Life Abundant
May 15, 2011
John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47
Have you ever thought of your body as sacramental? That is to say, have you ever considered your body as a visible sign of an invisible grace? Have you ever thought of your body as a means of grace, a way for grace to be made manifest in the world? Have you ever thought of your body as a sacrament?
Consider the texts for this morning. Acts tells the story of the first Christians, known simply as the people of the way. They embodied the faith in ways that few of us dare consider, much less actually try out. Living in community, attentive and attuned to signs and wonder and awe.
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
How could you live like that? Imagine it. Think of your stuff. All of your stuff.
I can’t actually do that, because I don’t know how much stuff I have, but just for starters, take my bag. I carry this with me almost all of the time. I had a free bag – swag from last summer’s General Assembly. That bag replaced a backpack that remains in perfectly fine condition. I just decided that I wanted to go “messenger style” for a while. I really ought to hear a cautionary note with the word “style” there.
Be that as it may, I liked this bag so I bought it. I can’t remember how much I paid, but it was at least 50 bucks. Fifty dollars … more than the average daily wage of 85 percent of the world’s population.
Still, I need a bag … because I have all this stuff.
My laptop. I must have that, of course, to write with and stay connected and all of those other things I do. My books. I can’t live without them. My phone. Certainly need that.
I’m really not making fun of myself here. I can justify all of this stuff. More or less legitimately, but, still, as I make the case for my stuff I do see Jesus sitting across from me with a wry smile – not one of judgment but rather one of deep understanding – understanding that the only one I’m fooling as I justify all of my stuff is me.
I suspect most of us fall into this same pattern. The entire culture tells us that we should consume, that it is not only our right but that it is a good thing to do. Mass consumption is so all-pervasive in our culture that we take for granted that it has been ever thus, and that there is no other way to organize a culture or an economy, and that we are all the better for it, and that we are, well, “happy.”
The first, and perhaps only, American beatitude is this: happy are those who shop.
But what if we paused for a moment to consider the church in Acts.
They were all together, sharing what they had, and selling off their stuff so that everyone would have enough, and they were happy.
The text tells us that day by day people were being added to their number – sometimes thousands per day. That only happens when something powerfully attractive is happening. Thousands of folks don’t look at a dour, unhappy band, no matter how fabulously tricked out, and suddenly say, “wow! I want some of what they’re having!” No. That’s not what attracts. Abundant life! That’s what attracts; and that’s what Jesus promised, and promises still.
By stripping away the stuff, getting down to real lives, real relationships, lives were transformed. It’s tempting to take “the thief” Jesus calls out in John and equate him with all those places, people and institutions in the culture that call us to clothe ourselves in stuff, stuff and more stuff, but it suffices to leave that figure alone this morning and focus instead on the abundance that Jesus promises – an abundance that clearly has nothing to do with the stuff, and, as it turns out, everything to do with what we’ve already been given: our bodies.
That seems somehow backward – getting rid of stuff to get to abundance.
But I think the lesson here is simply this: we have been given what we need from the very beginning.
We’re given a creation teeming with life, and all the richness that we need to sustain our lives is built in. We are given these bodies – these feet for walking the earth, these hands for reaching out to give and to receive the bounty of the earth, these eyes for seeing beauty – for seeing one another, these ears for hearing the great hymn of creation. We are given these bodies for meeting one another, and for meeting God – in the flesh, as it were.
If you are thinking now of the Eden story, then I have done my job. Our bodies, naked before God, are the first visible sign of the grace of creation.
I think that’s why the two official sacraments of the Reformed church are so bodily in nature: baptism – the washing over our bodies of cool, clear water; communion – taking into our mouths bread and juice, tasting the presence of a grace that we cannot see. The sacraments are sensual, bodily.
This thought is nothing new. Almost 700 years ago, Julian of Norwich wrote: "So I understood our sensuality is founded in nature, in mercy and in grace, and this foundation enables us to receive gifts which lead us to endless life. For I saw very surely that our substance is in God, and I also saw that God is in our sensuality, for in the same instant and place in which our soul is made sensual, in that same instant and place exists the city of God, ordained from him without beginning. "
Bodies, of course, come in all sizes, shapes and conditions. They are also the way in which we experience pain and suffering. Ultimately, they are the site of our dying.
This, too, is a Godly thing. As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “Pain makes theologians of us all.”
That is to say, the bodily experience of hurt – whether it is the short-term burst pain of a cut or bruise or broken bone, or the long-term experience of chronic pain – real pain brings forth all of the deepest, most difficult questions of life and faith: why? God, why? Why me? Why now? Why, God?
Our bodies are the site, the location of this most fundamental striving for understanding, and they are also the location for our most basic ministries to one another.
I knew a woman in Cleveland who had cancer. When I met her she was already into about the fourth year of a diagnosed six-month life expectancy. I visited her often over the two years I was there, and her life gradually compressed from a whole house, to one floor of the house, and finally to a room in a nursing home. We talked a lot, about all kinds of things, but I realized pretty early on that I left every visit with her feeling like she had ministered to me a whole lot more than the other way around.
