Another sermon in the sermon series "Questions we might ask the resurrected Christ." I suppose they are actually my questions, so the congregation is stuck with them. As I preach through the series, it also occurs to me that a better sermon series with the same type sermons would have been, "Questions the resurrected Christ has for us!"
We have been having the younger kids build wind chimes with charms the Children's mInistry team has mailed to them. This week, the charm was an Ichthys. it hangs with a fish, a heart, a cross, and a sheep charm, each of which symbolizes one of the themes for each week's sermons. It has been a very good visual for the Time with Young Disciples in worship and for our younger kids to have at home to connect to the sermon.
“Why Did You Call the Body of Christ?” May 10, 2020; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Denton; Colossians 3: 12-17; Acts 5: 27-32
(Colossians 3:12-17) As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other/ just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (NRSV)
Introduction: We continue reflecting on questions we might ask the resurrected Christ.
this week: Why did you call the body of Christ into being?
Two different approaches
First, we have the Colossians passage - a beautiful commentary on the possibility for human relationships we have because in Christ's death and resurrection we who have been freed from sin and death.
in fact, we are using it as our Call to Faithfulness in this Easter season., a reminder of who we are called to be as people of the resurrection.
Then we have the Acts passage - a glimpse at the earliest church members, if you will, living out the new found role of the body of Christ in the world
Preaching professor might suggest this should be two different sermons, but maybe you will just feel lucky that you have a two for one sermon today!).
Why call the body of Christ into being?
Move 1: Reveal to the world the nature of our relational God.
a. the disciples instinctively recognize the need to be in relationship with one another after Christ’s and stories of his resurrection.
1. Remember what happens immediately following the discovery of the empty tomb.
- the disciples gather together behind closed doors.
- Or they go off to places like Emmaus and Galilee to gather together.
4. No surprise – as those impacted by Christ’s death trying to figure out what's next, they gather together, in community.
b. their instinctive response reflects the very nature of the relationships they developed as followers of Christ and of the Trinitarian God they follow.
1. Three in one - Father, Son, and Holy spirit; creator, redeemer, Sustainer.
2. God’s very own nature is relational.
3. as we live out our calling as the body of Christ, as we live in relationship with one another, we struggle sometimes but still lift up being in right relationship, it speaks to the world about the relational God who puts us in relationship with God and with one another.
b. In his letter to Colossians, Paul reminds the church what they are called to be.
- It's a beautiful image of being in relationship.
- As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another forgive each other;14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
- When we get it right, when the church manages to treat each other with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience; when we turn to others in the world and extend compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience; when forgiveness abounds - the body of Christ reveals to the world the very nature of who God is.
- c. If we go back to the beginning of the chapter in Colossians, we realize that Paul is telling us that we can live like that because we follow the resurrected Christ.
- because of what Christ has done, we can dare to offer ourselves in love and offer forgiveness to one another.
- and we can hold others accountable to living like that.
3. the Colossians passage suggests that following the resurrected one calls us into community and demands we live better and treat each other better.
d. John Buchanan, former minister of 4th Presbyterian Church in Chicago “Being Christ's Body,” Christian Century, 3/5/14 (3): Buchanan tells the story of church member Glen who is dying of AIDS at Hospice. Glen tells about at night when he is restless and cannot sleep he puts on headphones and listens to the church's worship service on the Internet (we now know what that is like, don't we?)
“It settles me down,” he said. “Sometimes I fall asleep while the choir is singing. I doze off a lot of times during your sermon – I know I'm not the only one,” he added with a grin. “That's how I go to sleep every night, her in my Hospice bed but also with my church.”
1. Buchanan notes that Glen reminds us that the church does what no one else does – it provides community that speaks to us at all stages of our lives and transcends all things.
2. The be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, to forgive others is not bound to one particular time in life, but instead speaks to meaningful relationships that matter across all spectrums of life.
3. We have learned a lot about that in the past six weeks haven’t we - the importance of community and being bound together in Christ, even we are in our separate places.
3. As we live out community, the church becomes a place where people turn in those singular moments of birth, crisis, and death.”
4. I suspect Glen did not fall asleep solely because of the music or a sermon.
5. He fell asleep because of the peace he discovered while listening to the body of Christ in worship and being reminded of the relationships he found in the body of Christ that spoke to him as death neared and exemplified for him the hope he had in the God they were worshipping.
