Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · January 28, 2007

Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

Prayer of the Day

Lord Jesus, by your amazing grace, you have called us to be your church, your community, your presence in this world.  In this hour of worship, may we be receptive to… may we be engaged by… your Spirit in ways that we need, so that we can show to all, signs and signals of your kingdom, your reign.  Amen.

Scripture

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free or whatever – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.  If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?  If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as God wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, but only one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”  And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  On the contrary, these parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor.  And the parts that are unpresentable, we treat with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.  But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one suffers, we all suffer; if one is rejoicing, then all rejoice.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.  And the church God has appointed first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracle, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those who speak different kinds of tongues.  Are all apostles?  Are all prophets?  Are all teachers?  Do all work miracles?  Do all have gifts of healing?  No.  But eagerly desire the greater gifts.

And I will show you a more excellent way, and that way is the way of love.

Message

Take It Up with Jesus

Rick Frost

I have a story for you today.  You may have heard it.  It goes this way.

Once upon a time there was a powerful dictator who ruled his country with an iron will.  Every aspect of life was thought through and worked out according to a very rational system.  Nothing was left to chance. 

Now the dictator noticed that the water sources all around the country were rather erratic.  In some cases, they were dangerous.  There were some thousand springs of water often in the middle of towns and cities.  They could be useful, of course, but sometimes they caused floods.  Sometimes they got polluted.  Often they would burst out in new places and damage roads, and fields, and houses.

So the dictator decided on a sensible, rational policy.  The whole country, or at least every part where there was any suggestion of water would be paved over completely with concrete, so thick that no spring of water could ever, ever penetrate it.  The water the people needed would be brought to them by a complex system of pipes.  On top of that, various chemicals would be added to help make the people healthier.  Of course, with the dictator controlling the supply, everyone would have what the dictator decided they needed.  There wouldn’t be any more of those unregulated springs causing nuisances here and there.

For many years the plan worked.  People became used to the water coming in its new system.  Sometimes it would taste a little strange, but all seemed very efficient.  Indeed, the people praised the dictator for his forward-looking wisdom and progressive ways. 

A generation passed.  All seemed to be well.  But then, without warning, the springs that had gone on bubbling and sparkling beneath that solid concrete could no longer be contained.  Suddenly there was an explosion – a cross between a volcano and an earthquake.  These springs just burst forth through the concrete.  Muddy, dirty water shot into the air, rushed through the streets, and into the stores and factories and office buildings.  Roads were torn up.  Whole cities were in chaos.

Now some people were delighted, because at last they could get water any time they wanted.  They didn’t have to depend on the system.  But the people who ran the official water pipes were at a loss.  Suddenly everyone had more than enough water, but it wasn’t pure.  It could not be controlled.

End of story.

Scholars say we, in the western world, are the citizens of that country.  The dictator is the predominant philosophy that has shaped our world for the past 200 years.  It is a philosophy that has made most people in our country, indeed in the western world, materialists by default.  The water in this story, they say, is what we today in our world call spirituality – those hidden springs that break out and bubble up within human hearts, and human groups, and human societies. 

The skepticism that you and I have been taught has paved our world with concrete making millions afraid to admit, to talk publicly about, much less even with their own intimate friends and families, that they, indeed, haven’t had very powerful, meaningful, profound religious experiences – experiences of the Spirit.  Indeed, the prevailing philosophy has carefully taught us that they will pipe us the water that they think we need.  They will arrange for religion to become some small sub-department of ordinary life.  Thus, religion will be quite safe and, indeed, will be quite harmless, with church life carefully separated off from everything else that goes on in the world, be it politics, art, music, education, medicine, science, research, sexuality, technology, economics, whatever.

Those who want it can have it as long as they keep it to themselves.  Those who don’t want to be disturbed by anything religious can enjoy driving down those concrete roads, shopping at concrete malls, living in concrete neighborhoods, and sleeping in concrete-floored houses, living as if there is no God, as if there is no Spirit.  I mean… After all, says the philosophy, we are all in charge of our own fates.  We are the captains of our own souls, whatever that means.

That, folks, is the philosophy that has dominated our culture – one where spirituality is seen as a private hobby.  It is one that says, “Hey, if it is true for you, go for it.  It’s a free country, but it doesn’t mean it is real.  It doesn’t necessarily mean it is true, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with anybody else.”

Now millions in the western world, they say, have enjoyed this temporary separation from God, from things spiritual, from religious interference in everyday life.  “Concrete works for me,” many people say.  But millions more – and this is what I want you to hear today – somehow instinctively are aware there is something deeper, that there is some subterranean bubbling spring, water that we call spirituality. 

