O for a Thousand Body Parts

I don’t usually think of St. Paul as a funny guy, but he makes some broad jokes while trying to persuade the Christians in Corinth to honor the gifts of all of their members.  Let’s laugh with him, and then listen again to that important message …

 A Thousand Body Parts

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21 

Last week was Part One of the message(from 1 Corinthians 12): There are varieties of gifts. This week is Part Two: All of them are equally important.

And did you notice that St. Paul wrote Part Two with humor?

There are feet and hands skirmishing, ears and eyes vying for first place, and noses trying to get into the act.

My late friend and colleague Tom Hunter wrote humorous words to a song about all these parts of the body, and I tucked a copy into your bulletin today. In the spirit of Paul’s good humor, let’s take a minute to sing it. You’ll recognize the tune – it is best known as “Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” and this version probably owes an apology to Charles Wesley, who wrote the more traditional words. You’ll notice that we are all going to sing the first and last verse, and then each bulletin is marked with one other verse. So you get to sing one of the middle verses, and listen to the other three. Here we go:

O For a Thousand Body Parts

All: O for a thousand tongues to sing, a thousand ears to hear, thousand lips and teeth and jaws, a thousand mouths to cheer.

O for a thousand eyes to see, a thousand hands to sign, a thousand noses, arms and legs, a thousand hearts and minds.

O for a thousand lungs to breathe, a thousand craniums, a thousand stomachs, shins and joints, a thousand cheeks and gums.

O for a thousand fingernails, a thousand gluts and pecs, a thousand toes and fibulas, a thousand knees and necks.

O for a thousand vertebrae, a thousand loins to gird, a thousand livers, spleens, and nerves, a thousand passions stirred.

All: O for a thousand body parts, a thousand more for fun, a thousand bodies of our Christ, a thousand making one.

Tune: Azmon; Words: Rev. Tom Hunter

A few minutes ago, we offered Theodore and Rachel a blessing as “members” of the church. If you are talking about the governance of the church, that’s actually not accurate; young people do not become voting members of the congregation until confirmation. But if you are talking about the church as “the body of Christ,” then Rachel and Theo are just as much members as you and I are.

Yesterday I was reminded of another way in which we are all members of the body of Christ. I was one of the presiders for Oby Ballinger’s ordination and installation as pastor of Community UCC in St. Paul Park. As we prepared for the service, I realized that I had interesting and different connections with several of the people who were participating. I had met Oby twice – once at the UCC General Synod last summer and again at his ordination interview with the Committee on Ministry. He’s a friend of Kevin Peterson, who is a St Olaf student, an associate member of this congregation, and the son of a former colleague of mine back in Washington. The preacher yesterday was the Rev. Shawnthea Monroe, with whom I shared a hotel room at another General Synod. She used to be the minister at First UCC in Moorhead; that church is now served by the Rev Mark Pettis, who I know (also from General Synod) because he did his internship with my good friend the Rev Kent Gilbert in Berea Kentucky (where we once sponsored a youth mission trip …) Well you get the idea: members of the UCC are not just members together of the Body of Christ, we are also woven into a many-layered fabric of history, connections, affection, and calling.

Today we celebrate our congregation’s version of this many-layered fabric as we gather for our annual meeting. Like all church meetings, there will be several things going on. The most obvious will be the official business of the church: electing officers and board members, and approving the 2010 budget. But hidden (in plain sight) will be our own history, connections, affection, and callings.

Sometimes I think that my sermon on Annual Meeting day ought to be some kind of “state of the church” address, of the kind President Obama will attempt on Wednesday evening for our nation. But the fact is that our church – as it always is – is not in a single state. As a whole, the congregation is healthy, faithful, and busy. Some of our ministries are thriving, some are chugging along in normal mode, and one or two are looking for stable long-term leadership. Some of our members are generally satisfied with the life of the church, while others are impatient for some changes in organization and governance. Some folks are discovering new depths in their faith, and others are assailed by doubts and confusion.

In the last month, I have re-read all of the annual reports I have written since I arrived in Northfield in 1997. I have also gone back in the archives and sampled the reports of the minister who preceded me. The experience of reading them was both sobering and inspiring.

The sobering part was discovering that many of the challenges I feel most keenly were also felt keenly by those who came before me. At least as long ago as 1967, First UCC ministers have been concerned about the number of members on our boards and committees; they have wanted more opportunities for faith development in adults, and wished for easier recruitment of Sunday school teachers. They have worried about upgrades to the building, and hoped to institute a year-round stewardship program. In short, they have wanted pretty much what I have wanted.

For a few hours, I was overcome by the feeling that all of your pastoral leaders have been good diagnosticians and none of us have actually helped facilitate much change. But that feeling wore off when I realized that in fact, the church has thrived through all of these pastorates. The problems and needs that your ministers have identified are real – and I still hope to make a dent in a couple of them in the next few months. But the resources and energy of the congregation are also real, and have found ways to live together faithfully and fruitfully – even if not quite as elegantly and effectively as your ministers hope.

And that is the inspiring part, the inspiriting part. The Body of Christ is not especially efficient. It is especially holy. There are plenty of organizations (and even neighborhoods) where generosity and kindness are found, where people work for peace and justice, where compassion and reconciliation are practiced. The church has no monopoly on those. But the church is different. It is different because our gifts and talents (including sometimes the talent to do a job just because it needs to be done) are energized by more than good citizenship and good nature.

Our energy is grounded in the conviction that all of these gifts and talents, all of these efforts and attempts, come from God. We work together, not just because it is more effective to work together, but because God has called us into the church to work together. We are “one body” not just because we cooperate nicely, but because the “one body” is sacred and holy and much bigger than we are.

St. Paul puts it very clearly: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” [1 Corinthians 12:27] We are the Body of Christ – all of us ears and spleens and ligaments and lymph nodes – we are the unlikely, unruly, and unexpected incarnation of God’s passionate love for the world and for humankind.

There are varieties of gifts, and they all matter. We matter. The church matters.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer for January 24, 2010

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

Holy One, as we stand today between the heritage of our past and the hope of the future, we offer this prayer of thanksgiving and longing.

We are deeply grateful for the faithfulness of those who brought their Congregational tradition to Minnesota with them, and who planted this church with optimism and conviction. And we thank you for their vision and courage in establishing not only a church, but also a college, as a legacy to us. Keep us mindful that, just as they were called to make the historic faith their own in that time, we also called to respond in the language and customs of our time.

We are grateful, too, Blessed God, for the great procession of church members, friends, and pastors who shaped the life of this congregation through the last 154 years. We remember with special appreciation their commitment to both the mission of the church and the welfare of the community, and their contributions of labor, heart, and resources to support them both.

We offer special thanks this morning for the servants who continue that work in our time, who support our work and ministry with their creativity, energy, and other assets. Watch over, we pray, the persons who will respond to your call to service and leadership today, and give them courage and imagination in all that they do.

Hear, too, O God of our hearts, our longing for the future. We aspire to be a congregation that welcomes everyone who comes, and yet we need your urging to be invitational as well as welcoming. We aspire to be a congregation that works for peace and justice, and yet we depend upon you to nudge us into action as well as words. We aspire to be a congregation where individuals can deepen their spirituality, and yet we need you to help us focus on faith when other matters clamor for our attention.

God of all the ages, we pray in special concern for our children and youth. Forgive us when we think of them as only as recipients of our faith traditions, and help us to learn new vocabularies of piety that they can teach us. Make us steadfast in our care and protection for the little ones among us.

And bless, we pray, the church that we are to become in the future.

All this we ask in the name of the one who is Lord of the past, the future, and the present, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us…