"His Body, Everybody" - Sermon from June 5, 2011

Listen to the sermon from June 5, 2011, "His Body, Everybody" by Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune. 

Ascension SundayJune 5, 2011“His Body, Everybody”Psalm 47Acts 1:1-11Ephesians 1:15-23Luke 24:44-53

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” – Psalm 19:14The book of Acts gives us a funny picture of the disciples today.  Eleven guys on a hillside staring up at the sky.  We have Gladys' lovely banner to remind us.  Several artists of the Middle Ages paint the scene hilariously with a crowd of upturned heads, gaping mouths, the frozen chosen.  All you see of Jesus is two feet hanging from a cloud.   The disciples paralyzed as statues.  That's what the story says!  After all they’ve been through with Jesus they still don’t get it.For three years they’ve followed him, watched him do all the work.  He tried to train them to go out away from him, do his same tasks of preaching and teaching and healing, but the results were not impressive, to say the least.Then they see him crucified – from a distance.  See him raised again – up close and personal.  And for forty days after the resurrection with every new appearance he does three things:  he convinces them he is alive; he interprets the scripture to them; and he commissions them to do his work.He tells them they’ll do the same things he’s done, only better, more.  He tells them he’ll be leaving them soon.  He gives them marching orders, but tells them to wait till they receive his power because they can't even begin to do this on their own.  Then - he disappears from their sight up into the clouds.  And what do they do?  They stand there scratching their heads, looking up at the sky, wondering what to do now?Clueless!  God sends two messengers in white robes to tap them on the shoulder and say, “Hey fellas!  Why are you standing here slackjawed and dumbstruck?  Remember what he told you to do?  Well, get busy with it!"We’re celebrating the ascension today, which is God’s strategy to get the mission done.  You know, while Jesus was here, he didn’t heal all the sick.  He didn’t feed all the hungry.  He didn’t visit all the prisoners.  He didn’t house all the homeless.  In fact, he didn’t even help everybody who came to see him.Why not?  He couldn’t.  He was limited to one body, one location, one twenty four hour day, one solitary life.  By taking on our human limitations he became one of us, yes!  God in human flesh gave dignity and lasting worth to our embodied existence.  But Jesus also took on our human limitations.  Which means: there was only so much he could do.I’ve often thought, wouldn’t it have been better if Jesus had stuck around, and we could all go see him in Jerusalem?  Or maybe he could go on tour, stay in various cities for a month at a time so people would see him for themselves and believe.  We could get him a Popemobile and rent out Yankee Stadium.  And he could heal everybody and help them and there just wouldn’t be any uncertainty, would there?  Or need for faith?  Or real choice in the matter?You see?  Jesus had to disappear for faith to be a real choice to begin with.  But that is also God’s stroke of genius for the whole Jesus mission. Jesus is nowhere now so he can be everywhere.  Jesus has no body so he can be everybody.In the first place, Jesus had to step away so we would step up. While Jesus was around those three years, the disciples depended on him to do everything.  Jesus did the preaching.  Jesus did the teaching.  Jesus did the healing.  Jesus called all the shots, decided where they should go, what they should do, how they should respond to the people who opposed them, or interact with a culture more concerned with Caesar’s dominion than God’s dominion.And that made sense, but still, they didn’t have to think and act for themselves.  You get too dependent on somebody like that, it stunts your growth.  “The kids ain’t grown till their on their own,” you know what I mean?But with Jesus gone now, the disciples have to do the work.  With Jesus gone, they have to go looking for him everywhere.  With Jesus gone, they have to spread the word, get everybody on the lookout.  With Jesus gone, they have to take responsibility, do their job, be part of the solution and not part of the problem.  With Jesus gone, they have to get engaged in the business of finishing Jesus’ mission or it won't get done.And that’s how God multiplies the reach of the Jesus.  Jesus couldn’t be everywhere, but the church can be.  Jesus couldn’t reach everyone, but the church can.  Jesus couldn’t be up close and personal with everybody, but the church can.  Jesus couldn’t touch every person’s life with the healing love of God, but the church can - if it will.What’s more, the Ascension is not a renunciation but a reaffirmation of the incarnation.  Jesus did not abandon this flesh and blood existence.  Rather, he embodied his Spirit in all of us who follow him.  His body is everybody now.Paul happened on the idea first, comparing the church to a human body where you have a foot and an eyeball and a nose hair.  Each little part has an important function.  Oh, you can generally get along without any one part, but your body is less for it.Paul told the Corinthians, the church is like a body - many parts working together, one head, who is Christ.  A metaphorical way to describe individuation, specialization, and differentiation in the harmony of the whole.  Diversity functioning as unity.By the time Ephesians was written – some say by Paul, some say by a pastor honoring Paul a generation or so later – what had been figurative became literal in their thinking.  Ephesians says the church is the body of Christ because literally our hands are his hands reaching out, our arms are his arms embracing the lonely, our feet are his feet going to places of need, our mouths are his mouth teaching and preaching and praying, our eyes his eyes seeing them, our ears his ears hearing them, our hearts his heart loving them all for God’s sake.It’s an amazing strategic plan.  However you understand the ins and outs of the Christian foundation story – call it history, call it myth, call it metaphor, call it fact – the meaning of the Christian story is this:  Christ rises in the church with the love of God embodied in our bodies so we are “Christians” – which literally means “little Christs” – fulfilling his mission in the world.Now, I know, the plan has a few weaknesses.  The church has had this tendency to misplace the mission in the institutional mix.  Jesus went from the inside to the outside to invite outsiders in.  The church has had a bad habit since Constantine of trying to claim the inside place and cast out everybody else.And, as I see it a lot of people the church has excluded have gotten mad and just quit on the church rather than refusing to be pushed out.But the main problem as G.K. Chesterton once said, isn't that Christianity has been tried and found wanting.  The main problem is it hasn't really been tried by too many who claim the name but take it in vain.Obviously, the plan doesn’t work if the Christ in you isn’t doing Christ’s work.  To use the Jesus talk I grew up on, you aren’t fully saved until you start saving others like Jesus did.  By that I mean, you don’t grow up, won’t fulfill your destiny, can’t realize your potential, till you take your place in the new body of Christ.Being Christ to someone else might just save you from the supreme sickness of our times which is self-focus.  The body work we need these days isn’t botox or liposuction.   Said Audrey Hepburn:

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others."

Today we are celebrating one way we have been the body of the risen Christ together here for over a decade.  God’s Family Dinner is not our only ministry, but it would be hard to find one that is more simply and directly a continuation of Jesus’ own ministry here on earth.Jesus fed the 5,000.  We’ve fed 80,000!  Remember what Jesus said in our gospel two weeks ago? “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).Jesus taught he parable of the great banquet.  Remember how the owner of the house says to the servant:  “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame….  Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:21,23). Happens every Thursday at God’s house on the corner of 22nd and Guadalupe!In Matthew Jesus says: “I was hungry and you gave me food….  Truly I tell you just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt 24:35, 40).  Well Jesus and his family members eat “the next supper” here on Thursday nights!And a funny thing has begun to happen.  More and more of our guests have become volunteers because they have something to give, too.  “The least of these” have taught “the rest of these” about gratitude, sharing, the difference between financial poverty and spiritual poverty, who God is, who we are.  The line between “us” and “them” is melting and we have begun to see in each other – the face of Christ.Turns out we are all “the least of these” because we are all members of God’s family.  His body is everybody except those bodies who excuse themselves and choose to miss the party.  So let us rejoice that Jesus is at work in our midst.  And then, it’s time for us to stop looking to the sky slackjawed and dumbstruck.  Remember what he told us to do?  Don’t you think it’s time for us to get back to it?  Amen and amen.  May we pray?Baruch atah adonai elohenu melech haolam, ha motzi lechem min ha-aretz.Blessed are you, Lord, our God, Ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.   We thank you today for holding God’s Family Dinner here and using us to be your table waiters.  Thank you for all the partners you have sent us, for every person who has discovered we always receive more than we can give when serving you.  Thank you for every guest you have sent us, and for erasing the boundaries that make us think of "us and them" until we have begun to see there is only "us."  Lead us onward in the journey to being your people together with everyone you send us.  May everyone you send us be sent with us to find more and more hungering bodies and hungering spirits who will become part of your body loving in your name, everybody, your body.  Amen.