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The third Sunday of Epiphany
SERMON – 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 24th January 2010
Revd. Canon David Pickering
Luke 4. 16. When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom
For St Luke this is where Jesus' ministry begins. Jesus reads a passage from Isaiah, and then says, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled.
Jesus goes to the synagogue to begin his ministry. He goes to the place of gathering. The Greek word for synagogue is sunagogyn, which means coming together, gathering or meeting. Jesus began his ministry at a worship gathering.
While we can all pray privately, worship is a collective activity. It is something we do together. The singing of hymns and Service settings helps to keep us together in the words we use. When we say a prayer together it is important that we are word for word with those around us.
Sharing in the bread and wine.
Sharing in the peace.
Can be summed up in what Paul says in this morning's second reading.
I Corinthians 12.27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Today we have a number of introductions to the Peace, but when Anglican experimentation was taking place in the 1970s there was just one Common form, which is still frequently used today;
We are the body of Christ.
In the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body.
let us then pursue all that makes for peace,
and builds up the common life
In our worship we express something of our togetherness in the Peace.
In our togetherness we are a body of people, the body of Christ.
In the 1963 there was a particular stir in Church circles that caught the public eye, when Bishop John Robinson wrote a book call Honest to God. I don't know whether anyone remembers it. It was a best seller paper back and caused quite a stir because it took God away from being an old man somewhere out there or up there.
But before Honest to God, Bishop Robinson, a renowned NT scholar had written what for me was and some ways still is the standard book on the theology of St Paul. It was simple called The Body.
The theme of the Body of Christ in St Paul's writings
One could say without exaggeration that the concept of the body forms the keystone of Paul's theology.
The phrase the 'Body of Christ' is now so familiar to us that it has lost its edge. We need to remember what might have been the initial impact it may have had on Paul's original readers. Paul wrote I Corinthians in the mid 50s AD, only some 20 or so years after the death of Jesus. At this stage there would have been plenty of people alive who had seen the real, physical body of Christ, either before his death or after his resurrection. (In chapter 15 of I Corinthians Paul tells us that more than 500 people saw Christ alive after he was raised from the dead). What Paul is saying here is that the body of the risen Christ is still to be seen but now it is apparent in the community of the Church. In other words the community has become the resurrection body of Christ. Each member of the community has become a part of this body in baptism. 12.13. For in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body.
What appears at first glance to be simple metaphor that clarifies the point Paul is making is in reality a profound statement about the nature of the Church and it relationship with the risen Christ.
In fact Paul seems to use the metaphor of the body in a comical manner. In stressing the unity of the body he gives distorted descriptions and has the various parts talking to each other.
Today we celebrate that we are part of the body that is the Church and reflect on our unity and togetherness.
You may have noticed from the pewsheet that today has the subheading of Unit Sunday, because it falls within the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Over the years I have valued my ecumenical experience in many different ways.
Hathersage & Bamford experiences.
This is an ecumenical congregation.
Survey of the denominational backgrounds.
There is also something else we can learn from the metaphor of the human body. Not every part of the body is in action at once, but still has to be there for the whole body to function.
The same is true of our membership of the Church. We may not be at worship each Sunday, but it still needs our membership. This can and is expressed by what we call stewardship. We show that we accept our being baptized into the body of the Church by playing our part in its continuing and continuous life. The stewardship scheme encourages and helps us to make a weekly contribution to the life and work of the Church, whether we are present at worship or not.
Today in the St John's parish and daughter churches is the first of three weeks of the annual stewardship campaign.
I'm just introducing the subject today, our Treasurer, Chris, will supply us with more details over the next couple of weeks why we need more people to join the covenant scheme, and we will try and have an insert leaflet in the he pew sheet.
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