So I asked her about that, about how she managed, even in a single small room of a nursing home, to reach out and extend the gift of hospitality and generosity to everyone who came into her room, from ministers of the church to the orderlies who cleaned the space.
She said something like this:
“I don’t waste any time asking “why me? Why do I hurt?” After all, why not me? Instead I just try to keep doing what I’ve always done: love the people I have in the time that I have, and thank God for all of it.”
So she always spent more time asking after me, and my family, and the folks at church whom she didn’t get to see much any more. She was genuinely concerned for their lives, their joys and their suffering such that she didn’t spend much time on her own pain. And she always laughed until she said it made her stomach hurt. Her way through her own concerns was her concern for others.
I don’t know anyone who likes to hurt – although I do know of them. I certainly know a lot of folks who do everything they can to avoid pain. Either way, everybody hurts.
As Taylor puts it:
“There will always be people who run from every kind of pain and suffering, just as there will always be religions that promise to put them to sleep. For those willing to stay awake, pain remains a reliable altar in the world, a place to discover that a life can be as full of meaning as it is of hurt. The two have never canceled each other out and I doubt they ever will, at least not until each of us – or all of us together – find the way through.”
The way through comes in the meetings of our bodies, for the surest way through our own suffering is by way of the suffering of another. Each of us, all along the way, experiences moments of ecstatic joy and of profound hurt. At both extremes, if we can but be awake to it, we find God fully present, and thus our very bodies are the means for experiencing the presence of the Divine.
In countless ways – and in many demonstrable ones as well – we know way more than those early Christians in Acts. But they understood far better than we do that stripping away the clutter of our lives – the stuff that we tote along in our expensive bags – is the best first step we can take to get closer to the Holy, to get closer to one another, and to be bound up more fully with the body of Christ.
If our ethics is grounded in our sacramental theology – and I believe it must be – then there are all kinds of implications that flow from considering our bodies as sacraments. From what and how we consume the stuff of our lives, to the ways in which we encounter the bodies of others – friends, lovers, and enemies alike – if our bodies are signs of grace then this flesh with which we touch and are touched is holy ground – the ground of signs and wonders and awe.
So, have you ever thought of your body as a sacrament?
Now that you have, if only ever-so-briefly, considered that question, what do you think? What difference would it make to think of your body as a sacrament? Amen.
John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47
Have you ever thought of your body as sacramental? That is to say, have you ever considered your body as a visible sign of an invisible grace? Have you ever thought of your body as a means of grace, a way for grace to be made manifest in the world? Have you ever thought of your body as a sacrament?
Consider the texts for this morning. Acts tells the story of the first Christians, known simply as the people of the way. They embodied the faith in ways that few of us dare consider, much less actually try out. Living in community, attentive and attuned to signs and wonder and awe.
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
How could you live like that? Imagine it. Think of your stuff. All of your stuff.
I can’t actually do that, because I don’t know how much stuff I have, but just for starters, take my bag. I carry this with me almost all of the time. I had a free bag – swag from last summer’s General Assembly. That bag replaced a backpack that remains in perfectly fine condition. I just decided that I wanted to go “messenger style” for a while. I really ought to hear a cautionary note with the word “style” there.
Be that as it may, I liked this bag so I bought it. I can’t remember how much I paid, but it was at least 50 bucks. Fifty dollars … more than the average daily wage of 85 percent of the world’s population.
Still, I need a bag … because I have all this stuff.
My laptop. I must have that, of course, to write with and stay connected and all of those other things I do. My books. I can’t live without them. My phone. Certainly need that.
I’m really not making fun of myself here. I can justify all of this stuff. More or less legitimately, but, still, as I make the case for my stuff I do see Jesus sitting across from me with a wry smile – not one of judgment but rather one of deep understanding – understanding that the only one I’m fooling as I justify all of my stuff is me.
I suspect most of us fall into this same pattern. The entire culture tells us that we should consume, that it is not only our right but that it is a good thing to do. Mass consumption is so all-pervasive in our culture that we take for granted that it has been ever thus, and that there is no other way to organize a culture or an economy, and that we are all the better for it, and that we are, well, “happy.”
The first, and perhaps only, American beatitude is this: happy are those who shop.
But what if we paused for a moment to consider the church in Acts.
They were all together, sharing what they had, and selling off their stuff so that everyone would have enough, and they were happy.
The text tells us that day by day people were being added to their number – sometimes thousands per day. That only happens when something powerfully attractive is happening. Thousands of folks don’t look at a dour, unhappy band, no matter how fabulously tricked out, and suddenly say, “wow! I want some of what they’re having!” No. That’s not what attracts. Abundant life! That’s what attracts; and that’s what Jesus promised, and promises still.
