Sixteenth Sunday of the Year: The Church as the Body of Christ ( on the Epistle)

William Barclay, a famous Bible scholar, has this beautiful illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church:

Suppose a great doctor discovers a cure for cancer. Once that cure is found, it is there. But before it can become available for everyone, it must be taken out to the world. Doctors and surgeons must know about it and be trained to use it. The cure is there, but one person cannot take it out to all the world; a corps of doctors must be the agents whereby it arrives at all the world’s sufferers.

That precisely is what the church is to Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus that all people and all nations can be reconciled to God. But before that can happen, they must know about Jesus Christ, and it is the task of the church to bring that about. Christ is the head; the church is the body. The head must have a body through which it can work. The church is quite literally hands to do Christ’s work, feet to run upon His errands, and a voice to speak His words.

The identity of Christ with the church was the first lesson that Paul learnt in his life as a Christian. Before his conversion Paul, then known as Saul, saw Christians as a bunch of infidels deserving of death. When Christ appeared to him in a vision as he rode to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, Christ’s first words to him were: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) The voice came from heaven, so how could Saul be persecuting Christ on earth? Paul then understood that the heavenly Christ and the earthly church are one and the same thing. What you do to the church you do to Christ.

The vison on the way to Damascus taught Paul that even though Christ was already enjoying divine glory with the heavenly Father, it was still possible for him to suffer through the suffering of Christians. That is how Paul came to the realization that the church is the body of Christ. When he says in today’s second reading from the letter to the Colossians that “in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Colossians 1:24),” he does not mean that the suffering of Christ by which he redeemed us was deficient. He only meant to underline the fact that so long as Christians are suffering persecution in this world, Christ was still suffering, in his body, that is. When we realize that Paul wrote this letter from prison (verse 4:3) in Rome where he and other Christians were still being persecuted for their faith, then we see why he understands their suffering as Christ’s ongoing suffering. When Christians suffer, Christ suffers.

Paul says of the church, “I became its servant according to God's commission that was given to me for you (verse 1:25).” For Paul being a servant of Christ and being a servant of the church are one and the same thing. There is no separating Christ and the church. What you do for the church you do for Christ.

There is a funny game in which people are asked, “If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be, and why?” Some say they would like to be a mango, delicious and irresistible; others that they would love to be an apple, hard but good for your health, and yet others a cactus fruit, thorny on the outside, but delicious in the inside. Today, we could play a similar game. If you are the body of Christ, what part of Christ’s body are you? Are you Christ’s feet bringing him to other people, like the Eucharistic ministers bringing Holy Communion to the sick? Are you Christ’s hand wiping away the tears of the afflicted or helping to put a roof over the head of the homeless? Or are you Christ’s mouth announcing Good News to the poor? As a church we are Christ’s body. As an individual, what part of Christ’s body are you? What are you contributing to the well-being of Christ in his body, the church? Each of us is invited to answer this question for himself or herself today

Sixteenth Sunday of the Year: The Lord of the work, and the work of the Lord (Gospel)

