A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Nehemiah 8:2-10
Psalm 113
1 Corinthians 12:12-27
LUKE 4:14-21
(Preacher, who usually preaches in the congregation, goes to the pulpit.)
You know, this is where your preacher belongs – in the pulpit. From here I can preach with appropriate dignity. Just like Ezra, I, your priest, am elevated on a platform where you have to look up to me.
Actually the word for what Ezra stood on can even mean "tower" – something high up above the crowd. But, of course, even back then, the priest didn't stand alone above the crowd. We priests need others up here with us: You know: Shema and Hilkiah, Pedaiah and Mishael, Doris and Cedar, Randy and Cynthia .
Ezra had his ministry team and we have ours. Scholars guess that those on the "tower" with Ezra were lay leaders in their congregation. And there are others mentioned later, Jeshua, Shabbethai, and the rest; they are the Levites who taught the people. They had Levites and we have postulants.
As part of our ministry team's preparation for ordained and commissioned ministry, we now have people affirmed as "postulants for holy orders" on our team. That's a big step and something for us all to celebrate. It looks like they have been elevated: they are one step closer to becoming priests or deacons. And, to be honest, I'm so proud of them that I am ready to polish up some pedestals, if not towers, for them.
And then along comes our friend Paul and tells us that WE are the body of Christ – all of us together in one body, as different as we are. And he not only tells us that "If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it," but also that "God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another."
So, listen to this all you bishops and priests out there in our well-ordered, hierarchical church: "Get down off your high horses, because the Bible says those lowly, inferior lay persons are more honorable than you."
(Preacher leaves pulpit and moves to usual place standing in congregation.)
Just when we think we have this organizational ministry thing all figured out, God comes along and levels the playing field.
It seems that we're all equal players in this game. So the church can't be the Body of Christ without you, whoever you are. In the church, the sexton or janitor is as necessary and important as the bishop. (And that doesn't mean like the episcopal church I grew up in, where our parish sexton really was a bishop in his own AME church.) In the church, the one who bakes cookies for coffee hour is as essential and honorable as the priest who presides at the Eucharist; and the one who types the newsletter is as much a key player and minister as the deacon who prepares the altar.
Having a seminary-trained priest and a whole team of gifted ministers is wonderful. But it isn't enough.' We're all in this together and we can't do it without you. Everyone has a ministry, everyone is asked to serve somehow; the pastor isn't the only caretaker around here; scripture says all are to have the same care for one another. That's the only way the Body of Christ, that is the church, can be healthy.
Paul explains this to the Corinthians with organic imagery. A healthy body requires that hand and foot, eye and ear, beautiful face and embarrassing body parts, all work together. We all know how bodies work: if one part hurts, the rest suffers with it.
The whole of a human being is interrelated. Overall health and healing includes body and soul, mind and spirit. When we are in emotional pain, it's pretty likely that our body will get sick too. That kind of organic interrelation is true not only about the community of the church; it is also what's behind prayers of healing. We too often forget to care for our spiritual health. And Scripture is clear about the strong connection between spiritual and physical health.
We are going to begin to have laying on of hands for healing as part of our Sunday service once a month. The prayers of healing bring our lives – our bodies, our souls, and our spirits – into the place where God means us to be. That doesn't necessarily mean that you will walk away without the flu or stomach ache that you came with or your broken leg will instantly be mended. But, then again, it might do just that -- healing does sometimes happen that way. In any case, the healing does happen and we are put in the place where God wants us to be. Sometimes that place feels painful, a even a cross to bear, but always it is good and, like the cross, it gives us new life.
It is a spiritual healing. And if, indeed, the parts of our lives are so organically related, then the healing touches everything -- our thoughts, our emotions, our bodies; so that when one part (the spirit) is healed, the others rejoice with it.
As Christians, it goes even beyond that individual healing. Remember, "you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it." When one is healed, all share in that healing; everyone in the community is blessed.
Your individual healing, like your individual gifts for ministry, is a congregational blessing.
Have you listened to the words of the blessing at the end of our service? "The peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of one another ....."
Those of you who have been Episcopalians for a long time may have noticed that those aren't the traditional words for that blessing. The more usual words are: "The peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of HIS SON JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD...."
Because we are the body of Christ in the world today, the blessing I most often use puts us in the place of Christ, so that we pray that we will live in "the knowledge and love" of one another. That is the way we can know and love Christ ... by knowing and loving one another. It is a recognition not only that we are the body of Christ but of our shared healing and blessing.
Of course not one of you has dared to ask me why I changed the traditional blessing. It was my mother who finally asked.. I know just how Jesus felt when he went home to preach. Family and old friends dare to do, ask or say what congregations won't. Family and old friends recognize all too easily that the great elevation of the pulpit or the tower is a sham.
Ministering at home isn't easy; it wasn't for Jesus; it isn't for traditional priests; and chances are it won't be easy for ministry teams who are by definition called to minister at home.
So now we have postulants to celebrate. But before we put them up on the platform let us remember that we are all necessary members of one body. Let us remember that this is their home; that they are part of who we are, to be loved just as we love ourselves.
The team ministers will be ordained and commissioned. Indeed, they are being specially prepared for special ministries. Their ordination and commissioning does set them apart from the rest of us in the congregation. And for that they deserve our respect and our thanks. But their ordination and commissioning sets them ASIDE for certain ministries, rather than setting them ABOVE.
That's how holy orders in the church should work. Just look at what Jesus does when he ministers in the synagogue. He stands before the congregation to read. He reads from Isaiah and he stops the reading midsentence. He reads "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he leaves off the next part that would continue with, "and the day of vengeance of our God." He gave the good news without the judgment part.... No wonder every eye in the place was on him! And then what does he do? He sits down?
(Preacher gets a chair and sits down.)
Jesus sits down to preach. That was the tradition at the time, as it still is in some African churches today.
The congregation waits breathlessly for Jesus to finish the verse, to tell them ‘God's gonna get you!" and instead Jesus tells them that the time is now. God's favor is here today; vengeance is out of the picture; God's favor is for everyone who hears the good news.
Today, right here and now,
you have the freedom to be the part of the body of Christ that God means you to be.
Today, right here and now,
we are healed and blessed, to be put in that place where God wants you to be.
Today, right here and now,
we can minister together as equals, as one body.
This is good news for everyone.
"Who is like the LORD our God, who sits enthroned on high,Today this scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing.
but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth?
He takes up the weak out of the dust
and lifts up the poor from the ashes.
He sets them with the princes,
with the princes of his people."