A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, August 23, 2020, Year A, 12 Pentecost, Proper 16

Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The story of Moses and his people’s exodus from Egypt by God’s providence begins this way: “The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months.”  This woman, Moses’ mother, hid her baby for three months!  Imagine how hardthat would be, to hide a baby, a mewling, puking, crying, hiccupping, pooping baby for three months!  That’s quite the feat.

That one verse from Exodus says it tamely, and, let’s face it, we don’t often think about the body-liness of babies – or of anyone else for that matter.  Babies’ bodily functions, our bodies in general, really, are not usually considered a topic for polite conversation. 

But our Scriptures don’t shy away from bodies, their functions and their needs.  This portion of Exodus tells us that when Pharaoh’s daughter discovers him, Moses is doing what babies do best: he’s crying because he’s hungry.  And so, Pharaoh’s daughter does what any adoptive parent would have done before formula: she finds a wet nurse.  It takes only a very little imagination to recognize that bodies are everywhere in this story, from the Israelites who “multiplied” their own race by producing so many babies, to the Egyptian women who are described as giving birth “vigorous[ly],” to the crying baby who nurses at his mother’s breast.  Bodies, and the uses of bodies, are integral to the beginning of Exodus, and to the development of a whole nation devoted to God. 

For this is the story about the beginning of a tribe and people set apart for God.  These early Israelites, and all their bodily functions, were necessary for God’s promises to be fulfilled to all the world.  For this is the story of the clan from which Jesus would arise, the Son of God, embodied in the world.  The God of Moses’ clan, our God, is a God who knows a thing or two about bodies, who understands what it means to be a human being, a body in this world. 

So it’s not just the Old Testament that addresses our bodies.  Take Paul’s letter to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”  What a seeming contradiction to our modern ears, for we tend to think of our bodies as one thing and our spirits as another.  The former belongs to the earth, the latter to heaven.  But the letter to the Romans asks us to use our bodies as a living sacrifice in spiritual worship.

But for Paul, writing to the Romans two thousand years ago, there wouldn’t have seemed such a contradiction.  Earlier in this letter, Paul tells the Christians in Rome that they had been “enslaved to sin,” but that now, through Christ, they are freed from such slavery.  And slavery meant belonging wholly, body and soul, to one’s master.  But Paul brings this good news to the Romans: they are no longer in such slavery to sin.  Their bodies, hearts and minds are freed, through Christ, from the power and dominion that sin had over them and now, bodies, hearts and minds can be used in new ways: “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” 

So what does it mean to present our bodies, freed from sin, as a living sacrifice to God?  I am reminded of a certain song that has become popular in our household again recently: “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”  I like this song because there are lots of ways that children of any age can be involved.  If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, stomp your feet, shout hooray.  You can get creative: wave your arms, spin in a circle, blow a kiss.  When we sing that children’s song, our bodies enact an invisible emotion; our hands and feet and voices embody a truth that other folks would not otherwise be able to see. 

And the same is true when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God.  We can use our bodies to enact an otherwise invisible truth about who we believe God to be.  That truth is both simple and profound, and stated on our behalf by Peter in today’s gospel.  When Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter responds, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  And that is the truth which we, as Christians, confess: that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, whose love saves us from sin and breathes into us the new life of God.

And we can make that confession not only in our hearts and with our minds, but through our bodies as well.  Pre-pandemic, we could do so in church every Sunday when we ate and drank together at the altar of Christ, when we sang hymns and spoke the words of the Prayer Book with one voice.  It was our liturgical version of “If you’re happy and you know it”: If you know Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God, sing, eat, drink together. 

But just because we are no longer able to perform those actions with our bodies in church for the time being, doesn’t mean our embodied spiritual worship has to stop.  Quite the contrary.  Because what we do in church is only a kind of preparation for how we use and present our bodies to God as the church, as members of the body of Christ in the world.  Again, Paul’s letter to the Romans is particularly instructive: “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” 

One commentator on this passage puts it like this: “Members of the body of Christ offer living, holy and spiritual worship, not by… working as individuals.”  Rather, we “worship by practicing the kind of embodied gifts-sharing in community that Paul outlines … embodied community in Christ in which the gifts of others are valued, and each member uses one’s gifts on behalf of the body as a whole: this is worship; this is a sacrifice that is alive, holy and acceptable to God.”

In other words, instead of being enslaved to sin, body and soul, we now belong wholly to Christ, which is to say, to one another, in the body of Christ in the world.  We are enabled to use our whole selves in ministry to others as prophets, teachers, exhorters, givers and leaders. 

The bodily actions – and bodily functions – of the early Israelites made one Hebrew family into an entire nation over a generation or two in Egypt, a nation which would go on to fulfill the purposes of God in the world.  So, too, if we understand that our bodies are not inherently sinful, are not bound by the power of sin, but are free to be used to the glory of God, as a living sacrifice, then we can begin to understand the possible power of our bodily actions.  We can begin to see that if we use our bodies to show love to one another we will reveal to others the truth we know in our hearts and minds: that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of the loving God, alive in the world.  Amen.