Those people have tried to tap into it in a variety of ways.  Some of them have gone to churches.  They hope to find there something called spirituality.  But what they have found almost all too often is that there is a whole lot more water available than most of our churches are letting on. 

For many, many millions more, they have not gone to church.  There is still some kind of awareness.  There is still some kind of huge thirst, a longing for the spring of fresh, living water.  Water you can bathe in and be cleansed in.  Water you can play in.  Water you can work in.  Water you can drink until you are full.

Big news today.  At last it has happened.  The hidden springs underneath the concrete foundation are beginning to burst through and burst open.  This volcano, if you will, of spirituality, say theologians like Tom Wright and Martin Marty, has literally erupted.  Things are never, ever going to be the way they once were.  The official guardians of the old water system are, of course, horrified. 

There is all this new age mysticism that is popping up all over the place.  There are all kinds of spirituality going on, folks, tarot cards, crystals, horoscopes, drug-induced alternative states of consciousness.  All this Fundamentalism that is springing up, militant Christians, militant sheiks, and all kinds of others bombing each other proclaiming God to be on their side.  Add to that the ancient practices of transcendental meditation, yoga, and tai chi, just to name a few. 

Go to Barnes and Noble this afternoon and go find the spirituality section of that bookstore.  There you will see leather-bound Bibles and prayer books right along side something called “Self-Help” and “Self-Improvement” books, as if spirituality were some kind of do-it-yourself-project that you make a weekend activity and learn how to feel better about yourself.  Oh, while you are there, you might want to look for books on reincarnation.  They are very popular with folks who think that if somehow they can discover what they were in a former life they might understand a little bit better why they feel and think the way they do today.

Add to that the other forms of spirituality, which tend to sweep across this country.  The Scientology of Tom Cruise fame, Madonna and her Jewish Kabala, labyrinths – you know they used to be used as aids to prayer in the medieval cathedrals – but reportedly now they are being used more widely in Christian spirituality and modern-day self-discovery.  Even pilgrimages are resurrecting and resurfacing.  I received several requests on my desk just this week.  These are ways that this spiritual hunger, you see, that is all over the place, begins to rub shoulders with globetrotting curiosity. 

All of this, folks, and more, seem to be, in my estimation, a million miles from the modern Christianity that you and I know today, which the scholars say, is precisely why it is so attractive to people who, quite frankly, are bored, even angry, with the official religion that has been offered and controlled, and managed in very-controlled doses in most of our western churches.

Now here is the big news.  This stuff, which is called spirituality today, I want you to know it is real.  I want you to know it is big.  I want you to know it is deep and it’s rich, and it’s very powerful.  It is not always pure.  And I want you to know it is certainly not controllable.  That’s because often and normally it engages the emotions of people in a very profound way.  It is somehow an experience of the holy that moves from here down to here [motioning from head to heart].  Indeed, the spirituality that is going on in the world today is something that you can actually, genuinely feel. 

Sometimes people describe it as creating such a deep sense of inner peace and happiness that they feel like somehow they are in the presence of the holy.  They are actually tasting a little bit of heaven.  Sometimes they laugh out loud.  Sometimes they stand up and clap.  Sometimes they move their bodies.  Sometimes they come into contact with such raw and painful suffering in the world that they weep bitterly.  They have tears streaming down their faces.  They fall on their knees in humble prayer.  But regardless of what it is, every time, what you need to hear is, these are people who long for, who thirst for springs of living, refreshing water – water that you can bathe in, water that you can clean yourself in, water that you can play in, and drink to your fill. 

What I want you to hear today is that the concrete has cracked, folks.  The people in this world are thirsty.  They are really, really thirsty.

Last Sunday Molly, Jan, and I went to church.  It was a little chilly here, but it was 60° where I was.  We didn’t go to just any church.  We went to Glide Memorial United Methodist Church.  Anybody know where that is?  Anybody ever been there?  Excellent.

It is in what is called the Tenderloin section of downtown San Francisco at the corner of Ellis and Taylor.  I knew I was in for something when I got there forty minutes early, and there were people already lined up on the sidewalk for a city block.  I had heard about Glide Memorial since I was in seminary.  An inner-city church that was created in 1929 by a philanthropist named Lizzie Glide, who had some money.  The Methodists said, “Why don’t you buy this little section of San Francisco, this little Watts.”  And she did.  They built a beautiful Methodist Church there in 1929.  Lots of folks in the city that was pretty thriving at that point in time were members of that church.  It was a dynamic church. 

But as times changed, and as that neighborhood began to change, and the world around that church changed, the people in the church did not change.  That church died.  Glide Memorial died. 

But in 1963, it was reborn.  It was reborn because a young African-American minister was called by the name of Cecil Williams.  He came determined to open up the concrete and to let the living water of the hidden springs of the Spirit flow into that community.  That was in 1963.  Last Sunday I saw Cecil there.  He’s still there.  He says they’re going to have to take him out in a wooden box.

