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.