'Is this it?' A sermon about the Church

A sermon give at St Matthew's, Oxford on 16th February 2020

Readings: 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31; John 15: 1-17.

My sermon today is really just a continuation from my sermon two-weeks ago.  My main message then was that the Holy Communion is not a rehearsal.   I tried to explain what I meant by that.   Today my main message is that the Church is not a rehearsal either.  Look around you.  This is it. 

 

I have always been intrigued by a poster that was outside a church I passed on my way to work for a while.  The poster posed the question: ‘Is this it?’   It was something like this poster [left].  I guess the originators of the poster expected the passer-by to say ‘no’ but I wanted to say ‘yes’.  But of course the question depends on what you mean by ‘this’.  If by this you mean the church, outside which the poster stood, then I think the answer to this question is definitely yes.

In this sermon I will try and explain what I mean by saying that the Church is not a rehearsal.  In this it is helpful to think about what Paul meant by saying to the Corinthians, in the epistle reading we heard just now, ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.’ [12: 27]. But of all the verse in today’s epistle reading I want to concentrate on his contention ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one members is honoured, all rejoice together.’ [12: 26]

In our gospel reading Jesus talks about himself and the Church – not as a body – but as a vine.   And I want to look at that passage too in the light of my contention that the Church is not a rehearsal 

But to begin with I thought I would re-cap on some of the things I said in my sermon two weeks ago.  My sermon then was on 1 Corinthians 11 and this week we are thinking about 1 Corinthians 12.  Now the subject matter of the two chapters is clearly connected.  1 Corinthians 11 is about how the Corinthians should celebrate Holy Communion: 1 Corinthians 12 is about how the members of the Church should behave towards one another. 

In Chapter 11 Paul talks about the bread we eat at Holy Communion as being the Body of Christ.  In Chapter 12 Paul talks about the church as being the Body of Christ.  In other words, as Pope Benedict put it: ‘The Church is the celebration of the Eucharist, the Eucharist is the Church, they do no simply stand side by side, they are one and the same thing.’  So if Holy Communion is not a rehearsal, then then it follows the Church is not a rehearsal either. 

I hope I said enough two weeks ago to convince you that Holy Communion is not a rehearsal.  A rehearsal is for a final performance and I hope you can see that celebrating Holy Communion is not just a foretaste of a heavenly banquet but somehow that actual banquet itself.  Because as T S Elliott puts it:

               ‘Time present and time past

               Are both perhaps present in time future? 

               And time future contained in time past.

But my saying that the Church is not a rehearsal may seem to you a step too far.  The writer of the letter to the Hebrews describes the Church, in the present tense, as ‘the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven’ and ‘the spirits of the righteous made perfect’ who ‘have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, … and to God the judge of all … and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant.’ [12: 22-24]

But if we think of the Church as we experience it, we might be tempted to see it merely as a rather old fashioned institution, whose leaders dress rather oddly, with buildings which are cold and with leaky roofs, but where you can get to chat with some of your friends over a cup of instant coffee on a Sunday morning.   And of course I do not mean St Matthew’s here: the coffee is real for a start.   Surely the Church as we experience it just a foreshadowing, a rather unimpressive foreshadowing - of something a lot better.  I know we all think St Matthew’s is something different, but is it really it? Well yes I think it is: it is the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.

It may seem what it seems but Paul assures us that the Church is the Body of Christ.   The Body of Christ is already perfect, made perfect by suffering on the cross and still bearing the marks of that suffering.  And note that Paul says that Church is the actual body, not just like a body.  Paul frequently describes the Church as the ‘Body of Christ’ so, for example, in his letter to the Romans he says ‘For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.[12: 4-5]

It is difficult not to see Paul’s saying that the Church is Christ’s body as him merely suggesting that the Church is like a body: a metaphor in other words.   And at times he encourages this metaphorical reading: in today’s reading, for example, by dwelling upon the physical parts of a human body: the hands, feet, etc.  And indeed, let’s be clear, if it were just a metaphor it would be a good one.

The reasons why Paul restates his view that the Church is Christ’s body in  I Corinthians 12 is because he has heard, as he says, in Chapter 11 [18], that there are divisions and factions amongst the members of the Corinthian church.  These divisions and factions seem to take various forms.

In the first part of Chapter 12 Paul seems to be responding to a controversy about spiritual gifts and which of those gifts are most important.  It is difficult to pin down the precise issue Paul is addressing and in any case I think many of us have difficulty in relating to the whole concept of spiritual gifts and therefore understanding why they might be divisive.   Certainly this is the case at St Matthew’s if not elsewhere. 

On the other hand we are well aware that there can be divisions in a church over many issues ranging from the arrangement of the pews to the appropriateness of gay people marrying.

In my Bible the section of the 1 Corinthians 12 that is our reading today is headed ‘Unity in diversity’.   I am not sure that is a particularly good tittle. To my mind ‘Mutual dependence’ would be a better summary of what Paul is saying.  Of course unity is better than division and diversity does not preclude unity. But surely Paul is saying a lot more than that.

Paul does emphasise, in Chapter 12 verse 13, that, in any church, you will find people with different backgrounds (e.g. Jews and Greeks) and of different status in the outside society (e.g. slaves and free) because all are baptised into one body by one spirit.   And this brings me back to something I said two weeks ago.

