Romans 12:3-7
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads,with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
Ever since June, we've been going through the book of Romans talking about all the things that the apostle Paul has to say to the church in Rome, the early chapters talked about the amazing gift of God that we are given grace to save us freely and truly, without works of the law. In chapters six and six through eight, St. Paul covers the question, if we're saved by grace, what do we do with our works? Are we free to do whatever we want? He said, No, of course. Because by being united with Christ in our baptisms, the sinful self is killed, and we are made alive with Christ to live like Him in a new life. The end is chapter eight, with amazing declaration of the promises of God, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even death itself. Chapters nine through 11 Talk about the question of if that's the case, God's promises are certain and true. What do we do with the promises of Old Testament Israel? And we say, the answer was, the faith for Israel was the same as it is for us. It is passed down through the word of God, and those who believe receive it, and those who do not, do not. And so we end chapter 11. With this declaration of praise that St. Paul gives to God, it's really interesting how our lectionary has divided up this reading. So if you look, it's the end of 11, and the beginning of 12. And so it ends this section, in the beginning of our reading today, with that, oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. So then, in chapter 12, we get a lot of stuff. There is a whole lot in our reading that I can talk about. And I truly wish that I could hold you here for the next three hours while I explained it all. Actually, no, I'm sure you'd get a little fidgety, wouldn't you? Probably. So instead of talking about everything, the living sacrifice, the transforming of our mind, all of these other things, we're going to talk about what St. Paul talks about last in this reading, the idea of the church being the body of Christ. He says, For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than we ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body, we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ, and individually members, one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophesy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts, in his exhortation, the one who contributes, in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. St. Paul gives a model of what the Christian church is, I think both in the congregational sense and in the broad sense of all of the Christians all over the world, is that we are bound together in Christ's body. It's a mystical union with Jesus Christ. It begins with our baptisms, that by being baptized into Christ, we are united with Him. We become ONE with Him. him, killed and then made alive to live a new life with Jesus. It continues in our mutual sharing of Christ's Body and Blood, that he gathers us together and binds us as one when we eat his body, and drink his blood. And so not only are we coming together to receive grace, but he makes us one, as we share this mystical gift, the Christian church, and each individual congregation is one body, bound together into this mysterious thing, the body of Jesus. And so while we look like we might be a collection of individuals, a bunch of people from all sorts of places, we are really and truly just Jesus gathered together as his body. Throughout the history of the church, many people have tried other models, other analogies to talk about the organization of the church. And often when we do that, it sort of throws us off a little bit. Back in the Roman Empire, and in the Middle Ages, they had a sort of a feudal system for understanding the church, that everything flowed down from the King, which they called the Pope, down to the bishops, down to the people. And it ended up creating almost a monarchy within the church, which eventually led to selling indulgences that started the Reformation. In other eras, we've used other models. Dwight moody, created the model where we use kind of advertising to be the main part of the church, where the goal of the church was to gather a bunch of people together and give them an emotional experience that would manipulate them into the faith. I think Billy Graham represents the kind of the radio star version of the church. But the one that we have today, unsurprisingly uses what I think is probably the most powerful model of success in American culture, is the tech guru entrepreneur, model of Christianity. And we know how this works. When we look at the the mega churches that often pop up, because they follow that model. Mark Driscoll founded Mars Hill out of Seattle. And he followed this kind of model. He was the the the visionary leader, the Steve Jobs of the church. Very quickly, he gathered together a really big church, and they were doing really big things. Their goal was to break stuff and fix things, and he had the vision for the church. And well, that doesn't define how we live our lives together. I think this model of the entrepreneurial church defines much of how we think about it. And so today, what I like to do is compare and contrast those two models, the idea of church, like a business with the pastor as the CEO, versus what it looks like to be a body. These I think these two models compete in our minds because of the culture that we live in. So let's dig in. The question with that then is who runs the church in each of these models? With the tech guru, innovator, entrepreneur idea, the goal is to get someone who has a visionary new idea, something that will shake up the church environment. They come up with a plan, a great idea that will gather together all of the people around them and make a big difference in the life of their city. Well, that sounds exciting. What that means is that every new startup, the goal is innovation. something new, something different. We saw that in places like Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll started a church that was all about being extra manly. He was a leader Are brash, strong. He talks about if people didn't get on board, we throw them under the bus, really. And, and ended up blowing up the church. This isn't the only place where that sort of thing happens every five 810 years, there's a new a new trend in the church as we get along another theological fad. As someone goes out and leads the way in innovation. Before that becomes passe, and a new innovator has to pop up. In a body, it's a little different. We're not always chasing something new. We're not trying to disrupt everything. We are listening to the head, Jesus.
