel that we choose the church, but the Bible reminds us that it is God who does the choosing first.

Neither is the church just another business among other businesses. It may be run in a prudent, business-like manner, but it is primarily a supernatural entity which transcends time and space. It is a body into which people are “in-corporated,” engrafted by baptism, nurtured by communion, supported by a caring fellowship, and in which we, as individuals and as a congregation, expect to be encountered by God in Jesus Christ.

Secondly, we are reminded that, in Jesus’ announcement of his ministry on that Sabbath in Nazareth, we are called as his disciples. We are called to participate in a ministry that is just as far-reaching as the ministry he outlined that day in reading from the scroll of Isaiah:

 a ministry of compassion to the spiritually, emotionally, and materially poor;

 a ministry of healing and helping toward wholeness those who are hard-hit by the pains and difficulties of life;

 a ministry of liberation to the oppressed of the world, and to those in physical, emotional, and spiritual bondage;

 a ministry of proclamation, telling the world by our words and deeds that God loves, God seeks people, and that God has acted in Jesus Christ to bring us abundant and everlasting life.

And this is far from being an exhaustive list. When Jesus first spoke these words, he was not limiting us just to the things we see here in print. These things are characteristic of the kingdom Jesus came to inaugurate. The implications of this multi-faceted ministry are many, and we need to be about the Lord’s work in all the ways God makes available to us.

One of the real miracles of the church is this “in-corporation” I mentioned a moment ago. If we are Christ’s body in the world, then we are Christ’s hands, Christ’s feet, Christ’s voice, Christ’s caring, Christ’s justice. The way the world discriminates between people – by race, age, gender, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, political ideology, social status – those things don’t apply here in the fellowship of the church. We don’t ignore them or pretend they aren’t there, because they enrich our life and ministry together. We remember, however, that these things are secondary to what really binds us together, and that is the love of God in Jesus Christ. The power of these things to hurt or divide us was washed away in the waters of baptism. It is an evidence of our sinfulness that we still have to contend with these things from time to time in the life of the church. It is evidence of God’s Spirit at work among us when we can overcome these divisions.

But we are different. We bring different, God-given gifts and abilities to our common ministry. Paul reminds us that none of these gifts or abilities is more important than any other, they are just different. And the variety enriches us, and enables us to do the work of the church more effectively. This year, for example, as a part of our Fall Stewardship Campaign, members of our congregation responded to the Time and Talent Commitment Form, agreeing to perform over 675 volunteer jobs through our church! Discovering and using our gifts is an important part of our discipleship.

Paul uses the image of the body to illustrate the intimate, interdependent relationship which exists between Christ and Christ’s people, and between the members of Christ’s body. Paul was telling the Corinthians – and it’s a message we need to hear today – that our diversity is not a plague, but is a gift of the Spirit. It is only a problem if we make it so. Diversity is a gift of the Spirit – divisiveness is not. One commentator on this passage even goes so far as to say that the spirit of divisiveness is the spirit of the AntiChrist!

The church, the body of Christ, is one. It is made up of many members, each different, each contributing to the whole, helping it function, building it up, mutually protecting and supporting one another. When one part of the body suffers, all suffer; when one part rejoices, all rejoice.

In speaking about his own ministry, and in calling us to our ministry, Jesus finds the “clincher” in that word, “Today.” “Today, in your hearing, this Scripture has been fulfilled.” It is in the context of today that we must hear Christ’s call to discipleship, and that call carries some very strong ethical demands.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that sometimes Jesus’ words sound like nothing more than dreamy idealism, pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye, someday talk. And we say, “Sure, I hope that someday the oppressed will be set free, and poverty will be a thing of the past, and the threat of terrorism will be lifted, . . . someday.”

But the word that Jesus spoke was TODAY. Can we hear the true demand in that word? It forces our someday-dreams upon us before we are ready. It forces us to look at our world and at our place in it in some ways that make us uncomfortable. But the Gospel is a NOW message. We live in the TODAY inaugurated by Jesus’ coming. So, TODAY we are to work for the alleviation of suffering, the easing of the burdens of the poor, the demolishing of the walls we have erected between us, and to announce that NOW, not someday in the future, is the time of our salvation.

A little girl came running down the hall after Sunday School one morning, waving a cardboard cutout. “I’m a toe!” she announced. “I’m a toe!” And she held up a pink cardboard toe with her name on it. The mystery was solved the following Sunday when all the class brought in cutouts and assembled a figure over the title, “The Body of Christ.” Notice the little girl’s pride and joy: “I’m a toe!” Our Christian pride and joy is never so much over what we do as members of the body of Christ, as over our being members of the one body, and over the wondrous opportunity to play a part in the ministry of Jesus Christ and his people, TODAY.

Who are you as a member of the body of Christ? What is the Master calling you to be and do today?