"Christ Calls the Church"

Number eight in series of ten

Sermon by Pastor David Layman

August 12, 2007

John 20:19-22

I Corinthians 12:27

Colossians 1:15-20

Last week in our series on the Bible we considered how "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us", how God became flesh in the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus was not a mere representative of God; Jesus WAS God! That was so amazing, many of Jesus' contemporaries failed to grasp this truth, and people struggle with it yet today. But the story doesn't stop there. Following Jesus' sacrificial death and resurrection, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to flow through his followers, and created the church to be "the body of Christ" in the world! While Jesus was sinless, we as members of Christ's body have this high calling in our earthen vessels. We aren't perfect, but we are asked to work together, to let the Holy Spirit be our inspiration, and acknowledge Christ as the head of our body, as Paul writes in Colossians 1:18. If you think of the "church" merely as a building on North 10th and A, your understanding needs expanded. The church, the Bible teaches us, is not a place, it's a body. And not just any body. The church is called upon to be the body of Christ in the world. The church is more than a place, or one local fellowship of believers.

Let me try to illustrate what the church is, and what it is called to be!

With my father being a pastor, I grew up intimately involved with the Body of Christ. I knew this body was not perfect. I'd hear Dad talking quietly about people and problems in the church, and I'd see him get discouraged. As a young boy, I remember Sunday School teachers that encouraged me, such as Mrs. Lovelace and Mrs. Pringle. There was the custodian, George, that would sometimes feed me leftovers from the church kitchen. One day he gave me some "Sloppy Joes". I was confused by the name, and came home and told Mom George had let me eat some "Dirty Johns"! There was my first male Sunday School teacher, a college student who was a cool guy: Johnny Bob Allaman. Mr. Hubbard, my Scout master, who put up with a bunch of giggling and wise cracking 7th grade boys including me. Moving into high school, there was Mr. Dobschuetz, a factory worker that shared with such sincerity his faith in Christ. There was Miss Lulu Throne, a close to 80 year old Sunday School teacher who wasn't what we considered "cool" or "with it", but she'd been teaching Sunday School for over 50 years, and her Godly life touched us. And Mrs. Bales, a youth leader who believed in crazy things like "liturgical dance". There were two reasons why I was very poor at liturgical dance: my left foot and my right foot! But when I went off to college, Mrs. Bales wrote me such an encouraging letter that I put it in my Bible and kept it.

I learned a lot about the church, the body of Christ, during my junior year of college. I left my home congregation in Milwaukee, and my college in Wisconsin, to travel thousands of miles away and spend my Junior Year abroad while studying at Silliman University in the Philippines. I took a very long flight from San Francisco to Manila, and was met there in a crowded airport by a representative of the church, who took me to the home of the chaplain of the University of the Philippines, who took me to worship. Then two Presbyterian missionaries came over for a meal and took me into their home for a few days. I was having trouble getting the right visa, so the chaplain took me on the back of his motorcycle through the crowded streets of Manila to the office of a Filipino lawyer who was active in the church. I know it may startle some to think of a lawyer as a Christian, but indeed it can be true!

After a few days in Manila, I awakened very sick on the morning I was to fly to the south central Philippines where I was to study at Silliman University, a fine school founded by Presbyterians in 1901, still strongly related to the church. My whole body was reacting against the time zone change and the different food and perhaps something I'd eaten. It was as bad a day as I've ever had! When I arrived at Dumaguete City, I was met again by a representative of the church. She could tell I was ill, and took me to the University Hospital. There Christian doctors and nurses attended to me. I was naturally nervous and anxious about traveling by myself thousands of miles from home to a place I'd never been, and a culture different from my own. And then to get so sick, made it one of the most difficult days of my life. But that evening Randy Day, a Methodist from Illinois who had been on campus for a year, and his Filipina Roman Catholic girl friend stopped to see me. Randy helped orient me to my new setting, and promised to help me get adjusted. His girl friend brought me 7 Up and ice, and I had been dying of thirst.

All this time I was experiencing the ministry of the church, the Body of Christ. Last week we considered how God's eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus. This week we consider how the risen Jesus created the church to be his body and continue his ministry on earth. John 20 tells of how the risen Christ came to his fearful disciples following his crucifixion and said to them "Peace be with you." "Peace" in the Bible is total wholeness and well being! John 20:22 continues "When [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them "Receive the Holy Spirit." The same Greek word for "breath" is "spirit." Jesus was giving the disciples His Holy Spirit, a preview of the pentecost to come that would create the church! In I Corinthians 12:27 we read "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it." Think about the amazing meaning of these words! Following Jesus' resurrection, in preparation for his ascension into heaven, Jesus breathed his Spirit into His followers and commissioned them to carry on his ministry as His body! And as we read in Colossians 1:18, "He [that is, Jesus] is the head of the body, the church." Putting this all together, it was the body of Christ that was ministering to me as I began my year of learning and growth in the Philippines. There was a university chaplain, his wife who fixed a wonderful meal, Presbyterian missionaries, a lawyer, nurses, a doctor, a Methodist college student and his Catholic Filipina girl friend who worked in a bank, all that were part of the body of Christ that ministered to me in my first few days in the Philippines. And as the year progressed, there were many Christian teachers and students and agricultural specialists at the school that were also part of the body of Christ. I concluded my year in the Philippines having learned and benefitted much from the body of Christ, and wanting to be part of it for the rest of my life!

To be a ministering part of the body of Christ is the calling of each and every one of us. When you teach a Sunday School class or participate in a Grace Group you're doing it! You're also part of the body of Christ when you reach out to a neighbor, serve food at the soup kitchen, share musical gifts, come to church to worship, help out with a bereavement meal, become a member of Pete Beaman's "tool belt gang", help organize a golf outing fund raiser for the Sunshine House, videotape the service, visit a shut in. People can be part of the body of Christ when they share concern over a cup of coffee as a neighbor. Acts of service as part of the body of Christ take many different forms.

We have many opportunities to be part of the body of Christ in our families. Of course, one can be a parent that just does things for their children because they feel obligated, or because they want to raise children that can grow up to make the parent look good. But Christian parenting is a very important vocation of the body of Christ. Dr. Tony Campolo travels around the nation and world as a Christian teacher and speaker, while his wife Peggy chose to stay at home and pour herself into raising their two children. Peggy finds that when she travels with Tony she is often in conversations with some of the most impressive and powerful people in the world. Sometimes she would feel intimidated and question her self worth. So Tony said "Honey, why don't you come up with something you can say when you meet people that will let them know that you value what you're doing, and think it's important?"

Shortly after that, the Campolos were at a party. A woman said to Peggy Campolo in a rather condescending tone, "Well, my dear, what do you do?" Tony overheard his wife respond "I am nurturing two homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo Christian tradition in order that they might become effective instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time." The woman responded "Oh, I'm just a lawyer." (Vic Pentz, Peachtree, "What to Wear to your Wedding" sermon, 5/8/2005)

God became flesh in the life of Jesus. Jesus calls us to become the body of Christ in our world today, breathing His spirit into the flesh of our lives. There may be only one hour of the week we as Christ's body are in public worship. But every hour of the week, whether at work or home, with our family or strangers, we are called to live as the body of Christ. There are no couch potatoes in the body of Christ, but hands and arms, eyes and elbows, loving hearts beating to the pulse of the risen Christ's love.

The Servant Song

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