By stripping away the stuff, getting down to real lives, real relationships, lives were transformed. It’s tempting to take “the thief” Jesus calls out in John and equate him with all those places, people and institutions in the culture that call us to clothe ourselves in stuff, stuff and more stuff, but it suffices to leave that figure alone this morning and focus instead on the abundance that Jesus promises – an abundance that clearly has nothing to do with the stuff, and, as it turns out, everything to do with what we’ve already been given: our bodies.
That seems somehow backward – getting rid of stuff to get to abundance.
But I think the lesson here is simply this: we have been given what we need from the very beginning.
We’re given a creation teeming with life, and all the richness that we need to sustain our lives is built in. We are given these bodies – these feet for walking the earth, these hands for reaching out to give and to receive the bounty of the earth, these eyes for seeing beauty – for seeing one another, these ears for hearing the great hymn of creation. We are given these bodies for meeting one another, and for meeting God – in the flesh, as it were.
If you are thinking now of the Eden story, then I have done my job. Our bodies, naked before God, are the first visible sign of the grace of creation.
I think that’s why the two official sacraments of the Reformed church are so bodily in nature: baptism – the washing over our bodies of cool, clear water; communion – taking into our mouths bread and juice, tasting the presence of a grace that we cannot see. The sacraments are sensual, bodily.
This thought is nothing new. Almost 700 years ago, Julian of Norwich wrote: "So I understood our sensuality is founded in nature, in mercy and in grace, and this foundation enables us to receive gifts which lead us to endless life. For I saw very surely that our substance is in God, and I also saw that God is in our sensuality, for in the same instant and place in which our soul is made sensual, in that same instant and place exists the city of God, ordained from him without beginning. "
Bodies, of course, come in all sizes, shapes and conditions. They are also the way in which we experience pain and suffering. Ultimately, they are the site of our dying.
This, too, is a Godly thing. As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “Pain makes theologians of us all.”
That is to say, the bodily experience of hurt – whether it is the short-term burst pain of a cut or bruise or broken bone, or the long-term experience of chronic pain – real pain brings forth all of the deepest, most difficult questions of life and faith: why? God, why? Why me? Why now? Why, God?
Our bodies are the site, the location of this most fundamental striving for understanding, and they are also the location for our most basic ministries to one another.
I knew a woman in Cleveland who had cancer. When I met her she was already into about the fourth year of a diagnosed six-month life expectancy. I visited her often over the two years I was there, and her life gradually compressed from a whole house, to one floor of the house, and finally to a room in a nursing home. We talked a lot, about all kinds of things, but I realized pretty early on that I left every visit with her feeling like she had ministered to me a whole lot more than the other way around.
So I asked her about that, about how she managed, even in a single small room of a nursing home, to reach out and extend the gift of hospitality and generosity to everyone who came into her room, from ministers of the church to the orderlies who cleaned the space.
She said something like this:
“I don’t waste any time asking “why me? Why do I hurt?” After all, why not me? Instead I just try to keep doing what I’ve always done: love the people I have in the time that I have, and thank God for all of it.”
So she always spent more time asking after me, and my family, and the folks at church whom she didn’t get to see much any more. She was genuinely concerned for their lives, their joys and their suffering such that she didn’t spend much time on her own pain. And she always laughed until she said it made her stomach hurt. Her way through her own concerns was her concern for others.
I don’t know anyone who likes to hurt – although I do know of them. I certainly know a lot of folks who do everything they can to avoid pain. Either way, everybody hurts.
As Taylor puts it:
“There will always be people who run from every kind of pain and suffering, just as there will always be religions that promise to put them to sleep. For those willing to stay awake, pain remains a reliable altar in the world, a place to discover that a life can be as full of meaning as it is of hurt. The two have never canceled each other out and I doubt they ever will, at least not until each of us – or all of us together – find the way through.”
The way through comes in the meetings of our bodies, for the surest way through our own suffering is by way of the suffering of another. Each of us, all along the way, experiences moments of ecstatic joy and of profound hurt. At both extremes, if we can but be awake to it, we find God fully present, and thus our very bodies are the means for experiencing the presence of the Divine.
In countless ways – and in many demonstrable ones as well – we know way more than those early Christians in Acts. But they understood far better than we do that stripping away the clutter of our lives – the stuff that we tote along in our expensive bags – is the best first step we can take to get closer to the Holy, to get closer to one another, and to be bound up more fully with the body of Christ.
If our ethics is grounded in our sacramental theology – and I believe it must be – then there are all kinds of implications that flow from considering our bodies as sacraments. From what and how we consume the stuff of our lives, to the ways in which we encounter the bodies of others – friends, lovers, and enemies alike – if our bodies are signs of grace then this flesh with which we touch and are touched is holy ground – the ground of signs and wonders and awe.
So, have you ever thought of your body as a sacrament?
Now that you have, if only ever-so-briefly, considered that question, what do you think? What difference would it make to think of your body as a sacrament? Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
8:30 AM
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