One Body

Luke 4:14-21

I Corinthians 12:12-31a

January 26, 2025

            “Whenever you finish writing the first draft of a poem, go back and cut out the first line. It doesn’t matter if that line is one that you think is perfect, if those words are ones that you spent hours crafting, cut it out anyway. Be ruthless. Because I promise you that if you are willing to do that, your poem will be better. It might even be greater. But cut the first line. You won’t regret it.”

            This was advice from a professor of mine in college during a lecture in our poetry class. He was speaking to our poetry class. His point was that the first line of a poem is often the most awkward. It’s the poet’s way of getting something on the page, getting started. Once started, the rest of the poem will hopefully begin to flow and move. But you gotta get past the first line.

In college I was a Communications major with an English Writing minor. That means that I did a lot of writing. I worked at the school radio station and wrote copy. I wrote articles for the school newspaper. I had a creative writing scholarship, so I wrote for that. In my classes I wrote everything from speeches to fiction to narrative non-fiction to technical instructions and poetry. Early on in all this writing, I learned the importance of a good lead. A lead is that first sentence or first sentences in a story that grab the reader’s or the listener’s attention. A good lead will get your audience hooked. They’ll want to continue to read or to listen. But write a bad lead and you’ve lost them.

            When it comes to leads and first lines, I have never forgotten that advice from my professor. I have taken his words to heart, so no matter what I’m writing – whether it’s an email, a blogpost, a poem, or a sermon, I inevitably go back and cut the first line. Sometimes I cut the whole first paragraph. And with that advice always in my mind, I wonder if Jesus had these first words of his first recorded sermon ready to go, or if he was going to say something else and cut that just like my professor advised us to. Whatever his process, his first line, his lead certainly grabbed the attention of all who were listening.

            Our story picks up after Jesus’ baptism, and after he was tested in the wilderness. Now he has returned to Galilee filled with the Holy Spirit, and he began to teach in synagogues around the region. As our story begins, he has returned to Nazareth, his hometown. He’s gone to the synagogue of his childhood, of his growing years. And with the eyes of everyone who once knew him fixed upon him, he stands up and reads from the prophet 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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

            And after reading these words from Isaiah, rolling up the scroll, and handing it back to the attendant, Jesus said,

            “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            That is one powerful first line. That is a gripping lead. The lectionary stops the story here for this week, and the rest of his sermon and the response to it will be read next week. But as first lines go, this is pretty intense. In just nine words, Jesus has made a bold statement, one that could not be ignored. He read Isaiah’s words about the anointed one of the Lord, the Messiah, the One sent by God to preach the good news to the poor and release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the proclamation of the Lord’s favor which is another way of proclaiming the year of Jubilee. Then he states that these words, this prophecy, this vision, has now been fulfilled because he is that One. That’s right, folks, your hometown boy is the One, sent by God, anointed by the Spirit. That messiah you’ve been waiting for, longing for, well here he is. Or, to say it from Jesus’ perspective, “Here I am!”

            Whatever the folks in the synagogue expected Jesus to say, that probably wasn’t it. And I doubt that the people in the Corinth church expected Paul’s words either. The Corinthian church was a troubled church. They were a church in conflict, and Paul spends most of this letter addressing their conflicts. In the first part of this chapter, the part we read before the proclamation last Sunday and what we heard in the ordaining and installation of elders during that same service, Paul wrote about the importance of recognizing that all of us bring spiritual gifts to the table. In the verses before us today, he is pressing the point that not only do all of us have necessary spiritual gifts, we are all necessary. He uses the analogy of the body. Every member of the body is necessary and needed, no matter how small, no matter how seemingly insignificant. He even writes,

            “On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable …”

            It was about this time two years ago when I fell and broke my right wrist for the second time. When that happened I was vividly reminded of how much I rely on both my hands to function every day, and I definitely rely on my right hand because I’m right handed. So, losing the ability to use that hand to the fullest made me aware of how every part of the body is necessary and needed.

            But Paul was not speaking only to the literal necessity of our bodies, these amazing God-created machines. He was speaking to the body of Christ, which is what every church is supposed to be a part of. It is a connection between every child of God. None of us are without value. All of us are needed and necessary. All of us. Jesus stated that the reading of Isaiah was fulfilled in the hearing of those in that Nazarene synagogue, and he lived that out. Through his words, Paul is reminding the Corinthians of this. There is not one disposable or dispensable member of the body of Christ. From the top of the head down to the pinky toe, all are indispensable.

