October 4 - Guest Preacher Junia Joplin

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The Body (Positivity) of Christ  1 Corinthians 12:12-27

(Common English Bible)

12Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. 13We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink. 14Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. 15If the foot says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? 16If the ear says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of the body? 17If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would happen to the sense of smell? 18But as it is, God has placed each one of the parts in the body just like he wanted. 19If all were one and the same body part, what would happen to the body? 20But as it is, there are many parts but one body. 21So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” 22Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary. 23The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we honor the most. The private parts of our body that aren’t presentable are the ones that are given the most dignity.

24The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor 25so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it. 27You are the body of Christ and parts of each other.

GRACE AND PEACE TO YOU, beloved siblings at Saint Paul’s United in Oakville, in the name of the one who knits us together into one body – our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ.

It’s an honour for me to be with you today, and it has been a pleasure getting to know and work a little with Deborah and Carolyn these past few weeks. The three of us spent some time one afternoon not too long ago on a coffee shop patio – talking about our lives and experiences in ministry. I was impressed and inspired to hear about your own journey towards becoming an official part of Affirm United.

As someone coming from the Baptist tradition, I’m grateful to be able to say that there are a growing number of affirming Baptists out there. If you know much about my story, you know that I had really hoped there might be one more affirming Baptist congregation, here in Mississauga. But that was not to be. So for the congregations out there that are willing to do the good work of opening your doors wider and wider – of proclaiming and living an authentic Gospel that truly is Good News to all – I want to say thank you. And thanks be to God for you.

The Church, whether we’re talking about local gatherings like this one, or more broadly about all those who walk the way of Jesus, across time and space, is a body. That’s the word we have been given in the sacred reading from First Corinthians this morning.

Saint Paul – the namesake of your church – was quite fond of that metaphor. Just as your body is a complex system of parts knit together by a loving Creator, so too is the Church. The parts are all different.

Eyes and thighs are not the same.
Your hands and your ears are quite dissimilar.
Your brain and your stomach function entirely differently.

The toughened skin on your palms can take a good slap when you clap your hands or give a high five. The same slap on the skin of your cheek registers in a completely different way.

The skin above our lips is extremely sensitive (that’s part of what makes kissing so great for those of us who enjoy a good kiss), but the skin on your knees and elbows is tougher, thicker, with fewer nerve-endings. Good for pushing open doors when our hands are full or breaking our fall when we stumble.

And even though our ten digits are similar in many ways, not many of us could play the piano with our toes or dance on the tips of our fingers, right?

Bodies are miraculously complex, and, although our dexterities and capacities vary widely, it’s really amazing what the parts of our body can work together to accomplish.

I’m really just scratching the surface, here. Every single one of us has a body, and every single one of our bodies is amazing – irrespective of their size, shape, age, or ability. So it is, this metaphor – this image for community – is so rich and so relatable.

It’s relatable in some positive ways, but it’s also relatable in some not-so- positive ways. And that’s part of what I want us to ponder for a few moments this morning.

In her provocative and therapeutic book, The Body Is Not An Apology, author Sonya Renee Taylor coins the term “body terrorism” to characterize the way too many of us relate to our own bodies. When Taylor describes Body

Terrorism, she describes the habit society has of rejecting our attempts to exist unapologetically in our bodies, the ways we are encouraged to feel hatred and shame about our bodies1.

These are learned behaviours, she reminds us. No toddler ever fretted about the dimples on their thighs or said to themselves “oh, there is no way I can be seen in public wearing that!” Over time, we internalize these unrealistic standards and weaponize them – turn them against our bodies in harmful ways.

If we could break into small groups, and each be asked the question “what’s something you don’t like about your body?,” my guess is we could each come up with a couple of answers.

My nose is crooked! I’m balding!
My hips are too wide!
My stomach is too big!I don’t like the way my ears stick out! I wish my skin didn’t hang like this! I hate these wrinkles!

I’m too short – none of my clothes fit right!

