On good recommendations, I have been reading the book, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This has been an excellent true story of perseverance, teamwork, and fighting the systems of this world with the commitment to values of the next. Nine young men who are counted out of the prestigious world of rowing for socioeconomic status, geographic location, familial background, as well as democratic grit up and against the rising Nazism. These young men pull together to learn the sport of rowing and working together. In rowing, there are not nine opinions of how to steer or propel the boat, there is one. I was reminded of the importance of one objective achieved by nine persons working together on their given roles.
Closest to the stern is the stroke, rower number eight. During a race, it is the stroke’s responsibility to establish the crew’s rate (number of strokes per minute) and rhythm. If the stroke increases or decreases the rate, it is essential that rower number seven follow this change, so that it is translated to the rest of the crew. The rowers in the middle of the boat, three through six, do not have to be as technically sound or reactive to the movements of the boat, and can focus more on pulling as hard as they can. The bow pair of bow and “two”, who are the two rowers closest to the boat’s bow, are more responsible for the stability and the direction of the boat than any other pair of rowers, and are often very technical rowers. Lastly, the role of a coxswain is to: steer the boat, provide motivation and encouragement to the crew, inform the crew of where they are in relation to other crews and the finish line, make any necessary race tactic calls.
If the coxswain says to the middle rowers, I have no need of you, you are not steering the boat – where would the strength be? If the stroke would say to the bow pair, I have not need of you, you do not propel us forward- where would the stability be? Hidden in this body is a gem that could have come straight out of the letters of the apostle Paul: “Perhaps the seeds of redemption lay not just in perseverance, hard work, and rugged individualism. Perhaps they lay in something more fundamental—the simple notion of everyone pitching in and pulling together.” Redemption lays in the work of the body of Christ serving God together as the whole body of Christ.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, further lays out our more familiar image of the whole body of Christ. It moves from our individual bodies composed of varying parts needing to work in concert in order to function to our individual bodies working together in concert to serve God and God’s people. In profound and imagined talking feet, we hear the questions asked if we were without parts of individual body, how would we function? We are invited into the natural connection of asking, if we are without parts of our communal body, how do we function?
Karoline Lewis, professor of homiletics at Luther seminary in Minnesota writes this: “Being a member of the body of Christ means an absolute, out-and-out conjoining of one with the other, a sister or brother in Christ. To exist in division, to see only difference and not the unity we are able to profess because of Christ, to demand conformity without celebration of difference, is to entertain the notion of dismemberment. We will find ourselves cut off from the very source of our life, our existence, and in a way, our ability to be most fully who we are. To what extent are we able to live out fully our callings when we are not able to rely on and give support to others to live out theirs? Is it not true that who we are called to be necessitates our fellow members of the body of Christ to embrace and embody their callings?”
In this season of Easter, yes! Easter is a season – the fifty great days, it is called. In this season of Easter, we are called again to remember who the Risen Christ calls us to be in the world. Christ does not call us to remain behind closed doors and only tell stories of how it used to be. Christ calls us to go into the entire world, using the giftedness of the whole body. In the weeks to come in Easter, we will be exploring different parts of the body, different gifts, and different callings on our lives as a church and as individuals.
The chronic temptation for the church is to remain behind the closed doors – private and personal, safe and predictable, inward focused and inward growth. This is our reputation in the world as well. I was reading a study this week, Missing Connections: Public Perceptions of Theological Education and Religious Leadership. The study suggests that the perception of seminaries, clergy, and churches all together is that we have little to no interest in the world around us. That we would rather polish our brass and dust our stained glass than do the actual work of Christ in the world. Ouch! That stings! That realistic perception stings too close to home and too far from the body Christ calls us to be. In the study one of the respondent clearly speaks: “It will be the churches that save society because none of [the] other forces have any moral component.” This respondent is described as a BUSINESS LEADER. Someone outside the church who gets it better than we ourselves, sometimes do.
I understand that often, we like the disciples, have fear beyond our doors. We are not sure what we will encounter, if we go into the community, offering food, teaching English, playing with children, fixing up the homes of those in need, visiting the elderly, and loving our neighbors. Our gospel lesson reminds us that the body of Christ includes everyone and includes those about whom we are not sure. The whole body includes Thomases, those who doubt and need more proof. Through Thomas, we are reminded that God meets us where we are and takes us beyond ourselves. But we best serve God and God’s people by using the giftedness of the whole body of Christ.
In the book, these boys go through fistfights with other countries while in Germany, working and rowing together through the worst of conditions, including freezing sleet, pouring rain, and the coldest of days. In the end these boys end on top with a gold medal in Berlin, defeating the favorite, Britain. Whether it be from being behind in a race and overcoming the other teams, or losing a team mate during a race, these boys have stuck together through it all. As the body of Christ, we are called to find compassion even for the parts of the body, we find to be least honorable. We are called to celebrate and cry with those we like least, the ones who we would rather not regard as part of the body at all.
This week, I invite you to re-member a part of the body of Christ, you have not valued. Who is like the baby toe of the body of Christ for you? Seems almost like we can do without them, but when the baby toe is missing, we loose our balance? Who is like the nose hairs of the body of Christ for you? Seems almost like we can do without them, but when you have no nose hairs, junk and debris gets into the system. RE-member the WHOLE body of Christ this week. If we are called to be the body of Christ, we need all the members! Embrace your own baby toes and nose hairs as you embrace the full of our body of Christ.
This is the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
1. Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Daniel James Brown, 2014, 123.
2. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=549
3. Elizabeth Lynn and Barbara G. Wheeler, Missing Connections: Public Perceptions of Theological Education and Religious Leadership, September 1999.
New Testament Lesson: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
One Body with Many Members
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Gospel Lesson: John 20:19-31
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Jesus and Thomas
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
The Purpose of This Book
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.