            But like the Corinthians, and like so many since, we have a hard time remembering that. There’s something in our human nature that wants some to be in and some to be out. I’m certainly guilty of that, and I suspect we all are. But if we take Jesus seriously, and if we take Paul’s words seriously, then we must take the idea that we are one body seriously as well. We are all necessary and needed. We are all God’s children.

            This week Nashville experienced another school shooting. Two children of God, two children, were killed – one murdered and one who murdered that child then killed himself. Another child was hurt, and hundreds of children were traumatized, along with teachers, administrators, and families. Again. We keep failing our children. We keep failing ourselves, because we can’t seem to understand that we are part of one body. We need each other. If one of us is sick, all of us are sick. If one of us is hurting, all of us are hurting. In the body of Christ, there is no us versus them or insiders and outsiders. We’re all in it together. We all bring gifts to the table. We are all necessary and needed. We are all God’s children. When are we going to start living it?

            Jesus said that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words. Jesus said that he was the embodiment of those words. He was the living and breathing and walking and teaching good news.

            What will it mean for us to live the gospel? What will it mean for us to be the body of Christ in the world? What will it mean for us to take to heart these words that we read today? I’m not sure. I know that I fail at this call every day; I live out my call to the body of Christ imperfectly at best, but I also know that I need you. I need God’s children. I need the other members of this body. I need the power of community, of connection, of relationship. I need it desperately. I cannot fulfill my call or live into the gifts I have been given without community, without connection and relationship. I cannot be a hand or a foot or an ear or a toe by myself. All of us matter in the eyes of God. All of us are necessary and needed. All of us make up the one body of Christ. That is indeed the good news of the gospel. May God give us the courage and the power and the strength to proclaim it, to teach it, to live it. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Increased in Wisdom and Years

Luke 2:41-52

January 5, 2025

 

When my two oldest nephews were little, they loved to watch the movie, Home Alone. Somewhat surprisingly, my dad really loved to watch it with them, not because he was enamored by the movie itself, but because he loved to listen to his grandsons laugh with delight at all the traps set for the bad guys. I have vivid memories of my dad and my nephews sitting on the sofa together with a bowl of popcorn between them watching Home Alone and laughing and laughing.

            Home Alone is now considered a Christmas classic, but just in case you know nothing about this movie, it lives up to its title. The movie tells the story of a little boy named Kevin who was accidentally left home alone over Christmas. His large extended family was taking a trip to Paris for the holidays, so there’s people and suitcases and a whole lot of kids everywhere. And even though headcounts are taken, in the frenetic shuffle of wrangling so many kids and adults into airport shuttles and onto a plane, Kevin, who had gotten in trouble and been sent to his room the night before, was left behind.

When the rest of the family finally makes it safely on the airplane, Kevin’s mom keeps thinking that she forgot something, but she can’t figure out what it is. After the plane takes off and is ascending to cruising altitude, she remembers. Kevin’s mother, played brilliantly by Catherine O’Hara, bolts upright in her seat and screams, “Kevin!”

In the meantime Kevin is home alone but holding his own. He manages to reunite a cantankerous old neighbor with his estranged son and fend off robbers who discover that this little kid is home and unsupervised. They think that this house will be an easy target, but they’ve never met a kid like Kevin before. That’s where the traps come in.

            For this story to be plausible you must believe that an entire family could leave home, board a plane for another country and forget one of their children. Although I think the movie is funny, before I had children I couldn’t imagine anyone forgetting their child. Then I became a mom. It’s not that I have forgotten my children, but I do know how quickly and how easily losing a kid can happen in a crowded mall or even outside in the backyard.

            Despite Home Alone, we still might be shocked that Mary and Joseph could have traveled a full day without realizing that Jesus was missing. Yet they would have traveled to the festival of the Passover with a large complement of family and traveled back home the same way. Jesus was 12, on the cusp of manhood, so I can see how they assumed he was walking with other family members, maybe spending the journey talking to a beloved cousin. It must have been when they stopped for the night after that first day of travel, when Mary and the other women were getting supper together that she and Joseph looked around and said, “Where’s Jesus?”       