We're not innovators. We are bearing the Word of God from one generation to the next. And we hear in the church where I live, now we have no better access to that than the people who've gone before us. We can't look back and say, all those people that had no idea what they were talking about, we know the way now I have the vision. All we can do is turn to those who've gone before us glean wisdom from them, and hear the Word of God as it speaks to us today. And I think the key for that is we listen to Christ, and base our decisions all on his word. Innovation, trying something new has to be done very carefully. Because we consider what Christ we also have to examine what the nature of the church is. When we look at these two ideas. In the entrepreneurial idea of the church, the church is the staff. It begins with the founding pastor who has a vision who has a plan, he knows what's going to happen. And they gather together like minded individuals who will do it just right. And if you're not on board, you get left behind. You can also look at as the church grows, primarily, what happens is that the staff does ministry, right? You say you guys are the ministers, we are the spiritual consumers. And it develops a rather unfortunate relationship where you become the audience, and we become the providers. And the goal of the church is to make sure that the customer is happy to make sure that you get what you feel like you need and to gather in more people and build up the business. Now there's something different in a body. In the body of Christ ministry isn't about what the staff does only. We are all responsible for the entirety of the ministry of the church. Every single one of us gathers together to make it all happen. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that everybody gets to stand up in front. Because public speaking is terrifying, just as the people who come up and make announcements every Sunday, right? St. Paul gives us a whole definition of what that means. Each according to our abilities. And he lets several those you have ability and administration, you administer communication, you communicate. If you'd like to make quilts, you make prayer quiz. If you're good at counting money, you can do that too. If you teach, then teach. And we take all of these things, all of these different talents and abilities, and we gather them together. And we say we are all responsible for this work that we do. We all care for each other. We all work together for the good of our congregation. And everyone comes together around the work and ministry of the church. And what that means then is that we're not pitting people against each other. We're not saying Oh, you guys got to do this. We're saying we do that. And it makes everyone just as important and as everyone else. As we consider what we are doing as a congregation. bound together as a body connected to Jesus Christ. That is why I like this program we're doing serving in God's mission. The idea was for us is to think about our strategic plan, not as a staff led idea, but as a congregation lead plan. Because I tell you, I will not live forever. I don't know if you know this, right? I will not live forever. And the pastor after me will not live forever. Staff may change the congregation, you are a big piece of staff come and go. But the culture of the congregation is ongoing. And what we don't want in a congregation is for new staff to come in and change everything every time. Because that happens, right? What we want is the body of Christ to come together and choose together to make decisions. So think about who we are, what are our talents? What are our abilities? And where can we go from here. That's why serving in God's mission is about strategic planning, based on you, not on me why when we go to this meeting, I sit in the back and I don't talk. Because we want the body of Christ to speak for herself.
Another difference, as we consider the two models of what a church is, is the difference about how we have as a relationship to each other. In a business, when you're running a business that is focused on getting stuff done and doing things right. You either get on board or you get out. When a new CEO comes into a company, what do they do? They clean house, right? They get there, they get old people out, and there are people in that's not how the church works, right. With a body, you don't cut fingers off. You don't gouge out different parts. You're committed to each other. And we're committed to each other in the body of Christ. Because we know that Jesus Christ has come to die for each and every one of us. The by the power of his body and blood, he binds us together in a way that is far more important than then simply gathering together here in a space, far more important than membership in a club. We are a body. We are committed to each other. We want love for each other. Not our own love, not our own feelings, but the power of the love of Jesus Christ working in us. And what St. Paul says right after this is all about that when he talks about letting love be genuine, which we'll read next week, because we get into that sermon, and all the all the kinds of good that we do for each other. That's what it means to be in a body. We're not expendable. We don't cast each other aside. We don't we don't wish each other away. We love each other in everything that we do. Jesus Christ has gathered together at church, not to follow the model of the world, the innovation, innovative entrepreneur, but to follow the of the Mystical Body. We are all bound together as one. We're all bound together as Christ people in him which means that we are part of each other members, one another.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai