On the Way to Wonder

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

1 Corinthians 12:12-24, The Message

Paul challenges the believers in Corinth and us today to stop and think about what we are reading concerning the human body and hence the spiritual body.  “I want you to think.”  So I have used The Message to help us freshen up this common passage. Being part of a body helps prevent our heads from getting too inflated.  We should not think too much of ourselves because any good result is a group effort.  President Kenyatta’s national motto was “Harambee”.  We have harambee centers from this Swahili word.  It mean “Let’s pull together.”   So if your car is stuck in the mud, everyone hops out, positions themselves around the car and then someone yells, “Harambee,” and we all push together, relax until we hear “harambee “ again.  The motto carries the flavor of the communal thinking of African tribes rather than the individualism of the West.  Paul is telling us that the spiritual body that the church is functions as a harambee effort.  If there is any credit, it goes to God who makes the body.

Likewise perhaps a few of us are talented enough to win American Idol but that does not really compare to the harambee of many people like ourselves who put their small efforts together to make the Golden Gate Bridge or the Eiffel Tower. I cannot pat myself on the back for some project but I can be appreciate that I was part of the crew that brought the project to conclusion. 

I love the comparison that just because I don’t have all the glitter of gold rings like a hand, does not mean that my job as a heart that keeps the blood moving is not important.  Just because someone does not have all the glamor of face make up does not mean that their role in keeping the body is unimportant.  So think again about your role in the Body of Christ.  Try and list just three ways that you contribute to the functioning of the body of Christ then thank God for the privilege of playing your part.  Maybe even pray for the person whom seems to outshine you or whom you consider of less importance than you and ask for God’s working in their lives this week.  They need prayer too.

First Reading: Isaiah 35:4-7a

  4Say to those who are of a fearful heart,“Be strong, do not fear. Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” 5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7athe burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Psalm: Psalm 146 I will praise the Lord as long as I live. (Ps. 146:2)

 1Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

 2I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

 3Put not your trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there is no help.

 4When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. 

 5Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help, whose hope is in the Lord their God;

 6who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; who keeps promises forever;

 7who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the captive free.

 8The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. 

 9The Lord cares for the stranger;the Lord sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.

 10The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, throughout all generations. Hallelujah! 

Second Reading: James 2:1-10 [11-13] 14-17

1My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” 4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

 8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. [11For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.]

 14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Gospel: Mark 7:24-37

 24[Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

 31Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Share with your neighbor where your favorite vacation spot is?  What do you like to do there?

Prayer:  Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

      We take vacations to get away and unwind from our normal routines.  For those of us who have jobs in the public eye, it’s nice to be incognito for a week or two and enjoy family.  My family loved to go to Mombasa on the Kenyan coast where we could go out on the reef and snorkel in the tide pools when the tide was out.  It was like swimming in a tropical fish aquarium.  Many times we have read that Jesus withdrew and tried to take his disciples for a rest but the crowds always followed.  In our text today Jesus has gone to the coast cities that are in Lebanon, a totally Gentile area then and he wants to be “unseen”. Perhaps here he can find rest but even there he is recognized and approached for help.  

      Our few last few Sunday Gospel texts have focused on Jesus as the bread of life.  He debated with the Jews about eating his body and drinking his blood.  Whew.  Last week he confronted the Pharisees and Scribes who questioned him about his disciples eating with dirty hands. Jesus responded, it is what comes out of our heart and not what goes into our stomach that defiles us.  In all these texts we have considered that those who eat the bread Jesus offers are “the good guys,” the believers or followers.  Today, we are forced to open up our thinking as Jesus encounters a Gentile woman.  She is rebuffed as she approached Jesus with her problem. Jesus came for the Jews and probably the men, or so it was thought.

We need to pay attention because this conversation with a Syrophoenician woman marks the beginning of Jesus’ mission to the Gentiles. Just as Jason Bourne in his movies “did not do random”, Jesus does not do random.  Jesus has headed to the area of the Gentiles for a reason. We might consider him on vacation but God does not take vacations.  The second scene is in the Decapolis, an area of ten cities in northern Israel that was also highly culturally mixed with Gentiles.  These Gentiles mostly came from Hellenistic and Roman heritage.   Something is about to happen.  We best pay attention.  The people living on the Phoenician coast were Gentiles, heathens. They probably spoke Greek and worshiped pagan gods. The people in the Decapolis were Gentiles.  We are considered Gentiles.  This text is for us.