            We can imagine the panic that sets in when they realize he’s nowhere to be found. We can imagine the fear that clutches their hearts when they realize he hasn’t been with them all day. Even though it’s dark and even though it’s dangerous, Mary and Joseph go back the way they came, to Jerusalem, to search for their son. They searched for him for three days.

            Three. Days. Panic would have turned to terror. Three days they searched for him. Jerusalem was not the modern metropolis it is today, but it was still big and crowded and there would have been numerous places to get lost. With each day that passed, their terror would have grown exponentially. We don’t know from the text what Mary and Joseph were thinking or feeling, but we can guess. We can guess the different scenarios they were envisioning. Maybe he had been kidnapped and wasn’t even in the city anymore? Maybe he was hurt and couldn’t find help? Maybe, maybe, maybe.

            But after three days, they returned to the temple, the object of their original journey, and there he was! He was sitting among the teachers, listening to them, asking them questions. He was safe and he was sound. After so many days of unrelenting fear, Mary and Joseph must have been weak with relief.

            When Zach was little he ran off from me in a crowded mall. I was terrified. When we found him, really when he wandered up to us, I fell to my knees and cried with relief. That was after about 30 minutes. Mary and Joseph had been looking for him for three days. Mary asks Jesus why he did this to them? Why did he treat them this way? The word that has been translated in our bible as anxiety, is actually better translated as agony. And it isn’t the typical word used for anxiety or worry. Luke uses this word one other time in the gospel for the agony surrounding the cross. This is not just your garden variety worry. This was the agony of parents who believe their child is lost forever.

            Jesus’ response to his parents seems inadequate to our ears.

“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Yet his response was probably not meant to be flippant or mouthy. I suspect that he was truly confused by his parent’s response to him. Again, digging into the Greek helps clarify this a little. The word that we read as must; I must be in Father’s house is more closely translated as it is necessary. One commentator wrote that this is code in Luke’s gospel for the necessity of what Jesus does and says. It is necessary that I be in my Father’s house. It is necessary that the Messiah suffers and dies. It is necessary that these things happen in this way. It is necessary that after three days, the Messiah will rise again.

I have preached this passage before, but I have never noticed the foreshadowing that lies at the heart of this passage. Jesus’ parents searched for him for three days. It is necessary for him to be in his Father’s house.

Mary had heard and treasured the things that had been about Jesus up to this point, but now Jesus shows that he is beginning to understand his relationship with God, to God, as well. After this exchange between parents and child, Luke tells us that Jesus returns home with them, and was obedient to them, submitted to their understanding of who he was to them and his responsibilities to their family. And Mary once more treasured what she had seen and heard in her heart.

The passage closes with these words, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”

Jesus grew up, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually. He increased in wisdom. He grew into himself and into his call and purpose. Luke is the only gospel that offers us any insight into young Jesus. We hear of his birth, we read of his dedication at the temple when he was still a newborn, and we have a brief glimpse into one moment during years in between. The next time we see Jesus he will be grown and beginning the work, the call,  he was born to do.

But in the intervening years, in the time that we don’t read about, the time we can only speculate about, Jesus increases in wisdom and years.

Although Luke offers significant foreshadowing in this story about the life and call Jesus will live, I find it profoundly helpful and hopeful to consider that Jesus had to grow and learn. Jesus had to grow and learn just as all of us do. He had to figure things out. He had to grow in his understanding and knowledge of the world around him. He had to learn and grow into his relationship with God, with God’s people, and with the mantle of call that had been wrapped around him before his birth.

A commentator on this story shared about when he first moved to New York City. New York, like many other cities, is always under construction. There is always a building being constructed or a sidewalk being fixed, or a road being widened. There are always cranes and jackhammers and construction sites. The writer naively assumed that one day all that would be done. The jackhammers would cease, the scaffolding would be torn down, and the construction crews would go home. But after living there a while, he realized that the construction would never end. One site might be finished, but another one would have already begun.

Maybe this is what its like for us to increase in wisdom and years. We finish one phase with new understanding and insight, only to be thrust again into a situation where we must learn something new, see through new eyes, perceive in a way we had not considered before. Jesus is our model in what it means to love God, to love others, to love ourselves, why shouldn’t he also be our model in increasing in wisdom? Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and while we are not Jesus, it is good news to know that no matter how old we are, God is not finished with us yet. No matter how much we think we know, there is always more to learn. God is not finished with us yet. We are still increasing in wisdom and in years. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.