BODY PARTS
Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-16

FOCUS: We are called to cling to each other, each serving as a valuable part of the Body of Christ for the transformation of the world.

As we gather this morning, all across the nation events are being held which call us to remember those who have served in our nation’s military services and to honor those who serve today. It is a good thing to honor and to remember those who have given selflessly of themselves in service to us as they protect the freedom which is ours. On Veteran’s Day we remember those who paid the ultimate price, who gave their lives in defense of the ideals we hold dear as a nation. We give thanks to those who still serve and to those who have completed their service on our behalf.

For us as a church family today is also a day to consider another kind of important service. While not all of us are called to serve through our nation’s military, all of us are called to serve in what is sometimes called God’s army. In a few minutes we will be invited to gather at the altar together with our biological families and with our family of faith. As we kneel or stand before God’s altar we will be given the opportunity to leave there a simple piece of paper on which we will have marked our commitments of prayer, presence, financial stewardship and compassionate service in God’s name.

For four weeks we have been focusing in worship and during our times of personal devotion on the challenge to reconnect with God, with each other and with all of God’s children. We have been challenged to reconnect and to refocus. Sports teams practice, a lot. Teachers are required to take continuing education courses. Successful students are particularly attentive during review classes. Even the most senior of my ministerial colleagues must participate in continuing education activities each year.

So why all the fuss about practice, about refresher courses, about reconnection and refocus? Experience teaches us that without practice, absent the reviews, lacking an occasional refresher course, we all tend to lose a bit of our edge. We forget things we once knew almost without thinking. We lose touch with that which once was second nature. We allow our once sharp skills to become a bit rusty and miss out on new innovations which could make us more effective. For whatever reason, God created us with minds that wander and spirits that occasionally dry out. That is why it is important to have these annual autumnal emphases on stewardship. We need to be refreshed, we need to be reminded of what is most important, we need to reconnect with all that makes life most worthwhile and eternally meaningful.

Now I am no more a fan of stewardship messages than are some of you. They tend to make folks uncomfortable, but they are necessary and it is sometimes a good thing to be made uncomfortable. Furthermore, over the years my dread has been significantly reduced as I have come to recognize the truth that stewardship is not meant to be painful, is not some draconian punishment dreamed up by God to make life miserable for congregations and uncomfortable for we who preach to them. Stewardship is about faithfulness and is, like most disciplines, perhaps a bit painful at times, but far more beneficial than we might at first realize.

As we become more and more aware of the need to be true stewards, those who honor God by caring for all the bounty with which we have been blessed, we come to reap and to understand the benefits of working with God for the building up of God’s kingdom, for the transformation of the world and for our own good. Good stewardship is good for everybody. That is the whole point of the concept of the Body of Christ which we find in this morning’s scripture as well as in numerous other places in the New Testament.

Paul used the human body as an illustration of the way the church, the Body of Christ, is designed by god to work. The human body is an amazing collection of organs, systems and variously equipped individual parts, all of which work together flawlessly, most of the time. All of which combine their efforts to accomplish tasks both simply and highly complex. Think of the simple act of taking a step, an act which, for much of our lives, most of us can take for granted.

Our eyes see where we ought to step as light enters through the lens and is focused on the retina where specialized cells called rods and cones convert the light into electrical impulses which are send via the optic nerve to the brain which interprets the message. Then the brain sends out a message through another nerve to the legs and feet instructing them to fire up muscles which will move bones and skin and ligaments resulting in our taking a step, all without requiring us to give the process so much as a second thought. I know that is a significantly oversimplified explanation of what is an amazing activity, but you get the point. Our bodies are complex, extremely complex. They are composed of 210 distinctly different cell types and made up of between 50 and 75 trillion different cells, all working together to make us the remarkable creatures that we are.

We, the church, are called to be a functioning, productive and lively body. Much like our amazing human bodies, the church is made of all kinds of parts. And like our bodies, the church functions best when each part does what it was created to do in concert with all the other parts. I gave the example of taking that step. For most of us, for a good portion of our lives taking steps is second nature, something which happens without thinking and with little conscious effort. But some of us are painfully aware that, as that old age thing begins to work on us, the eyes may not see what lies in our way like they once did. And the brain may send those messages to the knees and hips and feet to take that step and the arthritic joints may respond by blessing us with shooting pain, or may refuse to make the once simple moves at all. And when that happens, life becomes much more difficult that it once was.

So it is in the church. When some of the parts break down and fail to perform their chosen function, it affects the whole body, pains the whole organism. There are certainly times when tragedy, disease and brokenness strike in our midst and result in systemic breakdowns. My experience is that when that happens, the body is amazingly adept at compensating and overcoming. Some of the times when I have seen this church and other churches at their strongest have been as they have banded together in the midst of tragedy and hardship.

On the other hand, the times when I have seen churches the most divided, the most dysfunctional, the most fractured it has not been the result of externally imposed difficulty. The trouble has been a direct result of internal conflict or neglect. When our human bodies become ill, it is frequently because some organ, some system, some part is no longer performing its function effectively. When the church is most in danger, it is because parts of the body are not doing what they were created to do, or worse are attacking other parts with whom they may have disagreements. It is as various parts begin to come unstuck from the whole that the body most suffers. Enter the world of zygology.