Just as the Magi arrive at the birth of Jesus thus including us Gentiles, you and me, in the Christmas story and in God’s plan, our text today brings you and me into being recipients in the ministry of Jesus.  This is not just a parable told to people in a Jewish area but is a purposeful outreach of God in Jesus caring for Gentiles, for you and me.  We are not after-thoughts but we are part of “the Plan.”

Jesus’ ministry included Gentiles!

  Jesus “could not escape notice.”  Romans 1 talks about the reality of God being obvious to all people – regardless of the presence of Christian witness.  God’s fingerprints are on creation. People may not know about Jesus but they are aware of God.  It would appear in this case that Jesus’ reputation has preceded him so that as he enters both Tyre and Sidon he is recognized and sought after.  

      Firstly I note that the woman and the deaf man were “marked people,” people who were labeled.  The woman and the man were social misfits of their day.  The woman is at the bottom of the power chain as a woman and as someone with a child with an unclean spirit.  I bet people avoided her house.  The man in the Decapolis is deaf and tongue-tied. I would wager to say that his friendship circle was limited also.  A woman’s child and a deaf man are in dire need of help and have nowhere to turn in their culture.  Many of us are also aware of social labels. “Old” is a word we don’t so much like to have to admit.  “Handicapped” is a sign we hang on our car to let us park close to doors.   “Blind” people carry white canes.  Right now we celebrate the Paralympics.  

Jesus came to town.  Neither of the sick Gentiles directly approach Jesus, neither the sick child nor the deaf man. Their representatives, their sponsors approach Jesus.  The little girl’s mother bows before Jesus with her request.  The anonymous “they” bring the deaf man to Jesus.  Neither the girl nor the deaf man is able to represent themselves. How often have we felt unworthy of asking for help from God?

 We know this scene. We bring our children to baptism even before they understand, even before they are able to express faith.  We come like the Syrophoenician woman and like the friends of the deaf man and we bow before Jesus.  We are helpless to save ourselves or the people around us.  We can only intercede for them. I suspect many of us are also on our knees for wayward children caught in difficult marriages or addictions, for friends fighting cancer or for those diminishing with age…all those things that drive us to intercessory prayer.  Bringing others to Jesus is an important ministry.  This woman and this man’s friends give us hope that Jesus listens, cares and can handle our fears and anxieties.  That is our first lesson today.  We are not to loose heart as we bring people who seem on the edge of God’s radar screen to Jesus through prayer or through invitation into spiritual conversations.

  Jesus responds, 

27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Let’s name the elephant in the room.  To our American ears this sounds like an insult.  Jews considered Gentiles dogs.  The Jews were the chosen people and this woman, not even a man, was pleading for help for her daughter with an unclean spirit.  Did Jesus see the woman as a dog and insult her?  Our culture struggles here and often reads it that way.

      But as we look at the heroes in the Old Testament, we often see this tug of conversation over “God’s Plan.”  Moses goes back and forth with God at the burning bush about sending him back to Egypt to face his past and using him to be the agent for bringing deliverance to the Israelites. He argues that surely there is a better person than he.  Later in the wilderness when God tells Moses to lead the people but God will not accompany them, Moses responds – just kill me cause I’m not going forward without you!  Then there is Abraham bartering with the angels over the outcome of Sodom and Gomorrah. He pleads that if the angels can find 50 people, well how about 40, maybe 30, on down to 10 good people…would God change his plan of wrath.  I believe we have the whole book of Job arguing with God that he, Job, is innocent and undeserving of the tragedies of his life. God is a real being and does not shy away from real interactions with our frustrations and anger about rough edges in our lives.  He is not afraid of our angry feelings or our grief.  The lamenting Psalms comfort us greatly.  This exchange between the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus falls well within the boundaries of honest, transparent conversation.  Jesus does not pull rank and dismiss her but engages with her and gives her a picture.  

      Jesus gives this Gentile woman an idiom, the same way he has been giving parables to people throughout his ministry. We know the father in the Prodigal Son is God and the wayward son is us when we are lost and the older brother is us when we are bitter.  We know the Good Samaritan is a call for us not to walk by on the other side of the road when we see someone in trouble.  We know the giver of talents is God and the need to use our gifts wisely is a lesson for us.  

Let us look at some of the eating idioms we use today.  If we say someone “eats like a horse”, we might think of a hard worker who works up a big appetite, not a real horse.  If we say a girl is the “apple of her father’s eye” we mean she is loved, not that she is an apple.  We laugh at the commercial with the line, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”  Jesus is making the point that so far he has been working within the Jewish cultural setting as an incarnation of God.  He has helped people to understand the character of God through his own human life to the chosen people.  But now he is challenging our understanding of “chosen.”