Glide is a church like no other folks I have ever seen or ever experienced.  If you ever get to San Francisco, drop in, but go early.  It is a church that is drinking the spiritual water of unconditional love, and justice, and diversity, and service.  It’s an oasis in the Tenderloin desert of hopelessness, and poverty, and crack cocaine.  It is a place where old ways that do not work any more are thrown out, and where new ways that do work are created.  They do not care if you are red, or yellow, or black, or white.  They do not care if you are rich, or poor, or middleclass.  They do not care if you are a state Supreme Court judge or a homeless drug addict.  They do not care what your sexual orientation is.  All people are children of God.  And all are welcomed.  It’s recovery time.  It’s time to love unconditionally.  When they say that, folks, they mean it. 

Three meals a day are served in that church to the homeless every single day of the year.  They served 1,000,000 meals last year.  Do the math.  They saw 3,000 families in the community clinic last year.  They house 152 persons every night in their nine-story community home that they bought next to their church.  If you want to see scenes of that, it’s playing in a movie right now downtown.  It’s called The Pursuit of Happiness. 

Let me tell you.  When those folks worship, they know how to worship.  When they worship, they know how to celebrate, because that’s how they feel.  The jazz musicians arrive early, and they crank it up.  One-hundred-forty members of the Ensemble, or what you and I would call a choir today, stand and sing, because there are no chairs through the hour-and-forty-five-minute service.  Just run that by, Mike, and see if anybody bites on that one.

The preachers preach, and the transformed, because they have a ministry reaching out to that neighborhood, stand and unashamedly and joyfully stand to share their story with others.  The people pray.  They laugh.  They stand.  They sing.  They clap.  They sit.  They dance.  They sway.  They cry.  They hug. 

And ushers do not stand in the back.  Ushers move through the sanctuary dispensing Kleenex from a box, because people’s emotions have been touched.  Hand-held fans are passed out.  When was the last time you saw that?  They don’t have air conditioning, because sometimes the temperature rises in that place.  They drink deeply from the Spirit.  You look around, and the pews in the inner city are jammed.  The aisles are filled.  People are sitting in the windowsills.  Young children play on the chancel steps – their sacred places – and no one cares, because today you are here.  Today you are in church.  Today you are in a community.  You’re in an oasis.  You’re part of a sign, an epiphany. (This is the Epiphany Season, right?)  You are an epiphany with all kinds of people who are really very different from you.  They really are.  Every single one of them is drinking deeply the living water, the unfathomable, uncontrollable, spring of the Spirit – the Living Spirit of the Living God.  Wow!

You know, one of the great things about being a biblical preacher, I get paid to do business on a rather regular basis with the Word of God.  Sometimes you have those wonderful moments when a Scripture just jumps out and grabs you.  You know?  You’ve heard it a 1,000 times, but never like this.  That happened to me this week as I read our text.  I read the text that said, “We are all part of the same body.  So it is with Christ.  We have been baptized with one Spirit into one body, and it doesn’t matter rather you are Jew, or Greek, or whether you are slave or free, or whether you are anything else.”  Every single one of us has been given one Spirit to drink.  Did you know the Spirit is drinkable?  Wow!

“Now,” Paul says, “you are the body of Christ, and every single one of you are part of it.”  What really struck me is what Paul didn’t say.  He didn’t say, “You folks ought to be the body of Christ.”  He didn’t say that.  He didn’t say, “Some day you might, if you really are good and work hard, you might be the body of Christ.”  He didn’t say that.  He said, “You are the body of Christ.”  Just flat out. 

Every single one of you, and whether you like it or not, it doesn’t really matter.  All of our faults, all of our imperfections, we are the body of Christ.  If you have problems with that, I recommend that you take it to Jesus, and let him straighten it out for you.  Because if I read him correctly, he says that you and I are the only visible sign of the risen Christ in this world.  There is no other.  We’re it.

So when we ask you “to get into it,” jump in.  Drink deeply.  I don’t care what kind of music.  I don’t care what it is you do, if you just do it completely.  Give it your best.  Jump in.  Be enthusiastic.  I don’t care if it is worshipping, celebrating, teaching, praying, singing, performing, building, sponsoring, being an adult.  I don’t care.  Just get into it and drink it up, because you are the body of Christ.

And all the people say… “Amen.”     

Benediction

God who forms us, thank you for the intricacies of your creation in us.  Our very bodies are a grand metaphor for our significance in you.  May we not confuse our significance with self-importance.  Make our church your body, complete with: hearts to teach, ears to hear, arms to reach, feet to follow, and eyes that faithfully see!  Amen.