I said that the message of 1 Corinthians 11, and indeed elsewhere in the Bible, is that all should be invited to the meal that we call Holy Communion.   All should be invited, all are already invited by God, regardless of wealth, income, age, gender, sexuality, physical and mental abilities, even beliefs.   I should perhaps have elaborated on what I meant by all are invited regardless of beliefs.    It is my view that the invitation is made regardless of our desire to attend and even our beliefs about the inviter and the invitation.  So for example, I personally think that children should be invited regardless of what they yet know about Jesus and old people should be invited regardless of what they have forgotten or indeed ever known.  It is not for us to judge who is worthy to come.   And of course, even if a person is invited, it’s up to them whether they come.  They may not come for a variety of reasons including beliefs.  And all of what I have just said about Holy Communion also applies to the Church.   All should be and in fact are invited to be a member.

Paul also points out, in 1 Corinthians 12, that in any church there will be people with different skills and therefore different jobs to do.   He makes this latter point by joking about feet, hands, head, eyes, ears, nose, etc. and how ludicrous it would be for any one part of the body to claim that it is more useful or indeed more important than the others.  

But he also, and in my view more importantly, says that no one part can survive without the others: Chapter 12 verse 21: ‘The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 

Commentators point out that Paul is here making a similar point to the ancient parable of the stomach as told, for example, by the Roman historian Livy in around 30BC.  This goes something like this:  “One day various part of the body got fed up with the stomach taking all the food but apparently doing nothing in return, so they conspired together.  They agreed that the hands would not carry food to the mouth, nor the mouth accept what was given it, nor the teeth grind up what they received, in order to starve the stomach into submission.  But of course they found that they themselves and the body as a whole were reduced to the utmost weakness. And they and the other members of the body were forced to recognise that the stomach makes a crucial contribution”.  And in similar vein this is what Paul means when he says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 verse 22 ‘On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.'

So our passage from 1 Corinthians today may be about unity in diversity but it is also about mutual dependence.   And it is not just that within the Church we need one another, with our diverse backgrounds and skills, it also the case – as Chapter 12 verse 26 says:  ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.’   Here, I think, Paul is no longer thinking just about the Church being like a body but about the Church as the actual Body of Christ.

So as members of the Church we are to share in one another’s suffering but also in one another’s joys.   This is simple to say but what does it mean?  I think we begin to understand when those that we love suffer.  At that point we too suffer and perhaps the suffering of the one who suffers is lessened by our suffering.  And when someone we love has something happened to them that causes them joy – is honoured perhaps – then we too feel joy.  The key here is of course love.   Without love it is impossible to share suffering or joy.  And love not just as feeling but as a practice.   If we practice love in the shape of taking time to be with the sufferer or the one who is experiencing joy, we are more able to share their suffering or their joy.

Of course Jesus is our example here.  He not only shared our suffering with us but suffered on our behalf.  He not only came to share our joy but to bring us joy.   He says, as recorded by John in his gospel:  ‘I came so that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ [10: 10]

In the gospels, Jesus does not say, in so many words, that the Church is or even will be his body.   But he does, like Paul, often talk about his friends and disciples being somehow in him and his being in them.  In today’s reading from John’s gospel Jesus talks a lot about abiding in him and him abiding in us.  He urges his disciples at Chapter 14 verse 4 ‘Abide in me and I in you’ and ‘you cannot bear fruit’ i. e. fulfil your purpose in life ‘unless you abide in me’.

Abide, meno in Greek, is not a word we use much to day. It means much more than just stay with but also to accept and act in accordance with.  And, in other words, we as members of the Church embody Christ when the body of Christ incorporates us.

In our gospel reading Jesus talks about himself and the Church – or at least the embryonic Church – not as a body – but as a vine.   He says that ‘He is the true vine’ [1] and urges his disciples to ’Abide in me as I abide in you’ [because] ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. [and] Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.’ [4 and 5]

So just as in Paul’s account of the Church as the Body of Christ, Jesus here, in the parable of the vine, is describing a mutually dependant relationship between the separate parts of the Church.  And also he claiming that he is that vine which is the Church.   

Now both a body and a vine are living beings with diverse parts but unified into one whole:  hands, feet, etc. for the human body; branches, roots, leaves, fruit for the vine.   The relationship between the diverse parts, of the one living being, is one of mutual dependence because when one part suffers so does the whole.   When one part feels joy so does the whole.

Just after the parable of the vine Jesus talks about the necessity for sharing suffering and joy if you are part of the vine/Church.  Verse 12: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’  So just as Jesus has suffered, we who are members of the his body the Church can expect to suffer and suffer on behalf of other members of the body.  But not just to suffer to experience joy as well. Jesus say, verse 11, ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete ‘. 

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, just after talking about the Church as the Body of Christ, Paul breaks off proclaim the importance of love in his famous hymn to love beginning, ‘If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ‘ And Jesus in his parable of the vine points out that love is the glue that holds the vine/church together.  Self-sacrificial suffering is a result of love.   Joy comes with love.

At this point you might be saying: well this is all well and good but what is the Church for?  In his parable of the vine Jesus talks about some of the branches bearing fruit.  So what are these fruit?   I haven’t left myself any time to go into the purpose of the church today.   Sorry.   But suffice it to say that I think that just as Jesus saves his people in his Church, so the Church saves the world.

So finally to return to my contention that the Church is not a rehearsal: it’s clear that the Church may seem to be a weak human institution struggling to make headway in a world which pays it little regard, and that we can but wait until the true church –‘the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven’ as the writer to the Hebrews puts it meets on Zion.  But this is not the case. The world is already transfigured by the presence of the Church because the church is the resurrected body of Christ bearing the marks of the crucifixion.  Without the Church there is no past, present and future for humanity. To put in boldly. In us the Church, the universe has attained, attains and will attain its destiny.