Anti-rejection prescription for the Body

 Epiphany III

Texts: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21

I have a confession to make. In Eucharistic Prayer A, when we recite the Holy Mystery “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again,” I sometimes say “Christ has come again” and it is because of Paul’s metaphor of faithful Christians making up and being the body of Christ in the reading this morning. It is a wonderful and accurate metaphor because we become the Body of Christ when we gather together, as a community to worship, and as a community that serves the needs of people in the city. We are fed as a community, a body, at the altar with the sacraments of bread and wine to refresh and renew us spiritually, so that we can continue to be the Body in the world. When we leave at the end of the service, we don’t stop being the body. We spread out, still as a community of believers, connected by faith, to be the eyes, ears, hands, and feet of Jesus, still doing his work in the world. Through us, God continues God’s creation in the world, and we bring that holy presence to the people who need it most: the poor, the friendless, the outcast, the hungry. And, as members of the same body, we rely and depend on each other, and we all share in the experiences of life, suffering and rejoicing together as we individually experience suffering and joy. That doesn’t mean that we are all the same, though. We are different from each other, like eyes are different from ears, that are different from hands, and from feet. We are all necessary for the body to do God’s will in the world, and are all equally valued and glorified by God.

In the recent past, though, we have heard some people say “I do not belong to the body,” when they think only of themselves, their priorities, their desires. They have repeated what Paul mentions, “I have no need of you” to other people in our community and in the nation. They use the same words, and mean the same thing that Paul does, but they are talking about the national, cultural, political body we make up as Americans. I have heard people say “I have no need of you” in the form of gerrymandering congressional districts and reducing the authority of state election boards; I have heard them say “I have no need of you” through spoken or written discriminatory attitudes; I have heard them say “I have no need of you” when they say terrible things about people who don’t look or think like they do. We need our national body as much as we need the Body of Christ, because together they allow us to stand firm in faith, and in strength. Jesus reaches out and speaks to those who have been told that they are not needed, or wanted, when he quotes Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” This was a revelation, an epiphany to those who heard him speak it in the synagogue, because Jesus had already encountered the people he was referring to, who had been told that they were not needed or wanted. Those words are a reminder, or a continuing revelation to us to call the rejected back to the Body of Christ, and a revelation to call back to the body of this nation those who have been told that they are not needed or wanted. All parts of the body are needed, and not one part can say to any other that they are not needed. We cannot allow any part of us to be excluded, and expect to survive. But why should we make that effort?

In the Old Testament reading, Nehemiah stands above the people he governs, listening to Ezra read from the Torah at Jerusalem’s Water Gate. The laws of the nation, held in the pages of holy scripture are read and interpreted to the people listening, and they show their faith and trust in the laws with uplifted hands. Nehemiah speaks to them and says “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Nehemiah speaks to the present moment, not to the past sins of the people or the nation of Israel. He calls them to celebrate their experience of hearing how God has commanded them to live as a community, as a nation, in faith. And as part of that celebration, Nehemiah says to send food to those who have no food to eat as part of the celebration, so that they too will be included in the nation. Both Jesus and Nehemiah say the same thing, separated by centuries: share the food, and the economic and political bounty with everyone because they are part of us as well. The body remains whole, and nothing is rejected because it is kept together with a common faith and with a common vision.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, may he rest in peace, wrote about reconciliation after South Africa’s apartheid government had been dismantled, in his book No Future Without Forgiveness. At that time, South Africa was a broken body, where one part said to the other, “I have no need for you.” He wrote about the concept of the Zulu word ubuntu, which you may recognize as the name of a computer operating system. The original meaning of ubuntu is recognition of the humanity of others, and it roughly translates as “I am, because we are,” or “I am because you are.” The concept behind ubuntu is the recognition of the sameness between all of us, whatever that might be. Ubuntu is expressed in the readings we heard this morning: the unity of the different parts of the Body of Christ; the sameness of those who reject and those whom they reject; the sameness of those who can celebrate God’s commandments and those who have nothing to celebrate with. Acceptance and celebration of this sameness, this unity is how we can reject the desire to leave the Body of Christ, to reject the attitude of “I have no need for you,” and discover how we can come back together as a community. We are a community here, in this parish, so we know how we could come together as a city, and then as a nation that celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the world. That revelation is that we are all one, though we are different, that there is a place for everyone in this body, and that we are all needed.