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Today's Scripture
11All these [ministry gifts] are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
12For 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. 13For 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.
*I Corinthians 12.11-13, NRSV
Wisdom Words
“The incarnation is still going on and it is just as radically physical as when Jesus of Nazareth, in the flesh, walked the dirt roads of Palestine. How can this be?” . . . We are the Body of Christ. This is not an exaggeration, not a metaphor. To say that the body of believers is the Body of Christ is not to say something that scripture does not. Scripture, and Paul in particular, never tells us that the body of believers replaces Christ’s body, nor that it represents Christ’s body, nor even that it is Christ’s mystical body. It says simply: “We are Christ’s body.” . . . If it is true that we are the Body of Christ, and it is, then, God’s presence in the world today depends very much upon us.”
*Ronald Rolheiser. The Holy Longing.
Wisdom Story
A four-year old awoke one night frightened. She was convinced that in the darkness around her there were all sorts of spooks and monsters. Being alone, she ran to her parent’s bedroom. Her mom calmed her down and hand-in-hand led the child back to her own room. The mother turned on a light and reassured her daughter, saying, “You needn’t be afraid, you're not alone here. God is in the room with you.” Replied the child, “I know that God is here, but I need someone in this room who has some skin!”
*Ronald Rolheiser. The Holy Longing.
Comments
Is the Church the collective of all Christians? Yes. Is the Church more than this group of followers of Christ? Yes. The Church is more.
The Church is a Eucharistic community. What does this mean? Here I offer some conclusions.
First, true Christians form a Eucharistic community in that the followers of Christ embody Christ ~ are Christ, a continuation of the Incarnation, are the Incarnation. Paul says "so it is with Christ." This Christ is the Body he refers to being the in-flesh-ing means of Spirit imparting gifts and vitality for the vocation of the communion.
Also, true Christians are a Eucharistic community in that they draw persons, spiritually, to the Table of God, which is the nourishment that flows through the Body of Christ for all persons, not just some persons: "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."
I, while in seminary in New Orleans, attended a worship service in a nearby city. The church had a youth choir of some likely eighty persons. The choir was like other choirs I had seen but with one major difference. Among a sea of Caucasian white youth was one black youth. I stared with tears running from my eyes, for this was the first time I had been honored to see a person of color worshipping with white persons. That night I saw Christ gathered at the Table. I saw the Love who draws persons to share in the Table of God, the drinking of the one Spirit, immersed in and arisen from the same Water. I saw the Church be-ing a Eucharistic communion, where segregation among professing Christians in worship was still the prevalent norm.
This Eucharistic charity is a continuing opening to greater depths and more spacious heights of social embrace. For as John of the Cross affirms:
"[A]s the love of neighbor increases the love of God increases and vice versa. For that which proceeds from God has one and the same cause."
*The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. Trans. K. Kavanaugh, O. Rodriguez.
We as one in-flesh Christ and the whole Body of Christ, first by living in oneness with God in us each. So each individually and all together offer and are Christ as a oneness continuing the Incarnation of God in the world.
“This unity is living and organic. The Church is more than an organization imposing on its members an external uniformity. It is a living organism which unites them by a life that is present and active in the depths of their own being.
*Thomas Merton. Life and Holiness.
This, as I have given above, derives from the early Church's understanding of the Church. This is why Jesus gathers to himself and around the Table his disciples the night of his betrayal and arrest.
Regarding the Eucharist, Francis De Sales, writes to Philothea a true message, though his science lacks:
"And, believe me, just as hares in our mountains become white in winter because they neither see nor eat anything but snow, so by adoring and eating beauty, purity, and goodness itself in this divine sacrament you will become wholly beautiful, wholly good, and wholly pure."
*Introduction to the Devout Life. Trans. and Ed. John K. Ryan.
The Eucharist, indeed, is a sign and sacrament of an internal action whereby we continue partaking of, having infused through our being, and sharing with others the Life of Christ. We are not simply the Body of Christ, we are be-ing the Body of Christ. To do so implies continued conscious choice for no personal relationship can be in process in unconsciousness.
Be-ing the Body of Christ, yes Christ, the skin of Christ in a world beset with confusion and fear, is a sacred honor. This entails continuing to drink of one Spirit infusing Life through the whole Church. In this continued infusion are we enabled to be be-ing a Eucharistic community.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.
Yours are the feet with which
He is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which
He is to bless us now.
*Teresa of Avila
Reflection
In what ways are you be-ing the Body of Christ? The faith community to which you belong be-ing the Christ?
How are you continuing to drink of one Spirit with others who are in the true Church?
How are you sharing the one drink of the Spirit with persons who do know know personally the Love of Christ?
For Brian's on-line audio sermons, go to www.wherethelightshines.org and select Pastor's Corner; on the following page is his weekly sermons given at Christ United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL.
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For replies and biographical information, and submission to "The Light Shines" daily devotionals ~ a ministry of Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL, see next page:
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