Jesus has said a truth we do not like to hear.  We are not worthy of God’s love.  We are like dogs, not members of the “in”family.  God does not love us because we deserve to be loved or because we are chosen.  We are saved by grace not because we are part of a special tribe or have special gifts or have done special deeds.  This might be our second point today.  We may think we are not on God’s radar screen, worthy of his grace but God goes out of his way, all the way to Tyre, Gentile territory, and all the way to the cross to be with us.  God’s love goes beyond the Jewish nation!  This is a new twist.

     Jesus has made a major new move by going into the Gentile area and performing a miracle.  He has included Gentiles in his plan of salvation.  Jesus has used similar techniques for engaging with Jewish people, speaking in parables or idioms that challenge their faith and he is doing the same thing with this Gentile woman.  He wants to reach out to us today.

 But amazing as this first encounter is, the woman’s response is remarkable.

  “Even dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table.”  

The Syrophonecian woman was not insulted at the comparison because prejudice was known but more importantly she was able to speak into the idiom with faith. She was not asking for anything more than a crumb of grace for that, she knew, was enough.  She understood the vastness of God, her own insignificance, and her desperate need for a crumb of grace.  How guilty are we of wanting the whole loaf of bread, the whole solution to our problems and as we think they ought to be handled – right now.  We are so impatient with God’s timing and God’s ways.  Do you hear the little voice on your shoulder saying, surely God doesn’t want you to suffer.  Surely God doesn’t love your sick child.  Surely those other people deserve their struggles for secret sins.  The woman acknowledges the broken, prejudiced world she lived in and asked for a crumb…for her daughter.  Jesus responded to her faith.  Jesus responds to our faith also!

      The “friends” bring the deaf and tongue-tied man to Jesus for help.  Jesus takes him aside, puts his fingers in his ears, and spits and touches his tongue.  This encounter does not seem to deal with Jesus confronting evil as much as Jesus correcting the impact of sin on birth.  Not all of our problems are punishments from God nor are they the result of evil seeking to destroy us.  We are broken people living in a broken world.  When we play with fire, we get burned.  When wars break out, innocent people are killed.  Martyrs die for standing up for the truth.  Jesus dealt with this man differently but more importantly, Jesus had compassion and healed him.  And who gets the glory?  God!

He has done everything well;

      We do not know what happened to the healed people nor to their sponsors but we do know that people could not keep quiet about the healings.  When was the last time we were so touched and so excited about God acting in our lives that we were just bursting at the seams and had to tell someone?  Perhaps we are back to Jesus’ idiom, “the food of the children is not meant for dogs.”  We are the children of God and his grace is not meant for just us.  We do not need a whole loaf, we only need a crumb.  God’s grace is so abounding that we need not be afraid of the person who worships slightly differently than us, people who speak differently than us, or people who come from a different background than us.  God will deal with each of us personally and with love. These Gentiles were from different religious traditions but they saw the truth of who Jesus was – God incarnate – and they or their friends pleaded for help – just a crumb!

        The crumbs are meant to feed people so perhaps we can also ask who we are sharing with.  Who might be in the wings of our life needing the crumbs of God’s work in us?  I do not believe Jesus went to Tyre and Sidon to vacation but to show you and me that we too are recipients of the crumbs of bread that fall from the master’s table.  But just like the Syrophoenician woman and the friends of the deaf man may we never forget the power of standing up for someone else who needs God’s grace.  Jesus healed Gentiles and he is here working in Bethany today.  Thank you Lord.  I feel refreshed by taking time with you – just as good as taking a vacation!  

Let the people of God say, “AMEN!”

Tomorrow our Psalm for the day is Psalm 146.  It prepares our hearts for the Gospel text that tells us of two Gentiles whose friends bring their case to Jesus.  One of the unique parts of the text is that Jesus and followers are not in Israel but have gone to Tyre and Sidon and then the Decapolis, Gentile territory.  Even as the Magi appeared in the Christmas story, signaling the inclusion of Gentiles in the BHAG of` God, the Syrophonecian woman signals the inclusion of the Gentiles in the BHAG of God.  The big, hairy audacious goals of God.  The woman grabs the idiom Jesus throws to her that she is not one of the chosen people to eat the bread of life.  She responds in great faith, I’m only asking for a crumb of grace!  That is enough.  Just a crumb!I

There are several nice worship songs that go with this psalm but I could not figure out how to copy the link so I have included the psalm to read and see how many crumbs of grace you can identify that David praises God for giving him.

