January 24, 2016 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Here on Purpose

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12–31a

It is a gift of the Spirit to do
what we already do and
be who we already are,
but with one difference—
namely, that we know ourselves
to be God’s people
in and for the world.

Barbara Brown Taylor

My mother taught fourth grade in a Waco public school until she happily retired five years ago. During her teaching years, she always had plenty of stories to tell. And while I don’t remember all of them—or even most of them—I cannot forget one of them. The story centered on the experience of a little girl in her class. This little fourth-grade girl had red hair, was fairly short in stature, and quite shy. Now this is going to sound warm to us here in Chicago, but in central Texas, winter temperatures often hovered in the upper twenties or low thirties. Remember, that is cold there. People complain and wear heavy coats. It was during one of these cold spells when the incident happened in my mother’s classroom.

Every single day—even on the winter days—rain or shine, that little redheaded girl wore the same pair of pink stretch pants to school. Pink stretch pants stretched too taut, worn too thin, and full of too many holes. It was 30 degrees outside, and this little girl was still wearing that same pair of pants. I am sure she had hoped no one would notice.

However, it was difficult, if not impossible, not to notice. My mother noticed it, as did some of the other students. Two boys in particular, boys dressed in nice coats with nice warm shoes, took a lot of interest in what that little red headed girl wore. They teased and teased—under their breath so my mother could not hear—but loud enough so the little redheaded girl and the students sitting around them could hear. After several days of this teasing, it finally became too much, and the little girl started to cry. My mother saw her tears from across the room and was confused until she heard the girl exclaim, “But I wash them every night.” Those words broke my mother’s heart, and she quickly intervened, putting an end to that conversation.

Later that day, when everyone else went on to an elective, my mother held the two boys back for a discussion. She kept her righteous anger under control, even though bullying pushes her buttons. My teacher-mother had little patience for that kind of meanness. My mother began by saying something to those boys she probably should not have said as a public school teacher. But those two particular boys, knowing my father was a minister, always talked to my mother about God and about the churches they attended. Since they had shared those things with her in the past, my mother decided to ask them about it.

“You two boys go to church, right?” “Yes.” “Do you really think this is how God wants you to act?” “No.” “Do you really think she wants to wear the same pair of pants to school every single day?” “No.” The boys then wrote a letter of apology to the little redheaded girl. And after school, my mom went to Walmart and purchased three new outfits along with a coat, to replace those pink pants.

● ● ●

“Now you all are the body of Christ and individually members of it. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

The ancient city of Corinth is described as a hustling, bustling place. People constantly moved in and moved out. One of my friends described Corinth at the time of Paul’s arrival this way: it was a place of religious pluralism and rival cults; there were a great variety of personal lifestyles and confusion about standards of sexual activity; family relationships were breaking down; drug abuse, particularly alcohol abuse, was rampant; there was a fascination with bizarre forms of behavior (Elizabeth Goodrich, shared at The Well, Montreat, February 2012). One of the biggest issues in Corinth, however, was one that is frequently talked about on the campaign trail here in America: the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor and that the poorer residents of the city were being exploited by the wealthier ones.

It was during this time of cultural shifts that the Apostle Paul traveled to Corinth to form a church. Even though he left after about one-and-a-half years to start other churches in other places, he kept in close contact with that young church in Corinth. This letter we call 1 Corinthians is a compilation of some of that contact.

I encourage you to read the whole letter sometime, because as we do, we quickly realize Paul’s young church experienced some spiritual crises. For example, the wealthier members of the Corinthian church were quickly falling back into old urban behavioral patterns and treating the poorer members with disdain. That was bad enough, but when Paul found out what was happening at the Lord’s Supper in particular, what we call Communion, he became more livid than my teacher-mother did with those two boys.

In those days, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was just one part of a whole entire meal. The meal began with the breaking of the bread and ended with the passing of the cup (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Paul, p. 199). It was meant to be a time of community, a time of building up the body, a time of sharing and hospitality for all.

However, the values of urban Corinth had begun to seep into this young church’s practice. Paul heard that the wealthier members who arrived on time for the meal were filling their plates high with much of the food and drinking much of the wine. By the time the poorer members of the church arrived, running late due to shift schedules and 5:00, little was left and the time to break the bread and pass the cup had already passed! At other times, the meal was conducted in typical Roman practice: the wealthy patron served finer food and wine to those from his social rank and less fine food and wine to those of lower rank (The First Paul, p. 199). Both practices mirrored the outside culture, and both practices humiliated the poorer church members.

