What does it mean to be the Body of Christ?
God has spoken his Word into the context of our world, which
allowed the Church to come into existence:
Jesus lived, died, and rose, and thus the Church was born. The Church remains the ongoing vehicle for the
Word of God living among us, and we have a role, a responsibility in this, to
wit, to carry the Word forward.
First, like the people of Ezra’s time and like those in the synagogue,
listening to Jesus read from the scroll
of the prophet Isaiah (Luke), we are those who hear it – with our ears and with
our hearts. Baptism opens us to the Word
within, and gives us reassurance that it is trustworthy, that God’s love for us
is the Truth.
Then, we become a vehicle through which that love can find
its living force; as Saint Paul tells us, you
are Christ’s body. Divisions
preclude love, as does isolation. But if
we take our baptism seriously, we are baptized into a Body, the Body of
Christ. We are all parts, many though we
are (1 Cor); as parts, we each give flesh
to the body; God’s Word gives Spirit and
Life to that body (Ps.19). And we are called to be that body -- Christ's hands and breath and feet -- in this world.
Our readings this coming Sunday thus come together in this
larger concept, speaking to what is central to who we are as a church, and
giving definition to what it means to be church. Being in community sometimes means pain, but
that pain can be part of the message: we
care because we believe; our belief
has an effect because we give witness
to it, shoring up our faith in one another and allowing God’s love to live in
us. Faith has to be both personal and
shared – drawing us into the community that is church.
This reflection is based on Fr. Pat's Thursday Scripture class.
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