Sermon for January 21st 2007

It takes all kinds …

No two people are alike … we look differently, we act differently, do things differently, we are different. Even identical twins are NOT identical. Yet, we live in a world that seems hell-bent on making everything the same … Our advertising industries are determined to get you to drive, to buy, to use and to consume the same things wherever you live in the world.

I noticed in Ontario this winter, when as I drove the 401 back and forth from Stratford to Toronto, that at every off ramp there was the SAME cluster of restaurants and service stations and coffee shops … On one hand we can celebrate that wherever we go we can get the food and the service and the items that we have at home without having to search. But do we ever consider the implication of that sameness …

Do we want to live in a world of beige and bland and sameness?

Do we want to live in a world where differences are NOT celebrated, but where everything is being made the same … Think of it this way – now, thanks to the huge Trans-national corporations, we can get the same crummy burger and the same crummy cup of coffee anywhere in the world. We don’t have to travel to France and learn French to order food. We can just order what we order at fast food outlets at home and be happy … and bored … and uninitiated in the wonders of ethnic and regional cuisine and culture …

It’s a cynical view of the world … but in our modern era it is becoming increasingly real and accurate. I remember traveling through the Mid-East in 1988, and hearing American travelers lamenting the inability to get things like Big Macs and Whoppers. Around them was an incredible variety of ethnic foods from around the world and they wanted crappy burgers …

We can shake our heads and say – “but we’re not like that …” But in subtle ways, within the church – we are just like that. We absorbed the notion that to be part of the Body of Christ, we have to be like “this” – whatever this is … Paul was addressing a community in HUGE conflict. Scholars think that Paul wrote to Corinth no less than 5 times. Five letters in an era when you had to go to great lengths to have a letter sent across town, much less across an empire.

Paul couldn’t sit down at a lap top and with the touch of a button, send the letter by email. He had to make arrangements for someone to carry it.

So, five times he sat down and put pen to parchment (or vellum or papyrus) and wrote to the people of Corinth about the conflicts and fights that continued to dog them.

It is fun to read Paul’s words and to consider what issue or fight has lead to his response … a body has many parts and all the parts are equally valuable … hmmm, were they ranking the members of their community, saying – this person is MORE important than that person – this person deserves more honour than those people – this task is far, far more important and valuable than those other tasks … they were trying to make everyone alike – the same – like me … and it simply didn’t work.

Paul wanted the Church – the people of Corinth, and the communities of faith that would like the Corinthians, have the same conflicts later – Paul wanted ALL OF US to take seriously the notion of the WHOLE PEOPLE of God. All of us are part of the body – we all have a place – we are all equally valuable, from the person who sweeps the floor and cleans the washrooms, to the person who gets the coffee ready to the person who stands up front and preaches. The church – what we do and what we are, could not exist without a breadth of gifts and abilities … That’s a simple fact. So, our challenge is not to think of some as better than others. Our challenge is to treat all fairly and equally. A challenge that is easy intellectually, but harder in practice.

Do you think Jesus was being valued and appreciated in his home town when he stood and preached?

As he unrolled the scroll and began to read the words of Isaiah, the people probably smiled sweetly thinking – “that’s our boy …” “that’s young Yeshua, there’s his parents over there, his brothers and sisters are here. He’s turned out well …”

Even as Jesus finished and sat down people were likely still smiling and thinking – “what a good boy he’s turned out to be …” But then, he starts to preach.

Jesus wasn’t content just to share the words of Isaiah – he has to add his interpretation, and he slams them … He says that God won’t bless them just because they sit in synagogue each week, God won’t bless them just because they are “good church goers”. God won’t bless them because they are part of the tradition and their families have been coming here for YEARS and YEARS and YEARS … God will bless the foreigners and the outsiders first because – YOU ARE NOT LIVING YOUR FAITH.

And in the blink of an eye, they are trying to hustle him not only out of the synagogue,
not only out of the town, but they want to toss him over the cliff on the outskirts of town … You can almost heart them grumbling – “who does he think HE is … his family are here, and he thinks he can tell us about God and what God is going to do …” then the gossip kicks in … “yeah, he thinks he’s God’s chosen one … I heard his mother wasn’t even married when she had HIM …” “Who is he to say such things???” and so it goes …

The prophet is seldom welcome anywhere – but is never welcomed in his own home town … Yet the words of the prophet – the words of Jesus here, are worth hearing. The resonate with the words of Paul – live your faith. Don’t rely on tradition or habit – live your faith. And Paul, stands saying – “we are all different – we are all gifted by the Spirit – we are all parts of one body …”

How do we LIVE those ideas today in Minnedosa?

I think, I really think the key passage in our readings today comes when Paul very quietly adds the idea – “that when one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts … when one part of the body rejoices, the whole body rejoices …”

Think about having a broken finger, or a sore finger – a silly example – but a good one … there have been times when I’ve had a broken, or cut, or infected finger – every time I brush it up against something or bang it or jam it against something else pain shoots through my hand and I KNOW it is sore … one part of the body – a mundane, relatively unimportant, very peripheral part of the body hurts, and as a result the WHOLE body is affected …

That was Paul’s point … but more significantly, it is a reality that we are living … On February 12th, we joined a very unique roster of church communities across the world. We are bound together now with Congregations who have lost their buildings through the actions of a small mis-guided and very deluded group of people who listen to the music of a very disturbed musician … We are part of that group … we have hurt … but in our hurt, we have also learned that other parts of the Body have been affected by our hurt as well …

We have said, over and over – we are not alone. And in the 11 months since our fire, we have repeatedly lived it, and we will continue to live that reality that says – we are NOT ALONE. Letters, phone calls, emails, donations, best wishes, prayers – all of it – from every corner of our nation and from around the world – we have learned that We are not, nor have we ever been alone.

We are not some big prestigious congregation with International prominence (yet), but in our hurt, we have been cared for and cared about, but all other parts of the body … Our story and our experience has been passed on and we are NOT alone …

We are living Paul’s words as a community. The challenge is to live Paul’s words as individuals …

And so we return to the idea of sameness … our world is a diverse and wonderful place … Our church community is a place of diversity and difference. The challenge is two fold. On one hand we have to avoid the divisiveness that Paul was writing in response to in Corinth. We need to open ourselves up to the possibility that we STILL need to grow and mature, and change our minds and our opinions about things … We need to have the courage and the humility to say occasionally – “oops, I might have been wrong …” as we are challenged by the Spirit and by each other.

And on the other hand we need to have the willingness and the ability to break the habit of faith and move beyond merely resting on our laurels thinking that because we come to church and our family has come to church for years and years that we’re okay and everything is fine. We lament the demise of Church, yet, we tend to attend out of habit … As hard as it is to hear – WE – you and I – are the people Jesus is directing his words towards. We are not God’s chosen ones if we can’t and won’t and don’t embrace the words he shared …

We are called to live the words of Isaiah – to go into the world and to bring substantive and dramatic change … We are called to be filled with the Spirit, and we simply can’t do that if we remain complacent and inactive.

As a community of faith, we are in rebuild mode. But our rebuilding is more than just a building … We are connected in a very real and tangible way with the Church. We are part of the Body. We are a part that has been hurt. Our rebuilding is about rebuilding who we are, and how we interact with our community, our world and one another … Our rebuilding is about taking the words of Isaiah and with boldness, with courage, with faith – living them out …

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us … (Text)

Let’s go into the world and share that gift …
Let us go into the world and live out that faith …

Let’s go into the world and embrace our true calling …
Let’s go into the world and remember - it’s what you DO with your faith that counts …

Like the shoe company says – “just do it …”
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray