Where
did he go, the broken body, the strapping thirty-year-old, where did he go, my
love, the crucified, the friend who ate with us at dawn by the lake? Peer
into the clouds, scan the stratosphere; you must find him and bring him back,
we cannot live without this glorious body. For in him the fullness of the
divine dwells, and where he has gone, the fullness of our humanity has
followed, and who are we, without our humanity?
A
human body is now with God, as we Christians say, seated in equal power, and so
we stare at the sky amazed, searching for our lost humanity.
The
gospel readings set for scripture we have been hearing since Easter Day has
been leading us step by step towards today's disappearing act. Early on, the
story of Thomas and the wounds warned us to believe without seeing; then the
story of the road to Emmaus suggested that we meet Christ every time we gather
to share the meaning of the scriptures and to eat together -- every Sunday we
recognize him in the breaking of the bread. Then we were warned that Jesus is a
door through which we walk to green pastures, safety, and fulfillment; then the
remarkable statement: I am in the Father and the Father in me.
The
Christian community that wrote these words back in the first century had come
to the realisation that the absent friend was none other than God. And finally,
last Sunday we heard above vines and branches, and were reminded that our life
flows from the life of God in Christ. In many ways, through several stories, the
Gospels have been telling us about the meaning of our lives as Christians when
our lover, Jesus, is gone. We have been gently guided to trust this absent
lover.
But
where is his Body? you say, scanning the sky. Luke, writing in Acts foresaw
your question, and so the angel says to the disciples, "Why are you people
standing there looking up to heaven? The body you are looking for is not
there." The letter to the Ephesians points clearly to where it is: for God
has "...put all things under Christ's feet and has made him the head over
all things for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all
in all."
You
are his Body. Look in the mirror when you look for Christ. But you are not his
Body alone. Rather, we are his body, together.
His
Body, gathering week by week, --physically gathered together, hearing scripture
with our bodies, praying with our bodies, with our bodies praising a Ruler who
is far above all the powers and principalities, presidents and governments of
this world.
A
body gathered to eat at a table open to all, acting out for all to see and
touch, to hear and smell, the New World of justice which God is giving birth to
among us even now. We gather to eat, and we have a glimpse of what it feels to
be truly human, made in God's image.
The
Body gathered to wash and anoint new members, dramatically acting out the
meaning of Jesus's own dying and rising, repeated in our own sharing in his
passing. We wash new members of our Body to give them a memorable experience of
new birth. For belonging to Christ --and not to the powers and principalities
of this world-- is like a new birth.
The
Body gathered to celebrate the mystery of love between two persons, pointing to
lovers and saying, "there is God, between them, praise the Lord!"
--and seeing in their faithfulness, a distant echo of Christ's own faithfulness
to us, and our longing for him. The Body gathered to forgive sins --even in a
private confession the whole church is present-- proclaiming the deeply
subversive Good News: your sins are forgiven.
The
Body gathered to lovingly anoint its sick members, recognizing Christ in them,
and committing ourselves to minister to them, attempting to mirror, in our life
together, God's own infinite compassion and mercy, even when in death we gather
to honour a person's life and tenderly honour the body that once serve it.
The
Body gathered to praise God for leaders, to appoint them as such, to recognize
the blessing and torment of leadership based on service, flowing from our
memory of being sent out by Christ in service to the world.
Unlike
Thomas, we are invited to trust without seeing. Unlike the disciples at Emmaus,
our hearts burn, and we recognise him without his being here physically. Unlike
his own disciples, who denied him, we trust him like a door to lead us to our
happiness. Unlike the Pharisees, we trust that he is God. For we are grafted
unto him like branches, and his physical presence has passed into our
celebrations as a gathered people. Here, in the washing, eating, listening,
announcing, praying, anointing, forgiving, marrying, healing, burying, we are
Love's own Body, taken, blessed, broken and given for the life of the world.
--Much more interesting, if you ask me, than I used to find reading the Sunday
paper in bed.
No,
we should not be looking up to heaven; The Body of Christ that is gone, is, in
fact, right here. We are that Body, which is why, we will instinctively greet
each other in worship with Christ's own words of greeting: "peace be with
you."
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