Jan. 26, 2024 - One Body

Our tradition shows us that there is wisdom in our bodies and teaches us that we are made in the image of God. In today’s scripture passage, Paul reflects on the church as the Body of Christ—particularly in how the members of the body care for and are connected to one another. To prepare for this reflection on being the One body of Christ, let us spend a couple of minutes in prayer with our bodies. I’ll guide us through a brief meditation on a small but vital part of our bodies—one that has been working overtime for many of us.

From the Greek word for almond, the amygdala is part of a larger network in your brain called the limbic system, which regulates emotions, behavior, motivation, and memory. The amygdala is most known for its role in processing the emotions of fear and anxiety as well as detecting danger. However, research also shows that the amygdala contributes to much more than just fear-based survival instincts and stress. It also plays a key role in social communication and understanding one another, in the emotions related to parenting and caregiving, and in the feelings we connect to our memories.

I invite you to cup your hands like this, imagine that you are holding your amygdala in your hands—or perhaps imagine God’s hands doing so. As you do this, I invite you to reflect on all that your amygdala has been holding, carrying, processing, and protecting for you. It might be working overtime on handling stress, worry, overwhelm, or heartbreak. It might be helping you to love more deeply, understand more broadly, remember more wholly. It could be all of the above. What might it want you to know or see? Just take some time to honor this unique part of your body without trying to change, fix, or judge it. Acknowledge with tenderness all it has been holding for you lately. Hold your amygdala as it has held you. Close your eyes if you are comfortable in this moment of stillness as you hold your emotional brain in your hands.

Careful and Caring Creator, we ask that you bless our beautiful brains and complex bodies as a whole. We lift up the part of us that experiences both fear and compassion, anxiety and deeper understanding, feeling and forecasting. Help us to learn to listen to the wisdom of our bodies and to the connective tissue that lives between us through you. Amen.

​The Gospel: Luke 4: 14-21
The Epistle Reading: 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a      
Children’s Message: Bodies are Cool by Tyler Feder

Bodies are cool, aren’t they? Although we are often critical of our bodies thinking they are too this or not enough of that, if we step back and think about all that our bodies do - how they have a built in ability to repair themselves, to fight invaders, to expand or contract as needed, to continue to grow neural pathways through new experiences to expand our thinking and capacity to learn, love, and understand our God-given bodies are not only cool: they are amazing!

Our bodies are also built to work together. I need both of my legs to walk. I need two hands to tie my shoes, I need my brain to think and feel, my lungs to breathe, my heart to pump blood through my body to let me do all of that and so much more. This body right here, 31 and 27 years ago respectively when joined with love with another, created two more bodies who now have lives of their own. Bodies are cool and the God who created them is amazing!

And just as the many parts of our bodies have to work together for us to breathe, move, eat, work, play, think, and love, so must we all, each and every one of us, work together as the ONE body of Christ as Paul reminds us “God arranged the members of the body, each one of them, as he chose.” All parts of our body work together “the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…but God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension in 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.”

God created us, humanity, to work together. Our church, community, country, and world thrive when we remember this. We are at our best selves when we do this. We saw this in the fires in Southern California when, equally impacted, it no longer mattered whether you were a democrat or a republican, rich or poor, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Muslim, American or immigrant, cisgender or transgender, heterosexual or homosexual - as they gathered together in hotels, shelters and public spaces to support and care for one another and to plan to rebuild.

We are often at our best in times of crisis when all of our senses are firing towards the impulse of survival and caring. Our challenge is remembering that we are all One Body of Christ at ALL times, not just times of crisis. We are called to work together, respecting all of our unique members even if we favor our strong thumb over our weak pinky. Even if we think our lungs or legs are not as strong as they should be, even when we question what our ears hear or our eyes see.

God is the Creator - not a creator. God created all of us - each human, each plant, each animal and endowed all of us with life - an interconnected life that thrives through connections, not divisions. Each and every one of us humans, as different as we all are, has been created in God’s divine image and just as God intended. Each of us is a hand, foot, eye, ear, leg, intestine, lung, heart, or blood of the one God. Any separation we envision, any division we have, is created by man, not God. Jesus came to remind us of that. He came to reconnect humanity into the one body of Christ by bringing good news to all those who had been excluded - the poor, the enslaved, the physically and metaphorically blind, and everyone who was oppressed.

Each of us is unique and perfectly imperfect, yet we are all part of the One Body of Christ. Let’s honor all of our members and, as Paul says, “all rejoice together with it.” Amen.

Pastor Michelle Fountain

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