As One Body

 The image of the body of Christ (Yes, I'm still thinking about it. Yes, I'm still grossed out by a body made entirely of ears.) fills me with hope because of the ways in which it creates an organic vision of what it is that we are called to do for each other. As the body of Christ we suffer and celebrate alongside one another. We are the shoulder that is needed when our siblings are hurting. We are the voice that shouts of alleluia when our siblings are joyous. 

It is a task that we need to undertake with seriousness. This kind of empathy cannot be forced or compelled, but needs to come from a place of genuine care.

One of the things that I've had the honor of doing lately is preaching and sharing in worship with congregations around the Presbytery. Every time I enter a new sanctuary to preach, I'm reminded that this is the body of Christ. This past Sunday I preached on Trinity Sunday, with hymns and liturgy centered around the mystery of God that is beyond explanation. With a lack of adequate images or explanation, I can confidently turn to the mystery of the Trinity speaking beautifully to the way that our God exists in relationship to Gods-self.

While no image is fully adequate to describe the Trinity, at least some are delicious!

We see the Trinity in relationship, and we remember the Church as a body in relationship. But then we also recognize the ways in which the Trinity informs how we see the body too. God who created this body and made a world for us to inhabit. God who gives form and shape to the body as Christ the head of the Church. God who binds the body together with the invisible bonds of the Spirit.

If we hold on to these as the core of what it means to be the body, then our empathy and care that is a necessity of being the body becomes a much easier task. At this point the relationships aren't formed because we're striving, but because we're pulled together. Our coherence is not ours alone, but aided and impelled by God.

It's what allows me to enter sanctuaries as a stranger and know that it will be a place of love and relationship. It's what allows me to click into place with a pianist as we think about the flow of worship. It's what allows joys and concerns to be vulnerably shared in prayer. It's what makes the cup of coffee sacramental in any of the various fellowship halls I'm blessed to occupy.

These things happen because the body, undergirded by the work of God, allows relationship and trust to precede my physical presence. The relationship starts in a real place before it even begins, and so when it begins in earnest it starts in a deep place that can only grow deeper. It's one of the things I love about being the Church. I get to share in deep, real, relationship with people I would never have the opportunity to know in other venues. I get to not only know them, but love them. 

And that is the body of Christ.

Peace,

Jeff Fox-Kline

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