6. We baptize infants, join with others as they profess their faith, gather to celebrate the covenant of marriage, join together when death arrives – in part because it is good to be together, but also because we witness to the world about the God who is in our midst calling us into right relationship, claiming us in the waters of baptism, giving us hope in the face of death, and guiding us in our lives of discipleship.
The body of Christ exists to show forth the relational God.
Move 2: The body of Christ is also called to infuriate!
a. I do not mean infuriate as in the little things that drive us crazy about life as a community of faith.
1. Top Ten things that infuriate.
2. If I asked for a list, you could probably rapidly tap out a text with your list, and laugh a little along the way.
b. But, I am talking about Infuriating the world in ways that hold the world, and the powers in the world, that hold us accountable to the ways of the resurrected Christ.
1. Look at what these earliest members of the body of Christ were doing in Acts.
2. They were driving the authorities crazy and making them mad
3. They are preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, teaching about Jesus Christ, calling people to a new way of life.
4. The authorities haul them in and demand they cease and desist - no more teaching or preaching about the resurrection.
5. Can you imagine any sermon preached here at St. Andrew being such a threat to the city of Denton, or the state of TX or the government of the United States, that they would throw me in jail.
6. Or can you imagine any ministry that would so upset the authorities they would throw the session in jail?
7. maybe we are not infuriating enough these days?
c. The Roman authorities, indeed the religious authorities, feel threatened.
1. Why? because if Jesus is really resurrected, then it means that Jesus’ way was, in fact, God’s way and it will ultimately overcome all powers in the world.
2. the way of peace, the way of healing, the way of freeing the oppressed, the way of reaching out with hope to the hopeless will have the final word.
3. And what infuriates the authorities is, as William Willimon describes it, these early followers of the resurrected Christ speak of a “power that cannot be contained, channeled accredited, or stifled by the powers that be.” (“Easter Continued; Journal for Preachers,Volume XLI, Number 3, Easter, 2018” Will Willimon, 10-13)
b. the body of Christ not only reveals the relational God to the world but is God’s persistent presence in the world.
1. We exist to continually call out the ways of the world that allow power to oppress the poor; the ways that overlook the sick; the ways that deny hope to the those mired in hopelessness;
2. When Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to the church from his cell in Birmingham, he was writing to the broader church, including the Presbyterians in Birmingham, who had asked him not to march, not to cause trouble, but instead let the justice system in place correct the injustices found in race relations.
In his letter, King reminds us that there was a time when early Christians entered towns and the people in power became disturbed. Why? Because the Christians believed they were called to obey God’s voice rather than human voices and would persistently call people to a new way of life.
3. King was calling the church to continually infuriate the world by persistently insisting that the God of resurrection was calling for an end to segregation and power denying those without power (“Easter Continued; Journal for Preachers, Volume XLI, Number 3, Easter, 2018” Will Willimon, 10-13).
The body of Christ is called into being to live out the ways of Jesus Christ and to call out the world when we stray.
Move 3: Final thought on the Ichthys, the sign of the fish that has been a sign of Christ’s followers since the early days of the church when they were persecuted for being Christian.
a. Fish, of course, is a nice symbol.
1. Ties into the fact that some of the disciples had been fishermen.
1. Reminds us that we are called to fish for people.
2. it also, I hope, reminds us that the Greek word for fish, which was Ichthys, is also an acronym for an acronym for the phrase Jesus Christ, Son of God, [Our] Savior
3. In common use today, there is lots of jewelry and things for car bumpers made in this design.
b. As we talk about it this morning, we are reminded that the sign of the fish was a very important symbol in the early church.
1. A sign of their being together as fledging members of the body of Christ - an identity.
1. In the Roman empire where a Christian could be persecuted for his or her faith, they could mark meeting places and tombs with the sign of a fish as a sign of their hope and their common identity as followers of the resurrected Christ.
2. 'According to one ancient story, when a Christian met a stranger in the road, the Christian sometimes drew one arc of the simple fish outline in the dirt. If the stranger drew the other arc, both believers knew they were in good company. Current bumper-sticker and business-card uses of the fish hearken back to this practice. — Christianity Today, Elesha Coffman, "Ask The Expert” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys)
b. They were marking not just their shared identity, but an Identity grounded in Christ Jesus, the son of God, their savior.
1. The one who saves.
2. the one who calls us into relationship with one another.
3. The one who calls the body of Christ into being to live out his saving grace n the world
conclusion: We ask Jesus, “why did you call the body of Christ?”
And he asks us: Are you living in relationships in ways that reveal God to the world?
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