Personally, I hate my big feet. I usually wear shoes that are a women’s size 14. That makes it almost impossible to find shoes that fit. I only ever order them online, and it’s often the case that, if a pair comes in the mail and it’s a little too tight, I’m stuck with them. It’s not like I can exchange them for a bigger pair.

If you could find your way into my google search history, you would find there the words “surgery to make feet smaller.” I’m not proud of that.

But it does make me wonder...

When Saint Paul describes a dysfunctional body the way he does – a body where some parts want to get rid of other parts – I suspect he is attempting to describe an implausible scenario. He’s trying to say “Look, this wouldn’t happen!”

“The eye can’t say to the hand ‘I don’t need you,’” Paul says.

But when my brain gets the messages my eyes send it about my feet, that’s kind of what’s happening. I’m not sure Paul envisioned how his otherwise insightful parable might work in a world where body terrorism is a thing, a world where we need the public witness of body positivity advocates like Sonya Renee Taylor, a world where people like me are googling surgical options to change parts of their bodies.

Sadly, I think it’s also a world where we look at our churches the way we sometimes look at our bodies. I suspect there are parts that we rather like, and parts that don’t measure up to our standards. Members we can embrace andmembers we’d like to cut off or hide away. Folks we want to be front and center, and folks we wish would just go away.

But our scriptures remind us that no part of our body is disposable or dispensable; that bodies are a grace – a gift from God.

The parts we love.
The parts we feel good about.
The parts we have struggled to like.

Austen Hartke, a transgender scholar of the Bible, says that this passage in First Corinthians is absolutely essential to understanding why the church is called to affirm transgender Christians2. Austen is writing specifically about trans inclusion in the Church, but his wisdom can be applied more broadly, to anybody under that great big LGBTQ+ umbrella. It can be applied to people of different genders, classes, races, ethnicities, nationalities, cultures, and abilities. It can be applied in any instance when we’re tempted to create circles of belonging that are too small, or too selfish, or too conditional.

“Just because someone does decide to say someone else is dispensable or unnecessary,” Austen writes, “does not make it true.” Through our Baptism, our body is knit together, just as our creator knit us together in the womb – to borrow language from Psalm 139. In the sharing of the gifts of Christ’s table, we are being fearfully and wonderfully made – formed into the body of Christ.

Each of us is different. And each of us matters. In fact, each of us matters because each of us is different. I have often repeated words I learned from my

Muslim friends – words I’m told are echoed in the Quran: that God could have made us all the same if that had been God’s desire. God could have made us all the same colour, or all the same height, or all the same shape, or all the same weight. God could have given us all the same disposition, the same wants, the same interests, the same personalities. God could have somehow implanted us with the same convictions, the same values. But God didn’t do that.

Creation’s rainbow shouts to us about how much God loves diversity. So it is, God made us diverse. We’re all different. We’re all valuable. We each bring something to the Body that is precious and unique.

When we exclude, when we refuse to recognize the preciousness, the giftedness of those around us – and especially when we do that because they are not like us – we are effectively committing acts of body terrorism against the Body of Christ.

This hurts us all. No part of the body can suffer without all suffering. No part of the body can be victimized without all being hurt.

If we would be healthy, if we would be whole, if we would be all we are called and created to be, then we must affirm. We must welcome.

When we welcome with strings attached, we’re not really doing it in Jesus’ name.

It’s World Communion Sunday – a day when followers of Jesus the world over gather around tables (even virtual ones) to remember Jesus. I like that word, remember, because it can mean, in its root, to put back together – to re-member.

So as we remember, let’s dedicate ourselves to really re-membering. Because a table without space for all isn’t really the Lord’s Table.

And the Body of Christ – the body we’re part of – isn’t a body to be ashamed of.

Prayer:

Transform us, Great Creator, we pray, knit us together into Christ’s bodya full body – a positive body
a body where every part,
every member
is celebrated,
treasured,
beloved.
Give us this gift –help us to receive this grace
we pray – through Christ
ever present with us. Amen.

1 Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018), 53.

2 Austen Hartke, Transforming: The Bible and the Life of Transgender Christians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 135.