I am sure that, just like my mother, Paul wanted to ring the necks of the church bullies. But Paul decided that instead of writing the letter in all-caps to indicate his righteous anger, he would try a different tack. He chose to offer them an image in the hope they might see for themselves who they were called to be as a church. As one of my preaching professors used to say “You have to show them; don’t just tell them.” That is what Paul did: “For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

With those words, Paul offered them an image of who they were to be as church. Actually, he offered them the image of who they were as church. We have to notice that Paul did not say, “Now, you are to be like one body. You are to be like Christ.” No. Paul wrote, “You are one body. And that body belongs to Christ.” Paul desired for that church to know that their actions were considered Christ’s actions. Their gifts and ministries were considered Christ’s gifts and ministries. In their baptism, they had been brought into the body of Christ, into that realm of blessing and challenge, and being Christ’s body was the sole basis of their existence (Charles Cousar, The Letters of Paul).

Furthermore, Paul reminded this young church that they were not only all parts of the same body, but all of those parts, all of them, mattered to the body. All the parts were crucial. No one got to just opt out of the community. There is no such thing as a private Christian. To be a Christian is to be a part of the body of Christ. And to belong to the body of Christ means to participate in the body of Christ.

Paul used humor to make his point: “If the ear would say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?” I wonder if Paul wanted to make sure no one would say, “Because I cannot give much money to the church this year, I do not belong to the body.” Or “Because I am old and can no longer hear or move very well, I do not belong to the body.” Or “Because I am single or don’t have kids, I do not have a place in the body.” Or “Because I am experiencing homelessness or barely making it week to week, I do not belong to the body.” Wrong, Paul declared. Every single one of you is a part of the body of Christ. Without you, the body cannot and will not function the way God intends for the body to function.

But Paul was not done. He took his instruction to a higher level. Not only could you not opt out of being a part of the body, but you could not push anyone else out of the body either. You could not say, “Because you wear those same pink pants to school every single day, you cannot be a part of this body.” Or “Because you live in Englewood or in Evanston, you cannot be a part of this body.” Or “Because you and I do not agree on gun control or on the Black Lives Matter movement, you cannot be a part of this body.” Wrong, Paul again declared. Without all of you, the body cannot and will not function the way God intends for the body to function.

But he still wasn’t done. Paul took the instruction to an even higher level: “As it is,” Paul declared, “God is the one who arranged the members in the body in the first place, each one of them, as God chose.” Paul wanted them to hear they did not just happen to show up at that house church in Corinth. God called them there together.

None of us just happened to show up here in this congregation at the corner of Michigan and Delaware. Regardless if this is your first time here or you’ve been here forever, Paul tells us God called all of us here this morning to be together.

God is the one who has arranged for all of us to be Christ’s body together—wealthy people and less-wealthy people and barely-making-it people; straight people and gay people and somewhere on the spectrum people; black people and white people and all-shades-of-skin-color people, able-bodied people and disable-bodied people, new to town people and “I’ve been a part of this church since Harrison Ray Anderson was the preacher” people, liberal people and conservative people and middle-of-the road people—God arranged for all of us to be Christ’s body together. If one of us suffers—“But I wash them everyday”—then we all suffer together. When one of us is honored, we all rejoice together.

God has done all this on purpose, Paul declared, so there might be no dissension in the body, so that all would have the same care for one another, no matter what. Isn’t that interesting. Instead of fearing a great diversity of people or only wanting to be around folks who are likeminded, Paul indicates God wants it messy and complicated and as diverse as it can be so that all might learn to love each other without competition and without fear.

With that, Paul continued his written sermon by discussing the power of each member having different gifts and different callings within the same body. I imagine that by this point of the letter, those wealthy Corinthian members were wishing he would have just yelled and gotten it over with, while the poorer members were trying to figure out how on earth they would forgive their well-heeled brothers and sisters for making them feel so rotten but knowing they needed to figure that out in order to live as the healthy, functioning body of Christ, working the way God intended.

Regretfully, I never asked my mother how the story ended. Did the boys act differently after that day? Did the little girl keep wearing those pants? Did my mother find a way to smuggle the new clothes to the little girl in a way that protected the girl’s pride and did not embarrass her parents? I also wonder about the church in Cornith. After hearing Paul’s written sermon, did the wealthier members wait for the poorer members before they started the meal? Did the poorer members find a way to forgive those who had humiliated them? Did they all learn how to be Christ’s body together?

“Now, you all are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. And God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as God chose.” Messy. Complicated. Diverse. Gift.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.