Third Sermon at Emmanuel Church in Cumberland RI

Third Sunday after Epiphany Year C
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 & I Corinthians 12:12-31a

Nehemiah was the cupbearer of the Persian King Artaxerxes. If we were to have read the beginning of the book of Nehemiah we would have heard that Nehemiah was a fairly happy guy. However, when he heard of the state that Jerusalem was in after the exile, he was so grieved that Artaxerxes noticed the change in his cupbearer and sent him back to Jerusalem to restore the city’s walls so that Jerusalem could be returned to her former glory. What we heard today comes from after these walls have been rebuilt. Nehemiah’s love for God and his grief over the dilapidated condition of Jerusalem moved him to return to Jerusalem and enabled him to inspire the Israelites to rebuild the walls regardless of any opposition they faced. We hear that after the wall was rebuilt, all the people were gathered together, and Ezra read to them the law.
Now, this is where it gets interesting for me. You see, after the law is read to all the people, and after it is explained to them, the people begin to weep. Jerusalem is being restored to her former glory, the Israelites are free to return to their homeland, things are going pretty well, weeping is not the response that I would expect. So when I read this I wonder, why do the people weep when they hear the law? What could lead them to this response? Do they weep at the restrictions being placed on them by the law, for instance in Deuteronomy 14:21 the law says that they should not “boil a kid [a baby goat] in it’s mother’s milk” which would have been explained to them as meaning they shouldn’t mix meat and dairy, I mean, I might weep if I was told I couldn’t have a cheeseburger ever again. Or more seriously, could they have been weeping at the beauty of God’s will expressed through the law, seeing beyond cultic rituals and rules to the love of God expressed in the law?
I was talking with a friend yesterday about this reading and he put forth the idea that the people are weeping because in the law they hear of God’s love, in the law they hear that they are God’s chosen people and they do not believe themselves to be worthy of this. They are weeping at their unworthiness in the face of God’s love.
I wonder, how many of us here can relate to this?
How many of us question whether or not we are worthy of love, not only God’s love, but even the love of other people?
How many of us ask ‘why me?’, not in the face of adversity but in response to a love we don’t think ourselves worthy of. In the face of such great love that we cannot even begin to understand how we could be worthy of it. I get an idea of this in thinking about my family. In thinking about the love that my parents have for me, the love that my aunts and uncles have for me. No matter how awesome I may think I am it’s easy to question whether or not I’m worthy of the degree of the love they have for me.
How much greater must this doubt be when thinking about God’s love for us? How could we ever be worthy of that?
We get an answer to these questions in today’s reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In this passage Paul fleshes out what he means when he talks about the Body of Christ. If you were here when I came this past summer you’ll remember that I preached then on the Body of Christ, how all people are unified in Jesus Christ. How through our faith in Jesus we become the Body of Christ and are thus adopted as children of God.
Being the Body of Christ has a lot to say to these questions of doubt that arise in the face such great love. Being the Body of Christ answers the question ‘why me?’. Because God’s love is not given because we deserve it. In fact, any question of worth does not even come up. Through our adoption as children of God, achieved by our Lord Jesus Christ, we receive God’s love without any question of whether or not we deserve it, without any questions regarding our worth. We receive God’s love simply because we are God’s children.
It is through our becoming members of the Body of Christ, becoming children of God that we can answer these questions of doubt, but being a member of the Body of Christ has implications for us. In today’s passage from First Corinthians we hear about these implications. And what sticks out to me from this, no doubt because of the recent earth quake in Haiti, is the verse, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it”.
In the past two weeks since the earthquake hit Haiti there has been a great outpouring of support and aid from both the secular and religious world. This is a wonderful thing and it is very important, especially in situations such as this and it speaks to what Paul is saying about the Body of Christ, about how when one suffers all suffer. We, as members of the Body of Christ, are giving not to receive anything back, but in recognition that as long as our Haitian brothers and sisters are suffering, we all are suffering alongside them.
This verse that stuck out to me, doesn’t end in talking about how we share in suffering though. You’ll remember it goes on to say, “if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it”. This verse stuck out to me not only because of the line about suffering and recent tragedies but also because of this line about rejoicing and something I saw on Emmanuel Church’s facebook page. An event was advertised on this page labeled as a ‘guerilla ministry event’ where people met up and went to watch a member of this church coach a JV team at Cumberland high school. I don’t know much about these ‘guerilla ministry events’ but if they are all like this, they seem like natural things for members of the Body of Christ to be doing. For, in supporting and caring for each other in these and other ways, you are honoring each other and rejoicing together.
This verse that I’ve been talking about aptly sums up the implications for us as members of the Body of Christ. We are so linked up in the lives of each other that when one suffers we all suffer, and when one rejoices we all rejoice. This is because when we say that we are members of one holy catholic and apostolic Church, when we say that we are members of the Body of Christ, we are not just paying lip service to some ideal about unity. We are truly one through our faith in Christ.
Nehemiah told the Israelites not to weep, but rather to “eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared” he also told them, “do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength”. Throughout Paul’s writings we hear much the same thing. We need not weep before God in fear of whether or not we deserve God’s love, as God’s children we can rejoice in the knowledge that we receive God’s unconditional love unconditionally, we receive this love no questions asked. And as God’s children we are called to share in the lives of all our brothers and sisters, we are call to share in their suffering and to share in their happiness. So rejoice and “do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength”.
Amen.