Zygology is the science of adhesion. It is an obscure field to be sure, but also oddly interesting and surprisingly relevant to what we are called to be about as a church. It raises the question, “What is it that binds and joins us together as a Christian community?” In a world that seems to be coming apart at the seams, what is it that keeps us from falling apart as a community of faith? Such questions are as ancient as is the church itself. They are at the heart of a sticky situation that Paul addressed back at the beginning of the first millennium. Concerned about the unity of churches in Asia Minor, the apostle challenged the Ephesians to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Paul knew full well that there existed a diversity of spiritual gifts among the Christians of the region, just as there exists great variety among us here today. And Paul understood that such diversity can lead to either a splintering of a misguided community or to a binding together of the amazing Body of Christ.

Here is where zygology comes in. Effective adhesion begins at the microscopic level. It requires thinking small, microscopically small. Research has revealed that for something to act as an effective adhesive binding things together, it must have at least two molecular qualities: mobility and the capacity to form strong links. An effective adhesive must have mobility. Its molecules must be able to flow into the nooks and crannies of a broken object in order to bring molecules close enough to bond with one another. Just think of what happens when a little honey is placed between two fingers. You can feel an attraction - it's a sticky mess. It has mobility, as we all know when we spread some on a piece of toast. But would honey be good glue for use in repairing a broken treasure?

Of course not! Mobility alone is not enough. To be an effective adhesive, a material must not only flow onto both surfaces, its molecules must also form strong links with each other so they are not separated as they bind with the surfaces they seek to reconnect. While honey has sugar molecules that are attracted to each other as well as to other molecules, it's not sticky enough to use as an adhesive. For that, we need something like the flour-and-water paste once familiar to schoolchildren. When wet, the paste is mobile. But as it dries, the long starch molecules in the flour become intertwined with each other and are very difficult to separate. Protein molecules can also do the job, as can synthetic materials such as polyvinyl alcohol, which can be dissolved in water to make "white glue," think Elmers.

But what's the significance of all this zygology for theology? What's the link between the science of binding and the faith of the church? What do mobility and strong-linkability have to do with the unity of the Body of Christ? Everything. In the person of Jesus Christ, the church finds the one "adhesive" that binds the church together. He is highly mobile, the apostle tells us, active in a variety of spiritual nooks and crannies as he gives his followers an entire spectrum of spiritual gifts. "The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers," writes Paul, "gifts given to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God". If Jesus were not mobile, were unwilling to flow into areas of light and darkness, health and brokenness, he would be unable to bind together the many diverse pieces of his sanctified and sinning church.

Jesus Christ is in the church, always moving, exploring, infusing, infiltrating and inspiring his people in new ways. There is not a single soul that he cannot reach, nor a single crisis in the community that he cannot mend. If the church needs a prophet, he can equip one; if there is need of a compassionate caregiver, he will call one; if people hunger for a pastor, he can deliver one; if students are missing a teacher, he will empower one. The spiritual gifts of Jesus Christ are not one size fits all, rather, they flow in various forms into the places they are needed most. Our challenge is to first recognize those gifts in ourselves and in others then to receive them and to allow them to bind us together for the building up of God’s kingdom and for the transformation of the world.

But remember, mobility alone does not create a strong adhesive. There must also be a bonding together of various pieces. Jesus Christ seeks to create an incredibly strong link within the community of faith. The healthy Body of Christ will experience a kind of chemical reaction in the course of its ministry and mission, one that forms an inseparable bond. Paul identifies this binding reaction as "speaking the truth in love". Because Christ is committed to both justice and mercy, both truth and love are indispensable elements in the glue that holds us together. Truth without love can be harsh and judgmental, while love without truth is often soft and undisciplined, but together these two form an indestructible bond. When both honesty and compassion are practiced within the church, links develop between surprisingly diverse groups of people, and the Body of Christ is strengthened. Speaking the truth in love, proclaims Paul, allows us to "grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up in love."

The church needs to recover a sense of what and who it is that holds it together. It is not the color of our skin. It is not our preferences in music, our socio-economic status or our political affiliation. It is not our gender or our marital status, our clothes or our language, our bishop or even our doctrinal idiosyncrasies that matter. Until we remember that we are called to be bound together in the person of Jesus Christ, sticking to and with to one another in a culture of love and truth, sharing our various gifts, working for the common good and for the transformation of the world, we will be in danger of falling apart.

But when we recognize who we are, when we commit ourselves to the process of reconnection with God, with each other and with all of God’s people, when we intentionally practice the discipline of spiritual zygology, we will find that we have what it takes to stick together. And together we will truly be the Body of Christ, equipped to make a difference in the world as we work together to accomplish remarkable things none of us could ever do alone. For your sake, for the sake of the community in which we live and serve, and for the sake of the kingdom of God, let it be so. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.