Psalm 146

Praise the Lord, my soul.

2 I will praise the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.

4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.

5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God.

6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
    the sea, and everything in them—
    he remains faithful forever.

7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
    and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,

8  the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
    the Lord loves the righteous.

9 The Lord watches over the foreigner
    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
    but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

10 The Lord reigns forever,
    your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord.

12-13. You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you   can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.  (1 Corinthians 12:12-13, The Message)

Paul is answering questions he has received from the fellowship in Corinth about spiritual gifts.  He started his explanation that he has given for each question raised so far.  Our foundation is God.  Likewise our gifts come from God to glorify God.  Spiritual gifts are not about our talents and who wins an Oscar.  Spiritual gifts are gifts given to every one of us because we are each a worker in his field, a stone in his temple, a living example of the character of God.  In today’s text he uses the image of the human body.  We each have one body but that one body that has many parts working together.  When each part is healthy, the body is healthy and if one part is sick then the whole body suffers.  A hand cannot live independently from the body for long and the hand cannot do the function or gift of the ear.  The hand is designed for touch, for holding and for reaching out to discover, not for listening.

The last sentence is significant.  Labels we use in the kingdom of this world to differentiate us, no longer are significant.  Ethnic labels that divide people by color and language don’t work spiritually.  Gender titles are not useful spiritually.  Levels of wealth that are so important to the IRS mean nothing to the Holy Spirit and should mean nothing in our churches.  We are deeply ingrained with these distinctions and it is hard to forget them when we walk through the church doors! 

So let’s think of five labels we use to describe ourselves.  Then next to the label write how that might translate into spiritual language.  For example we might see ourselves as “old”, a chronological word, but God’s people might see us as “mature,” “a graduate of the school of hard knocks,” or hopefully “wise.”  Now spend some time thanking God for how he is using each of these labels in your life.  Blessings.

4-11 God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:

wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when. (! Corinthians 12, The Message)

“Various gifts,” “various ministries,” “various expressions of power,” are words we read as Paul continues to talk about the spiritual gifts that are given to all Christians.  As young adults we wanted to identify our “gifts” that seemed to be similar to our talents and which seem to promise a satisfying future of fulfillment to our young minds.  Paul however, I note, grounds gifting not in our satisfaction but in God’s glorification.  All gifts start with God and express God.  “The variety is wonderful” because our God expresses himself in variety, in the variety of colors of people, in the variety of colors of flowers and trees, in the variety of animals and just plain variety.  

So again, it seems like the question that challenges us is how we best express God, not ourselves.  Paul says we are each given something to do that shows who God is.  What is God giving you to do today that will express him?  That might be as simple as loving that difficult neighbor or distressed child or forgetful parent.  Our heart might be moved to shares cookies with someone or smile at a stranger.  Sometimes we might find ourselves saying wise words and thanking God for giving them to us but likewise when we utter simple words like “thank you” and “please”  we might also be representing God.  I do not want to eliminate opportunities to speak truth to power or the unwelcome task of reprimanding someone doing wrong.  These can be “God moments” also.

It is easy to think of “gifted people” as someone who might win American Idol or who might be elected president of your group.  I would challenge us to think of gifts as common opportunities we will have today to express who God is.  Blessings as you bless others today so that they see God.

12 1-3 What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.  (1 Corinthians 12, The Message)

Paul now changes topics again in his first letter to the Corinthians, an urban center possibly not unlike our modern cities.  He is answering questions young believers without a Bible to guide them, without podcasts to listen to, without libraries full of books about spirituality to research in, living at a time when Christianity was just forming as a distinct faith tradition, differentiating itself from Judaism and other world religions.  It reminds me of young adult life when I was sorting out my faith from what I had inherited from my parents.  The question of “Who am I and what do I believe” had my attention.  I love Jean Val Jean in Les Miserables debating if he was 24601.  Paul starts a new topic today.  We as Christians are gifted.

Allow me to say that again, we are all gifted by the Holy Spirit.  There are no mistakes, no ooops, no after-thoughts.  Each person we meet on our spiritual journey has a gift for us and somehow contributes to the eternal Temple God is building.  It is easy to watch American Idol, America’s Got Talent and all the posts of Face Book and become small in our own eyes.  We become grasshoppers in our own eyes even as the spies did when they checked out the Promised Land and met the giants.  But God comes along and says “NO!” To those feelings.  We are all important and gifted.  We all have something to contribute.  We have all won American Idol!

Lord, open my eyes to the gifts you have given me and those you bring into my life today.  May I never forget how valuable I am to you.  Thank you.

