Journeys of Joy

1 Corinthians 12:12-20, 21-31; Luke 4:14-21

January 27, 2013

Often on the Sunday of our winter congregational meeting I’ll use the sermon time during worship as an opportunity to give a kind of “state of the church” address, as it were. I don’t want to dispense with that altogether, so let me do it in brief: the state of the larger church continues to be as complex and fraught with uncertainty over the future as it has been for at least the past generation.

Just Friday morning, a good friend who works at the Alban Institute posted an open question on Facebook about whether or not it’s time for denominations to close most of their seminaries because they are training pastors for jobs that do not exist, and there is a large and significant controversy brewing in our denomination over changes in policies of our Board of Pensions. All of these are being driven by massive shifts in our culture that do not augur well for the future of the church in America.  It is not hopeless, for with God all things are possible, but it is not all beer and skittles!

The state of the wee kirk, here at Clarendon, on the other hand, is good. Beer and skittles all around! Well, perhaps not that, but good, nonetheless. We’ll talk a bit more about the particulars over brunch in a little while, but the body of Christ here at Clarendon is strong, it is growing, and it is filled with the Spirit. Thanks be to God.

It’s good to have a strong body, healthy and whole, and a joyous spirit when one is on a journey. It’s not necessary, mind you. There are many folks whose bodies are not quite whole who set out on remarkable journeys and complete them fully. Have you ever seen Oscar Pistorius run? He’s the South African Olympian they call “Blade Runner.” A double-amputee, he reached the semifinals of the 400 meters at the London Olympics last summer running on carbon-fiber prosthetic legs.

The broader church, whose body seems so often so dysfunctional these days, could learn a thing or two from folks who do very much with what, at first glance, seems very little.

Which is to say, I reckon, that strong bodies come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and configurations, and often human beings find their greatest strength precisely in what we might first consider weakness. My prayer for the larger church is that we discover strength precisely in places that we might consider weaknesses – places, dare I suggest, such as small, progressive congregations who are boldly trying new ways of being the body of Christ. Strength doesn’t always come in numbers; sometimes it comes in joyous spirit.

Of course, a joyous spirit is not necessarily always a happy one. Some of the great saints of the church suffered almost debilitating despair at points along the way. Mother Theresa’s diaries revealed both deep doubts and depressions, but nevertheless a full spirit animated her life’s work. There are other examples as well: Martin Luther King, Jr. suffered bouts of deep depression but still managed to cast a vision that resonates with a nation a half century after he put it into words.

So wherever you find yourself along the great spectrum of bodies or in any personal measure of happiness, there is a sweet, sweet spirit of deep and resonant joy moving in our midst to sojourn with us.

Sojourn is the key here. We do not journey alone, but as part of something larger than ourselves. Together, as Paul told the church at Corinth, we are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. So if sometimes our part of the body feels a bit weary and worn, there are other parts to bring renewal and restoration. We may stumble and we may fall, but there are other hands to lift us up as we follow Jesus’ call.

That is the crucial work of the church for its own members, and the work that we do for one another enables us to follow that calling of Christ into the world where our calling is the same one he felt and claimed in Nazareth:

To bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, liberation to the oppressed and jubilee to the world!

We do this in all kinds of ways, called according to our gifts and appropriate to our circumstance. We are called, always, to meet this moment along the way.

So, here we are, the recipients of countless gifts and faced with also countless opportunities to use them. The state of this wee kirk is strong. Let us sojourn together with joy. Amen.