1.
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this third Sunday
after Epiphany is taken from 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. It’s entitled, “No Christian is an Island.” Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
The
1976 movie The Bad News Bears depicts
an assortment of youngsters brought together to play baseball. Walter Matthau,
the coach, has the task of uniting this helter-skelter collection of kids from
all walks of life into a team—a team that could compete and win. Not too
talented. Kids no other team wanted. Coach’s first job was simply to talk a
number of the players into playing, sticking around, and not quitting and to
convince them they belonged on a team. You
may recall how Walter Matthau and his Bad News Bears came out. It took a while
for them to mesh; at first they were the worst team in the league. But then
kids who, to put it politely, hadn’t cared for each other began to care about
each other, and by big-game time, they were champions. They were no longer acting like an island
unto themselves, but they were working together as a team. So too we as the body of Christ in this
congregation here at St. John are called by God to care about each other. Every
one of us belongs on this team called the church and each one of us is
important.
3.
In and through the Church, Christ’s Body, our
gracious heavenly Father has gathered each of us—a hodgepodge of forgiven
sinners from all walks of life. According to the unique gifts each Christian
possesses, our heavenly Father has brought us together on his team—a team
destined to compete and win in and through His Son Jesus Christ!
4.
The
Apostle Paul had previously discussed in his 1st letter to the
Corinthian church the problem of divisions in the Church. Here in 1 Corinthians 12 he continues to
emphasize congregational unity because the Corinthian Christians could do nothing
about their other problems until they came together as a congregation.
5.
1
Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “12For 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. 13For in one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one
Spirit.” Paul uses the human body as an
illustration. The human body has many different parts, but they all fit
together and function perfectly. Every part of the body is useful. Medical
science used to believe that the tonsils, the appendix and certain other body
parts were expendable. This notion came from a false belief in evolution. But
now science recognizes what God’s Word has known all along, that everybody part
has a use. The point is this: Just as
the human body is united, so is Christ’s body, the church. Schism, faction and
division have no place in the church, just as they have no place in the human
body. The Apostle Paul reminds us that the sacrifice of Christ was universal. Christ
died for all men without regard to their earthly position. We as Christians all
received the same Spirit. We were “made to drink” the Spirit in faith. This
phrase echoes what Jesus told the woman at the well: “Whoever drinks the water
I give him will never thirst” (Jn 4:14). Through water and the Word in Holy
Baptism all of us as Christians have been united into the same faith in Jesus
Christ as our Lord and Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
6.
As the human body has
many parts, so does the body of Christ.
There is great diversity in the Church.
Problems arise in the Church because there is a failure to recognize
legitimate differences. It’s absurd to
think of competition between body parts.
Feet don’t covet the function of the hands and ears don’t covet the role
of the eyes. Even if they could covet
each other’s gifts, nothing would change.
They would still be part of the body.
7.
The hard feelings and
factionalism seen in Corinth are still seen in Christian parishes today. The results are seen as people quit coming to
worship, stop giving to the Church financially, or leave the congregation
because they didn’t get their way on some issue. They don’t care for what the majority may
have decided and remove themselves from the source of their frustration. Or, they seek in some way to punish those
with whom they disagree. The Apostle
Paul reminds us as Christians that it’s absurd to think that each one should
have similar gifts. “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of
hearing?”
8. Try walking a straight line with your eyes
blindfolded, running a race with your legs tied together, or writing your name
with the pencil in your toes. You will quickly discover that you need all the
different parts of your body to function properly. We may think what we do as
members of the body of Christ is more important, and so we don’t appreciate
what others do. You may take for granted
your various body parts until one becomes injured. The body contains hundreds
of bones, tendons, and muscles. Yet a runner with just one torn muscle or one
inflamed tendon cannot run at all. The
Holy Spirit has brought us all the same salvation in Jesus Christ and made us
members of his one body. We were
baptized with the same Christian Baptism and given the one Holy Spirit. Our
sins were washed away because of what Jesus has done for us through his life,
suffering, death, and resurrection. Baptism
is the way we as individuals are incorporated into the church. Although we are different as members of the
body of Christ, we need one another and each other’s gifts, just as the
different parts of the human body need each other.
9. We can’t go it alone as “Lone Ranger”
Christians because we need one another for Christ’s body, the church, to be
healthy and to function properly. A severed finger or toe cannot be used to do
good, and quickly dies. All the parts of the body must be firmly connected to
each other and to the head, which directs all the members. The head of the
church, Jesus Christ, sustains and empowers his members through his Word and
Sacraments.
10.
Certainly some gifts are
to be desired, even prized, in a congregation, but if everyone had the same
gift, the congregation couldn’t function.
Leaders and followers are both necessary. Just as the human body was put together with
a plan, so also the Holy Spirit has assembled the Body of Christ. God gives specific talents to the Church so
that it may grow and prosper. The
Corinthian congregation was blessed with a vast amount of spiritual gifts. But, unless they worked together they would
fail.
11.
No matter what a
person’s role may be in our congregation, everyone is needed. Pastor, Sunday School teachers, Council
President and Vice President, youth leader, organist, custodian, council
members, ushers, encouragers and faithful worshipers. No Christian is an island. When one suffers, all suffer. When one Christian rejoices, all
rejoice. We are baptized into one Body
in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.
Everything comes together for us in Jesus. We are united to Him through faith by the
power of the Holy Spirit through the hearing of His Word and His Sacraments. We’re all in this together. Amen.
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