A certain Catholic missionary was doing a very good job in his mission village in the African interior. In a few years he had baptized many people and built a church, a school and a health centre. Owing to his restless work schedule he took ill and had to be flown back to his native country in Europe for treatment. After many months he was well enough to return to Africa. To his surprise and utter disappointment he discovered that the whole village had abandoned his church and turned to a local evangelical preacher. Even the church he built now had an evangelical signboard in front of it. “What went wrong?” he asked himself. How did his flourishing mission collapse overnight. “What did I do wrong?” he asked his former church members. The truth hit home one day when a woman said to him, “Father, you did a lot for us. You gave our children clothes and built up our village. But there was one thing you did not do. You did not bring us to know Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour.” Doing the work of the Lord is great. But knowing the Lord of the work comes first. Today’s gospel is the story of two sisters, Martha who is busy with the work of the Lord, and Mary who is more interested in knowing the Lord of the work. For Martha service comes first, for Mary relationship comes first. Like the missionary in our story, Martha must have been shocked to hear the Lord himself saying that it is relationship with him that comes first, for without it our service is meaningless. There are people who see Martha in this story as the material girl and Mary as the spiritual one. The association of Martha with materialism is easier to make in the English language where the name Martha seems to rhyme with the word “matter.” But this way of thinking in terms of separation between spirit and matter does not belong to the gospel of Luke. Rather Luke presents Martha and Mary as two sisters who are both interested in the Lord, two women who both want to please the Lord. The difference between them is the manner in which they go about trying to please the Lord. Martha takes the way of service or working for the Lord. Mary takes the way of relationship or being with the Lord. Mark tells us that when Jesus called the apostles to follow him, he called them for a dual purpose: “to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message” (Mark 3:14). The need, on the one hand, to be with the Lord, to know him, to fellowship with him and be nourished by his word and, on the other hand, to do the Lord’s work, to serve the Lord in others, to proclaim his message of love in word and deed, brings us to a conflict. Which one comes first? How much of my time should I devote to being with the Lord, to prayer and listening to God’s word, and how much time to doing the work of the Lord? In spite of the urgent need to throw ourselves into the work of the Lord, it is only logical to say that my relationship with the Lord of the work comes before my involvement with the work of the Lord. The point of the story of Jesus with May and Martha is not to invite us to choose between being a Martha or a Mary. The true disciple needs to be both Martha and Mary. The point of the story is to challenge our priorities so that we come to see that fellowship with the Lord, being with the Lord and hearing his word should always precede the work we do for the Lord. Do we have a program of daily fellowship with the Lord? Many people fulfill this by assisting daily in the Eucharist where they can also hear the word of God. Others schedule a holy hour or quiet time when they can pray and read the word of God. Whatever way we fulfill this need, today’s gospel invites all Christians first to be a Mary who sits with devotion at the Lord’s feet listening his word, and then also to be a Martha who throws herself with energy into the business of serving the Lord.

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR: NEIGHBORS WITHOUT BOARDERS (Gospel)

Catherine Booth, co-founder with her husband William Booth of the Salvation Army, was an electrifying preacher. Wherever she went, crowds of people went to hear her message of hope: princes and nobles, beggars and homeless people. One night, after preaching in a certain city, a certain well-placed lady invited Mrs. Booth to dinner. The lady’s words of welcome as she arrived were: “My dear Mrs. Booth, that meeting was dreadful.” “What do you mean, dear?” asked Mrs. Booth. “Oh, when you were speaking, I was looking at those people opposite to me. Their faces were so terrible, many of them. I don’t think I shall sleep tonight!” “Why, dear, don’t you know them?” Mrs. Booth asked. “Certainly not!” the hostess replied. “Well, that is interesting,” Mrs. Booth said. “I did not bring them with me from London; they are your neighbours!” The Golden Rule, “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27) which we hear in today’s gospel is not just a Christian thing. Every conceivable religion and culture in the world has the Golden Rule in one form or another. Here is a sampling: Judaism “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the law: all the rest is commentary.” Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.” Buddhism “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Confucianism: “Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” If the Golden Rule was so well-known in ancient cultures why then did Jesus spend so much time teaching it as if it was a new thing? It is because Jesus brought a completely new understanding to the commandment. The Golden Rule is understood differently in different religions and cultures. And the key to its understanding lies in the question that the lawyer asks Jesus in today’s gospel, “Who is my neighbour?” (verse 29). Who is my neighbour that I have an obligation to love? Among the Jews of Jesus’ time there were those who understood “neighbour” in a very limited sense. The Essenes of Qumran, for example, required new members to swear to love the children of light and hate the children of darkness. For them, your neighbour is the one who shares the same religious persuasion as yourself. Other groups, such as the Zealots, would understand neighbour to include only those who shared the same nationality and ethnicity with them. The average Jew would not regard the Samaritan as a neighbour. They are outsiders. The circle of neighbourly love does not include them. Jesus came into a world of “we” and “them,” “we” being the circle of those recognised as neighbours, and “them” being the rest of the world regarded as hostile strangers and enemies of the people. The new thing in Jesus’ teaching of neighbourly love is his insistence that all humanity is one big neighbourhood. Thus he broke down the walls of division and the borders of prejudice and suspicion that humans erected between “us” and “them.” To bring home this point he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. This man regarded as Enemy Number One by the Jewish establishment simply because he is Samaritan, is the one who finally proves himself to be neighbour to the Jewish man in need. Thus to the question “Who is my neighbour” Jesus’ answer is: Anyone and everyone without exception. The lady who invited Mrs Booth to dinner understood her “neighbour” to be limited only to those on her social and economic level. Mrs Booth reminded her that her “neighbour” should include the nobodies of society. Like this lady, we all need to be reminded that the Christian understanding of “neighbour” admits of no borders. Today is the day to identity and tear down all the borders we have erected between those who belong to us (and are, therefore, deserving of our love and concern) and those who don’t (those others who can go to hell). Sometimes these walls of division are religious in nature, as in the case of religious intolerance, or in the mutual distrust and hatred between those who call themselves “conservatives” and those who call themselves “liberals.” Other times they are ethnic and racial, as in the bad blood between Blacks and Whites in places like South Africa and parts of the United State. They could also be social and economic, as in the divide between suburban neighbourhoods and the inner-city. The gospel today challenges us all to dismantle these walls. This way we work with Jesus to realise his dream of the world as a neighbourhood without borders.

FIFTEETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR:Do not give the devil undue honour (On the Epistle)

In the wake of the sex scandals in the church in parts of the world, many Christians have stopped going to church. Convinced that the storms rocking the church is the work of the devil, they conclude that the devil has infiltrated the church and that it is, therefore, safer to abandon ship and go elsewhere. This reminds us of what happened in 1988,when a popular tele-evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, was implicated in a sex scandal involving a prostitute. The Assemblies of God, to which he belonged, ordered him to stop preaching for one year. But Swaggart defied the order. “The devil made me do it,” he claimed. Then he announced that Oral Roberts, another popular Evangelical preacher, had prayed for him over the phone and cast out those demons in his body that were responsible for his immoral behaviour. Three years later, Swaggart was again implicated in a sex scandal with a prostitute. Swaggart was finally defrocked and removed from the ministry by the Assemblies of God. There comes a time when we have to leave the devil alone and accept our responsibilities.

The growing wave of Pentecostalism in our world today has reawakened the devil. Like Swaggart, many Christians in our world today see the devil where there is none. This is especially true in the young churches of Africa and the developing world, where the devil is blamed for every ill health and economic downturn. Someone has an unexpected ill heath. Their first port of call is not a hospital where the disease could be diagnosed but to a prayer ministry where the demon would be exorcised. Someone has a professional or business setback. They do not review their professional conduct or seek help from a business consultant, rather they resort to the ministrations of a “man of God.” In some prayer meetings, half of the time is spent praying to God and the other half rebuking the devil. The devil is enjoying a very high popularity rating.
The revival of the devil’s popularity is not a new thing in the church. The church has seen it before. It was there in the early days of the church as the church was spreading from Jewish to Gentile lands. It was known as Gnosticism. Christian Gnosticism is a belief system that gave as much importance to God or Christ as to the devil. Gnostics saw life as a combat between the principle of Good, God, and the principle of evil, the devil. As Christians, they understood their duty to be joining God in a daily fight against the devil. The devil was seen as God’s rival and competitor, only that God was somewhat stronger than the devil, especially when God got a helping hand from believers. The church condemned Gnosticism as a heresy, a deviation from sound doctrine.
Today’s second reading from Colossians cannot be clearer on this subject. It says of Christ,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. (Col 1:15-16)It says that all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, were created in Christ, through Christ and for Christ. This includes the invisible created beings we call demons or rebellious angels. They still owe their existence, powers and activities to God. They do not pose a threat or constitute a rivalry to God.
Christ, not the devil, but Christ, is the head of the body, the church (Col 1:18). Christ is king, and he still reigns as head in his church and in the lives of all who surrender their lives to him. As Christians, we dishonour Christ when we believe that the devil in in control of our church or our lives. Whatever is going well in the church and in our lives today is as a result of God’s grace, and whatever is going wrong in the church and in our lives today is as a result of our failure to cooperate with the grace of God. We must stop glorifying the devil, giving him an honour that is not his due.