| Body
Talk: Being Shaped by God’s Love |
| The king of Egypt said to the
Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the
other Puah, "When you act as midwives to the Hebrew
women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy,
kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live." But
the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of
Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the
king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them,
"Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to
live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because
the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for
they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes
to them." So God dealt well with the midwives; and
the people multiplied and became very strong. And because
the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh
commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born
to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you
shall let every girl live." |
| Now a man from the house of Levi
went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and
bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby,
she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer
she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with
bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed
it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister
stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. |
| The daughter of Pharaoh came down
to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside
the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent
her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the
child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, "This
must be one of the Hebrews’ children," she
said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter,
"Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women
to nurse the child for you?" Pharaoh’s daughter
said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called
the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said
to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and
I will give you your wages." So the woman took the
child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought
him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her
son. She named him Moses, "because," she said,
"I drew him out of the water." |
|
| Exodus 1:15-2:10 |
| I appeal to you therefore, brothers
and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies
as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which
is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,
so that you may discern what is the will of God—what
is good and acceptable and perfect. |
| For by the grace given to me I
say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more
highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober
judgment, each according to the measure of faith that
God has assigned. 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. We have gifts that differ
according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion
to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;
the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity;
the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. |
|
| Romans 12:1-8 |
| One of my favorite authors is Anne Lamott, a Presbyterian
from northern California. I love her writing because she is
so honest. She has the guts to admit things about herself and
all of humanity in a quirky, yet humble and self-confessing
tone—always leaving room for God’s grace. In one
collection of her short stories she wrote about how difficult
it was for her to be constantly attentive to her son’s
self-interested world. “Look at me…No one can do
this as well as I can!” Sam would say while jumping off
a log or something. Anne knew that children’s egos are
built by encouragement, so she tried to listen with interest
to what Sam said. Her intellectualism would get the best of
her though and she would often reflect that before Sam she could
not have been paid enough money to listen so attentively to
any person’s world-of-self. |
| A world-of-self in childhood is one thing. In the life of
the church it breaks apart the body of Christ and denies God
as the giver of gifts to all. In adults a world-of-self leads
us astray as we congratulate ourselves for our accomplishments,
belittle others, and refuse to give credit to the One who gave
us all our gifts in the first place. |
| The church is a body, not a self. Individuals within the church
are members of the one body of Jesus Christ. There is, or should
be, no hierarchy here and there is no place for rugged individualism
in the body of Christ. Instead we are to be members, for and
with the body, this community. |
| There is no denying that we are different from one another.
In reality the church is often a motley irreconcilable group.
Despite our differences Paul claims that each one of us and
every person who enters the life of the church has gifts that
display a bit of Jesus, our Christ. We need each member because
the church is nothing unless it is the full body of Christ.
When we become bound by self-interest, by ego or by fear, the
quality of our life together is dramatically affected and members
suffer from the lack of love and mercy. |
| Within the body there is no room for triumphing over one another
or for feeling we do not belong. Everyone belongs, just as they
are, except we are all being continually transformed by the
renewal of our minds by God’s grace. Borrowing a line
from the movie Jerry Maguire, Christ calls us to say
to one another “you complete me.” It is ridiculous,
but true! We are called to say, “you complete me”
(and mean it) to people who we are not in romantic
relationships with. The gifts of the body complete one another
despite the fact that our interests are totally different and
we would never choose on our own to be intentionally close with
the whole of this group. We can’t even agree on basic
theology. Yet Paul is insistent that as a whole we, no less
than early Christians who worshiped side-by-side as slave and
free, Greek and Jew, are the body of Christ! The early church
knew the challenge of living in response to God’s mercies.
Paul wrote them about their behavior to one another. “For
by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to
think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to
think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of
faith that God has assigned.” We are equally members of
the body, yet we are diverse. So judgment against others, arrogance
towards them, gossip about the body, self-elevation--all these
become stumbling blocks to discerning the will of God. They
prevent us from seeing God’s gift in the other. Gifts
given in grace are not for tearing down. God’s gifts become
manifest only when we build the body. |
| We are not together today because we are the same. We are
together because we could not resist the grace of Jesus, God’s
sovereignty, and the power of the Spirit. God made us into a
body. |
| In our passage Paul claims that following God’s will
and way leaves no room for individual bragging rights. When
we actually follow God’s will Paul tells us it is the
gift of grace that works within us. Just as Jesus’ life,
work and resurrection are a gift of grace; all our faithful
responses to God are also a gift of grace. These gifts are never
our own. They are for God’s glory and for the benefit
one another. This knowledge makes me very humble. Karl Barth
says that our passage today makes every human mind understand
God as the “great disturber.” (1)God is
the disturber of our self-interested thoughts and actions. God
disturbs and continually renews our minds through grace, leading
us to repentance, confession and continual transformation into
new life. |
| In this new life we are the body of Christ, given gifts to
point to God. Imagine your life as one big arrow, pointing towards
the One who is grace, mercy, sovereign, compassion, justice
and love. All there is for us to do as we accept that God is
the maker of our gifts is to express thankfulness. Thankfulness
for God’s abiding love despite all that we are. Do not
fear humility. We need humility if we are to thrive as the body
for “those in fellowship in Christ are motivated by their
thankfulness to God for the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and
the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.”(2) |
| If you have ever wondered what you are doing here or if God
really has a purpose for you, Roman’s 12 leaves no doubt,
“For Paul every member’s contribution is important…because
the church lives by Christ’s own life in it.”(3) |
| We cannot achieve goodness and perfection, following the entire
will of God as we are commanded. Yet the continual renewal of
our minds brought about by faith in Jesus Christ and the Spirit’s
presence challenges us to live as members of the body. Faithfulness
is made manifest in thankfulness for this diverse group and
all the ways Christ is present in each one of us. Do not be
conformed to this world. Instead be shaped by God’s love,
as members of the body, responding to God’s gifts in Christ
and to each one of us, like an arrow who points to the unending
mercy of our sovereign God. |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - August 21, 2005 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| (1) Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1933), 424. |
| (2) Robert A. Bryant, “Romans 12:1-8,” Interpretation:
A Journal of Bible and Theology, (July 2004): 289. |
| (3) Charles B. Coursar, The Letters of Paul. (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1996) 144. |
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