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Body by Jesus
by the Rev. Rich Smith
January 21, 2007
Corinthians 12:12-31
The hymn we just sang, “God of Change and Glory,” was
written in 1973 by a UCC minister, Al Carmines, Jr., who not only
served churches in New York City, but was also an adjunct professor of
musical theater at Columbia. He actually wrote the hymn for the
Methodists – all of which may be a good illustration of what the hymn
itself is about – diversity! Just as there is “One Westmoreland, One
Washington, One World” – great variety united through the Spirit – so
there are “many gifts, one spirit, one love known in many ways” in the
realm of God.
I remember the first time I sang this hymn. It was in the Chapel of the
Great Commission at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. It was at
the time a really new hymn, and I was a new seminarian, recently
relocated from a not especially diverse college in a homogenous
Southern California suburb finding myself in Berkeley, by far the most
diverse place I’d ever lived. Berserkly we sometimes called it. It was
a bit of an adjustment. But I realized that one benefit was that the
extremes of Berkeley allowed you to find you own place. You couldn’t be
too weird or “far out,” because in Berkeley, there was always somebody
more extreme. Of course going from there to Southern Arizona was also a
bit of a shock, but that’s another story. Suffice it to say that the
message of this hymn – that diversity and variety, of ideas, of styles,
of ethnicity, of politics, of theology – all this is God’s gift – and
understanding this helped me to figure out how to live creatively in
the midst of all of it, and to understand that I was a part of it, as
well.
Even though I didn’t grow up in an especially diverse place – there was
one black student at my high school – I was probably conditioned to
accept this by some of my earlier experiences. Singing in the college
choir, for example, where there were indeed a variety of gifts –
sopranos, altos, tenors, basses, some with marvelous solo voices, and
others of us more suited for blending in. As a bass, I seldom got to
sing a lead line – that was usually reserved for the sopranos – but
that didn’t make the sopranos more important, because in the end they
couldn’t get along without the basses. We needed each other to make
music. And if one part was hurting or out of tune, the whole choir
suffered. But when we played our parts well, without trying to stand
out or be more important, the whole body rejoiced together.
And I suppose I was prepared for this even earlier when I played
basketball in high school. Basketball is a team sport, unlike tennis or
golf, and while there are stars, those who excel at how they play,
stars alone cannot make for a winning team. And that’s the important
word – team! No “I” in team. On a basketball team, some are better at
shooting, some at rebounding, some at setting up plays, some at
defense. My role on the team was crucially important, and I excelled at
it. I was the third-string bench-warmer – an inspiration, really, to
the starting five and their second-string replacements. Because if they
didn’t play well, do their best individually and as a team, I would
take their place on the court, and they would have to take my place on
the bench. And no one wanted that, believe me! Apparently, I performed
my part quite well, for I only had to take to the court three times all
season! When it was over, I took to the guitar, one thing led to
another, and that’s how I ended up in the ministry. If I hadn’t played
my part so well as a bench-warmer, I probably wouldn’t be here today!
Well, we all need to discover what our unique gifts are. Robert Bowman
tells a story that back in 1832, a young frontiersman in the U.S. Army
went to war against the Fox and Sauk Indians in what was known as the
Black Hawk war .… At the beginning of the war, he was a captain. By the
end of the war, this young frontiersman was no longer a captain -- he
was a private. He obviously was not gifted as a soldier, in fact kept
falling through the ranks until he was on the very bottom.
So, he looked for other things to do. Eventually, he found his niche,
and even achieved a measure of success. His name was Abraham Lincoln.
The moral of this story is that just because you’re a failure at one
thing, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be a failure at everything.
Different people have different gifts. Evidently, Indian-fighting
wasn’t one of Lincoln’s. But leading a nation through its greatest
trial was.
There are many gifts, but One Spirit. This is what Paul is talking
about in our scripture lesson for today. It’s a very familiar passage,
where he compares the community of faith, the church, to a body, which
is the body of Christ. Just as the human body has many parts and yet is
one, so it is with Christ, and with Christ’s church. These parts are
all important, with their own roles to play, and yet are part of the
whole. No part can go its own way, or separate itself from the body
without damaging itself and the body as a whole. No part is more
important than any other part. All the parts need each other, must care
for one another, are all in it together. It is the mystery and the
blessing of unity and diversity.
Now Paul wrote these words to a disfunctional church in the midst of a
very diverse and divided city – Corinth, a center of trade known for
its distinctions between people of importance and people who were
expendable; people of wealth and people stuck in poverty; people who
counted and those who didn’t. This created divisions that were
reflected in the church itself. Now, Paul was not the first to use the
image of the body to describe this situation – indeed one Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, a Greek historian and orator, compared the human body to
the commonwealth. His point in the analogy was not, however, that all
people (members of the body) should be valued as equal; rather, that
those parts which are given less honor (such as the “belly”) should not
object to being ruled over by the parts that have greater honor (like
the brain). In other words, his analogy concluded that the plebeian
classes in the Greek commonwealth should not object to being ruled by
the Roman senate.
Paul re-imagines all this, and says, “No!” In the body of Christ, all
the parts need each other and there is ultimately no distinction
between Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free – all are one in
Christ, as he said in Galatians. It was a message about the church, to
be sure, but it was also one of radical social, even political,
transformation!
Fast-forward nearly two thousand years to another diverse church in the
midst of a cosmopolitan culture, a church that is holding its Annual
Meeting today. In some ways, Westmoreland may not seem all that
heterogeneous. As one of my colleagues said about his somewhat similar
church, “Sure, we’re diverse. We have lawyers who work for the
government, and we have lawyers in private practice!” Okay, some of us
aren’t lawyers – but for the most part we are rather WASP-ish,
traditional, well-educated, affluent, Type-A, liberal, sophisticated,
cultured, social-justice oriented. Not everybody, of course, we do
welcome diversity and try to make a place for those who would make us
multi-cultural and those with more conservative political or
theological views. Still, compared to the culture around us, we’re not
all that diverse.
So, I would treasure and support any and all efforts to increase our
diversity, to reflect more the multiculturalness of Washington. And
yet, there is diversity and there is diversity. If you think we’re not
diverse, just send out a survey on worship practices at Westmoreland.
We’re still collecting them, and Sid Fowler will be compiling and
analyzing them, but from what I have picked up, Westmorelanders are all
over the map when it comes to what worship practices move us. This was
already clear a couple of years ago when we did a survey that would
guide us as we chose a new music director. Many folks like traditional,
classical music, but a lot of people like folk and bluegrass and jazz
and rock. Some people like literate, educational worship with emphasis
on sermon and teaching; others would like more contemplative styles.
Some like formality, others folksiness. Some insist we include a kyrie
and prayer of confession, others think it’s too negative. Some prefer
the service to last no more than one hour, others say it should last as
long as it needs to. Communion has many meanings, no one of which
predominates. There are many forms of prayer which help people connect
with the Holy. And on and on. We are incredibly diverse when it comes
to what we value and want worship to be. But what we have said from the
beginning is – it’s not first and foremost about particular forms and
styles and practices. It’s not really about where the piano sits or the
place of announcements – it’s far larger than that. As Martin Luther
King used to say, in order to find common ground, move to higher
ground. And from higher ground, where the focus is on God, the presence
of the Holy in our midst, on feeling the Spirit that makes us One, we
will see that a diversity of opinions and styles and needs and
preferences is not an obstacle but a blessing, an opportunity to become
the body, the family, the community that God calls us to be, a place
where there are “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways!”
Where diversity need not mean divisiveness, where unity doesn’t mean
uniformity. Where we learn to recognize, include, and celebrate the
varied gifts that each of us brings.
Harry Connick Jr. is an unbelievable live music talent. Years ago, in
his concerts, he would have his whole band leave the stage while he
proceeded to solo every instrument that was left behind: first the
piano, then the trumpet, trombone, sax, upright bass, electric bass,
electric guitar, whammy organ, and finally the drums. The solo would
last 25 minutes.
Today, his need for the spotlight has seemed to have diminished. In his
concerts now there will be 10-15 solos, but only a couple by Harry on
the piano. The rest are by his band. He’ll call out his bandmates by
name to give them the stage. He’ll get up from the piano and physically
leave the spotlight for the side-stage darkness. He’ll come up behind
his soloists … yell for them … celebrate them … clap and dance wildly
in the shadow of their moment.
At the end of the night, there is no doubt who the best musician on the
stage is … but he has on his dancing shoes and he’s throwing a party of
music for all to play in.
Now, isn’t that what Jesus is about? There are many gifts, one Spirit –
one Body with many parts. We are that Body, a body inspired and molded
and formed by Jesus, who also has his dancing shoes on! May there be
unity in our diversity....and before we meet as a congregation, let us
proclaim that and remind ourselves once again what we are about, as we
stand and join together in reciting our Declaration of Purpose...
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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Westmoreland Circle
Bethesda, MD 20816
301-229-7766
Email the church office: churchinfo@westmorelanducc.org
www.westmorelanducc.org
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Open and Affirming Congregation
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