The Body of Christ and the New Creation
This morning I’d like to frame our time together with something from Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians. In the fifth chapter he says:
When anyone is in Christ, there’s a new creation. All the old passed away. Everything made new.
Ephesians 4:1-7, 12-13
4 Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. 4 You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.
7 God has given his grace to each one of us measured out by the gift that is given by Christ.
12 God’s purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ 13 until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.
Hear again what St. Paul says at the end of our reading for this morning:
God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.
What does that mean? It means we need to be the grown-ups.
When I was a kid, I used to think how great it would be to be a grown-up. After all, grown-ups get to do whatever they want. That turned out not to be so not true, as many of you know. Then I thought, oh, when I’m a retired grown-up, then, I’ll get to do whatever I want. And it turns out that’s not quite true either, of course.
In any case, St. Paul has a particular vision of a grown-up or mature adult in mind. A mature adult, fully grown measured by the standard of Christ. Measured by the standard of Christ.
Not every way of life or every way of being in community leads to being this sort of grown-up. A particular set of virtues, attitudes, and habits are required.
In our passage this morning, Paul calls us to at least some of that particular set of virtues. St. Paul calls us to:
Humility
Gentleness
Patience
Acceptance of one another with love
And together these virtues allow us to
Make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit that ties us together – we seek agreement, ways to work together.
These virtues are at least some of the ingredients for the recipe of being grownups living out love together. For a group to live together.
To be this sort of new creation community does not happen by accident. It happens by the cultivation of these virtues. These virtues we practice together as we worship together, work together, learn together, play together, live together.
We become grown-ups together bringing forth, living out, nurturing, and demonstrating love in our lives and our life together as the Body of Christ.
Each one of us who has been called into this project – has been given grace, not measured out by mere mortal standards, not measured out by some tiny measuring spoon, but measured out by the gift that is given by Christ. I don’t know exactly what size that is, but I can guarantee you that it’s anything but small. Each of us brings some gift of grace that strengthens, widens, and deepens the web of relationships that bind us together. These are not stingy gifts.
And hear this: we are not constrained by our own individual limitations because we are being invited into a community in which our limitations will be made up for by the grace of others and our grace will make up for the weakness of others.
God’s new creation, coming into being in and through us, takes shape as a pattern of relationships of giving and receiving according to the way of love: the way of Christ.. And further, it is God’s delight to live out that economy through us.
It is God’s delight to live out that economy through us.
This new creation is God living out God’s life in the world through us as Christ’s body.
Let’s focus just for a moment on what St. Paul means when he uses the phrase “the Body of Christ.” – when he says we have been called into the Body of Christ.
How do we understand this?
Here’s the quick take version:
Jesus – flesh and blood historical human -was the Body of Christ. Christ’s presence in the world, God’s presence in the world. The Word made flesh.
But – as the Creed says – Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven. Simply put, that means that the Body of Christ left the world.
But – and here’s the critical point for us: Now we are Christ’s body, that is – God’s bodily presence in the world. We are – in Christ – God’s bodily presence in the world. We – as new creation – become together the Word of God made flesh.
This does not mean that we are the only manifestation of God’s presence in the world. But we are certainly meant to be a particular physical, bodily, real-life instantiation of God’s love in the world. Living out God’s way of radical inclusion, radical generosity, radical forgiveness leading to radical reconciliation, and radical compassion.
We are called to be an inspiration and an encouragement to the whole world to live Jesus’ way of inclusion, generosity, forgiveness, reconciliation and compassion. To live out the new creation system, a new creation economy.
We can think of this new creation economy as a circle of giving and receiving: An economy of God’s abundance.
We are being called to take our place in the new creation circle of giving and receiving: our life practicing humility, gentleness, patience, acceptance, and unity. This circle takes shape as the Body of Christ, God’s presence in the world. A community of grown-ups – measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.
Our lives become larger and more abundant in the new creation as we help each other, encourage each other, pray for each other. Act as though we are in this together. Like we are one body.
We don’t live our this life alone. At our best, we live it celebrating together all the ways we experience and attend to the new creation that is breaking forth within us and around us.
We tend the new creation as we appreciate one another. As we open ourselves up to each other in open-hearted, prayerful, conversation and service.
Grownups by the standard of the fullness of Christ. To be the presence of Christ in the world bringing forth, living out, nurturing, and demonstrating love in our lives together.
What does that mean today?
In our particular context as we are FUMC today, we think about how we function together as a church, how we reach out to our local community and beyond. We think about how we support one another in the difficult situations that we encounter in our lives and how we celebrate our blessings together. We practice living the new creation as the Body of Christ in the world: grown-ups according by the standard of the fullness of Christ.
Jesus convenes a new celebration at the Last Supper at which we recount the heritage of God’s liberating love. We recount Christ’s liberating and reconciling power that is unleashed among us and through us. We recount the Spirit’s infiltration into everything with her refreshing life.
We tend the new creation as we attend Christ’s new banquet table, always hopeful that new ties, new love, new connections are being created among us and spreading out into all the world. At this table we are nourished by the Body of Christ and thus are nourished to be the Body of Christ. We consume the Body of Christ and we are consumed into the Body of Christ.
We take our place in the new creation.
When anyone is in Christ, there’s a new creation.
All the old past away
Everything made new. Everything made new.