Acts 3: 12-19 Psalm 4
1 John 3: 1-7 Luke 24: 36-48
Grace and peace to you in the name of the risen Christ. Amen.
I remember a television commercial from my childhood that showed two different beach scenes. In both scenes there was a man and a woman sunning themselves on a sandy, white beach. Suddenly! A second man walks by and…GASP…he kicks sand on the unsuspecting couple. In the first scene the man stands up and realizes that he is simply put, too much of a skinny wimp to run after the bully on the beach. But fast forward…the man has been using the Jack Lalaine workout and now has enough confidence in his newly refined physique to pursue the sand kicking scoundrel with confidence.
That is the first commercial I recall that addresses our bodies, but certainly not the last. Almost every time we turn on the television or pick up a magazine or surf the internet, we are told that we can have a thinner body, or bigger muscles, more hair, or straighter teeth, clearer skin or a dark tan. I can have my veins zapped, my hair lasered, my teeth whitened, and my skin peeled. Why, you might not even recognize me when I was done!
We are a society that is obsessed with what our bodies look like. In some ways, this is not necessarily a bad thing, if it urges us to care for our bodies. If our focus is on health and well being. And let’s face it, we depend on our bodies…they house who we are.
The Church (Big C) doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about our bodies, unless it is telling us what not to do with them. We in the church tend, perhaps, to overly orient toward the time when our souls have outlasted our bodies. But, if we are to take anything from the readings from Acts and from Luke today, it would be that the Kingdom of God is about our what is happening here, now, on this earth and in this life and with our bodies.
The reading from Acts picks up after the story of healing just after it has taken place. A man who has been lame since his birth, and was seen every single day begging at the gate of the temple stops Peter and John as they are about to go into the temple and asks them for money. Peter says to him “I haven’t got any money, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” Then Peter grabs him by the hand, pulls him up and he walks. And everyone witnesses it and they can’t believe it! Then we move to the verses we read this morning. Peter is explaining to those very same astonished witnesses that it is not by anything that he did, but that through the power of Jesus, that the man is healed.
If the people were at the temple, it is possible that they were doing any number of things, but it is also possible that they had come to worship God. That they were there to offer their own alms and hear the sacred texts read and pray their prayers. And so, to bear witness to this public healing of a familiar lame man was more than astonishing…..no wonder they stared! No wonder they wanted to credit Peter and John! But what Peter is trying to explain to them is that the healing they witnessed was only possible because of faith in Jesus Christ. Peter is putting flesh to faith. The lame man who now leaps and dances before them is faith with skin and bones. What they have seen and what the man will now be able to do is as important as any prayers, as the hearing of any scripture. It is enfleshed faith.
Similarly, when the disciples were gathered together in that Upper Room, afraid, because Jesus was dead, it is a very physical Jesus who appears to them in the Gospel reading from Luke today. Jesus knows that they don’t believe it is him. Perhaps they even think they are seeing his spirit, or his ghost. But he says “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see for a ghost does not have flesh and bones.” And then, he does the most basic thing. He asks them for something to eat; they give him a piece of fish and he eats it, we are told, in their presence. He eats it to show them that indeed he is a real person, the resurrected Messiah, not a ghostly apparition.
I wonder, what is it that we offer to people who are searching for meaning in their lives? What is it that we understand our faith journeys to be about?
If being a disciple of Christ is for us, merely a way to get from life on this earth to the place we want to be in the next life, and if, that is what we understand as salvation, and if salvation has been fulfilled for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, then what is the Christian life to be about? What are we to do in the here and now? Just wait it out? Is that what the Kingdom of God is, a waiting room for the hereafter?
I don’t believe that is the case at all. Throughout his three years of ministry with them, Jesus sends the disciples out to do specific things….bodily things….earthy, messy, concrete things. Heal the lame man who is begging for money. Feed the person who has no food, give clothes to the person who has no clothes. Visit the person who is in prison. Stand up for the oppressed. Defend those who have no voice. Don’t judge one another; love one another.
And Jesus doesn’t give the disciples these instructions as some sort of busy work. Jesus says that this is how the Kingdom of heaven is ushered in. This is who we are, as Christians. We are about physically, bodily, spreading the love of Christ here on this earth.
Have you noticed how the children in our congregation physically inhabit their bodies? I think it is also how they physically inhabit their faith. It is active and moving and joyful!
In the upcoming May Messenger (newsletter) I share with you the story of Anastasia, one of our youngest disciples, one of those children, and what she says about this place. On Easter morning, as she was leaving church in her father’s arms, she said to me and to everyone who was within earshot “This is where we come to get the bread.” Anastasia knew that Christ is found here in bread that she and we can hold in our hands, and taste with our mouths. When it is real bread and not dry wafers, it means that there will be crumbs and maybe portions of it that break off into the wine. It will be messy, but it will be real. And perhaps that says as much as anything about what it means to walk on a faith journey with our entire selves. We will use our whole bodies to inhabit our faith and take it out into the world.
Sometimes we will ache with sorrow or frustration. Sometimes we will grow weary and wonder how it is that a message of love stands a chance against the louder options. Sometimes we will hurt, our hearts will be heavy. Sometimes, though, we will inhabit our faith in bodies that run and leap and twirl like with the faith of a child.
We have and serve a risen Savior. A savior who stood in that upper room and invited his friends to touch his wounds. We serve a savior who asked for something to eat even as he was the very bread of life. We serve a savior who walked and talked, who grew tired, who ate and drank, who washed real feet, whose hair was anointed with expensive perfume. We serve a savior who served others with his whole self. And that is our call as well.
Of course, all of this talk about our bodies reminds us that whenever we gather we are, the Body of Christ. This week, on Luther Memorial’s Facebook page I asked people to share with me what it is about their bodies that they appreciate. Their physical, bodies….arms and legs and ears and eyes. But their answers, I think, also point to what it means to be the Body of Christ in the world, reaching out with our whole selves. If you go to the Facebook page, you can read the replies for yourself. And, the first one is a wonderful response from a former parishioner in Ohio who owns a gym. Her response reminds us all to care for these bodies. But hear the other replies and hear them as they speak to our bodies and ourselves as the gathered Body of Christ. Remember, the question was what do you appreciate and value about your body:
As I get older, I find that my scars (which I once found ugly) are reminders of where I have been and how far I have come… (and how far I still have to go) .
It’s functionality.
And finally, this answer from across the miles and from our own Paul Allen:
It keeps me alive.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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