Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Title

Branching

1 Corinthians 12

January 17, 2009

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

 

This sermon is based on what the apostle Paul wrote to the new Christians in Corinth, Greece about fifty years or so after Jesus had risen from the dead. In the twelfth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said,

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

Speaking of parts of the body, did you know that each and every one of us began life as a single cell? And then within seconds something terrible happened - well, terrible from the perspective of that single cell. That one tiny cell splits in two! Can you almost imagine it screaming, “Oh my gosh! I’m being torn apart!” But each one becomes a cell of its own. And then each of THEM branch off into four new cells. And then each of those four branch off to make eight. And so on and so on until thousands and then millions of cells exist. As you learned in ninth grade biology, that process is called mitosis.

Now some of these cells become stem cells which can become anything. One stem cell becomes a nose and each time it branches off, you get nose cells. Another becomes a toe cell which branches off again and again to make a toe. That is how God grows living things, by causing things to branch off and branch off and branch off. That’s why a telephone pole looks different from a tree which has branches and branches. And the same thing happens below the ground as above the ground as the roots themselves branch off and branch off again and again.

That’s how God grows trees and that’s how God grows you and me. That is also how God grows the church by one branching off from another, and others branching off of them and others branching of them. We are Americans because we branched off from England. We are Lutherans because we branched off from the Catholic church. And then Lutherans branched off from each other again and again and again. I have a textbook in my office from my seminary days - a huge book which only deals with all the branching of just the Lutherans in North America!

Each of us is a PART of the body of Christ. Christ Lutheran Church is not the body of Christ, neither is the Lutheran church or the protestant church. We are all parts of the same body of Christ. Some parts are better at some things than other parts are. Each of us is a specialized part of the body, and together we make up the body.

At this moment, our congregation is about to decide whether or not to leave the ELCA to help form a new Lutheran synod. Some worry that by doing this we are hurting the Church at large, hurting the body. I say that what we are doing is nothing more than branching off to form a new part of the same body. That is how God grows all living things.

Now in the process, I have noticed that some members are profaning other members by calling them names of presumably embarrassing body parts. I have heard a mouth call someone else an organ of elimination. But listen to what else Paul says about the parts of the body:

“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it ….”

As a speech pathologist I can assure you that the body can do without the mouth much better than it can do without those other parts of the Body.

As God causes all living things to branch off to grow and strengthen the body, let us be faithful parts of that same body, respecting the other parts as they play their part and we play ours.

Amen, may it be so.