23-26 Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread. Having given thanks, he broke it and said,

This is my body, broken for you.
Do this to remember me.

After supper, he did the same thing with the cup:

This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you.
Each time you drink this cup, remember me.

What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26, The Message)

Paul is answering a series of questions sent to him by the fellowship in Corinth, the fourth largest urban center in the Roman Empire.  He has been answering questions about divisions in the church based on favorite preachers, marriages, divorce, and treating others respectfully but now he switches to the question of behavior during communion.  It seems that some were over eating at the meal while others were getting drunk and Paul felt generally a good presentation of what communion represents was not happening.  It reminds me of soccer games becoming scenes of violence or parents arguing at Little League games.  People loose focus and the whole meaning of the event is marred and the blessing is lost.  Even today different denominations disagree on the exact symbolization is happening in communion.  Some feel it is a ritual that helps us “remember” while others like Lutherans understand the ritual to be “sacramental” because the person is doing “sacred work” with God through the ritual.

We probably cannot resolve these different interpretations but we can agree that communion is a central activity of Christianity that should not be treated disrespectfully by people over eating or becoming drunk.  The challenge I see for us today is the last line where Paul charges us to “never let familiarity breed contempt.”  Rituals by their very nature are repeated and become familiar.  Lutherans will say the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and many will do communion every Sunday.  The words are known and repeated.  The actions are known and comfortable for many “insiders” but may be unfamiliar with visitors.  That familiarity can mean that our minds relax and wander.  Many feel that kind of familiarity negates the value of the ritual.  They can develop contempt for what feels like an empty ritual.  

C. S. Lewis in his book Letters to Malcolm affirmed the presence of ritual in worship.  The familiarity allows our souls to relax and surface that which is really bothering us. Our soul enters not necessarily ritual but the heart of God.  Likewise, in times of crisis our minds find words of the familiar come to mind and provide the prayer that we are unable to generate on our own.  Paul’s warning is that we not allow familiarity to breed.

Lord, help us to hold sacred what is sacred to you and value all you did for us on the cross.

 “All actual authority stems from Christ.”

3-9 In a marriage relationship, there is authority from Christ to husband, and from husband to wife. The authority of Christ is the authority of God. Any man who speaks with God or about God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of Christ, dishonors Christ. In the same way, a wife who speaks with God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of her husband, dishonors her husband. Worse, she dishonors herself—an ugly sight, like a woman with her head shaved. This is basically the origin of these customs we have of women wearing head coverings in worship, while men take their hats off. By these symbolic acts, men and women, who far too often butt heads with each other, submit their “heads” to the Head: God.

10-12 Don’t, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women. Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God—that is true. But the head on a woman’s body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her “head,” her husband. The first woman came from man, true—but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let’s quit going through these “who’s first” routines.  (1 Corinthians 11:1-12, The Message)

This next section of 1 Corinthians is a passage that has divided church until today.  I’m quoting The Message that seems to translate in a less divisive way.  Paul is answering questions given to him from the young churches planted across Asia.  There is no Bible like we have it today.  The churches like Corinth are in large urban areas that are multicultural and multilingual.  Believers are sorting out their Jewish roots while others are sorting out their roots from other religions.  The question that Paul is answering follows a series of questions about marriage relationships and how we show respect to another whose faith may be weaker than ours, as in eating meat offered to idols.  In chapter 11 Paul addresses head coverings for women.  At this point in time believers met in homes, by the river, attended synagogue but still had Jewish traditions of the women standing behind a wall, listening while the men discussed the Torah.  Is there a “right way” to act in church?

Paul returns to his original thesis.  We all build on the foundation of our faith in God – not on an evangelists.  We each are a stone his God’s temple with our unique contribution.  The Holy Spirit dwells in the temple and God protects us.  So we are to strive for peace and respect and do all to God’s glory.  Paul here urges us all to act respectfully to our relationships with another.  “And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let’s quit going through these “who’s first” routines. “ Arguments about our roles, I would understand to be unproductive in Paul’s eyes but focusing on how the gifts of the other person enhances our relationship with God and strengths our fellowship should be our focus. 

So let us focus on how we show respect for another at church.  For sure gossip is not helpful.  Constructive complements are always welcome.  Helping the weak and aged is thoughtful.  Let’s try the acrostic method.  I show respect by

R is for _____, E is for _____, S is for _____, P is for ______, E is for _____, C is for _____, T is for _____.

Thank you LOrd for our differences that help us understand you better and drive us to you when we conflict!