World Communion Sunday

1 Corinthians 12, 12 through 26.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.

For in the one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit.

Indeed, the body does not exist of one member, but of many.

If the foot would say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.

And if the ear would say, Because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose.

If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many members, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

And those members of the body that we think are less honorable, we clothe with greater honor.

And our less respectable members are treated with greater respect.

Whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.

If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

May we hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Today is the first Sunday in October, which makes it World Communion Sunday.

It was first observed in 1936 at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Reverend Hugh Thompson Kerr and the leaders of his congregation were looking for something to hold a fractured world together.

The Federal Council of Churches, which later became the National Council of Churches, adopted it in 1940, and it spread across mainline denominations from there.

Now I want you to think about the time that this yearly, that this observance became a yearly one and the things that were happening in our world.

In the shadow of the depression, witnessing the rise of fascism in Europe, people seeing the horrific results of division and the toxic desire for uniformity and sameness that led to millions of lives being obliterated through discriminatory laws, segregation, pilgrims, concentration camps, death camps.

Clearly, one could argue that things like this were happening in our own country or had happened in our own country, minus the death camps, but you know, it's easier to see the speck in our neighbor's eye than the log in our own at times.

So against that backdrop, World Communion Sunday offered a different vision for the world in the shadow of such an ugly and devastating one.

And it continues to offer something to us today.

When I think of World Communion Sunday, of breaking bread with the intentional knowledge that people all over the world are also breaking bread in remembrance of the one who lived and died and rose again, the one who extends the invitation to this table so that we can continue this act of remembrance whenever we gather together as a community of faith.

I can't help but think of Paul's brilliant words written to the community in Corinth about the body of Christ.

Words that we toss around, body of Christ.

Frequently, as part of our language of faith, we sing the words body of Christ in hymns and songs.

But these are also words that remind us of the inherent diversity within the body of Christ.

That inherent diversity that makes the existence as the body of Christ possible.

And it is in that diversity that our unity as the body of Christ emerges.

We cannot exist apart from one another.

We need each other in order to fully manifest the body of Christ.

I was really struck by this as I heard Jamie read the passage this morning.

It's beautiful when you're reading scripture and it suddenly strikes you in a way that maybe it hadn't before, and you just find yourself moved to tears when you consider the beauty and also the subversiveness of that passage.

It's incredible.

World Communion Sunday is one Sunday a year where we intentionally let those walls and barriers that divide us fall away and focus instead on what it is we share as part of the Christian community.

Now, I would argue that such a practice that sweeps away barriers in the name of unity does not necessitate ignoring our differences.

In fact, that is the beauty of World Communion Sunday.

It is a richer celebration if the differences are still present and we are able to break bread across those differences.

But wow, is it easier said than done?

I think about the people in my life who are people of faith who nevertheless see the world very differently than me.

But because they are people of faith, I sometimes think that perhaps I can appeal to them using language of faith, and maybe then they'll understand where I'm coming from.

And maybe we can find some common ground when I use that language of faith.

And then I usually walk away from those conversations, despairing even more.

Sometimes I just don't know how to find common ground across some kinds of difference.

Because unity in diversity is hard.

And Paul knew that.

They were no strangers to violence being the response to such differences.

In fact, Paul was saying something quite provocative in these verses.

As Professor Young Sut Kim writes, Paul takes up the human body as an analogy for the body of Christ.

He writes that the body does not consist of one member, but of many, which stands in protest of the stoic ideal of unity, where Rome is center and elites control the lower class people.

Paul's words stand against the hegemonic, that's a big word.

I hope you're impressed with me.

I had to look it up.

I mean, I've heard it used before, but do you ever have those words you kind of think you know what the word is?

But you just need a little more clarity.

So I'll give you some clarity, don't worry.

So Paul's words stand against the hegemonic body politics of society where the head or the emperor controls the rest.

In the context of Rome, the hegemony or the political, economic, cultural, and social dominance of one over the other, that is the reality.

And it is not a model of equality, mutuality, or respect.

But think back to what you heard Jamie read earlier as she read the words about what the body of Christ is in Paul's vision.

Paul writes in opposition to that model of dominance of one over the other.

In Paul's body politic, the human body is not a hierarchical system, but a supplementing, solidifying union with various parts.

There are many parts in the body.

The foot is different from the hand, but that would not make it less, any less part of the body.

All parts work differently, but they are all needed in the body.

All of the different parts of the body are necessary and important.

In Paul's words, no one part of the body is more important than the other or dominant over the others.

In fact, he writes, on the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

And those members of the body that we think less honorable, we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect.

Whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.

This is powerful and subversive and beautiful, and a call for us to think differently about how we move through this world as the body of Christ with other members of the body of Christ.

Trying to live this, though, not so easy.

Diversity is hard.

Paul even indicates as much in his letter.

He doesn't really cover how exactly we do that without further breeding, dissension.

And so I find myself wishing that Paul had written a third letter to the Corinthians just to discover, just to uncover that reality.

But the call is still there to honor all members of the body, to cherish all members of the body, to seek mutuality and equity and care within the body.

Which is why he reminds us if one member suffers, all suffer together with it.

If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

These words reveal a great deal of truth at the heart of God's call to us.

Living into that call requires sacrifice, but the sacrifices we're called to make as members of the one body of Christ do not diminish us as individuals.

They make our ability to exist in community more possible.

So with this in mind, I have some stories of communion to share with you.

Examples of bread broken across places of difference to unite people.

I've recently traveled to Croatia.

It is a beautiful country, but one cannot travel to this part of the world without hearing about the war that devastated the nations that once comprised Yugoslavia.

We spent most of our time in Croatia, but we did take one short excursion to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Most of my travels have been to countries in Europe, and this is the first time I have ever been in a Muslim-majority country.

Now, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not look like one might imagine a Muslim-majority country to look, probably in part due to the fact that the majority Muslim population comprises a little over 51%, with Orthodox Christians being around 30% and Roman Catholics being around 15%, with other groups representing far less than that in the remaining 4%.

It was a different and beautiful experience to hear the Islamic call of prayer at noon, heard at staggered times from the speakers atop the towers of the various mosques throughout the city as the exact moment of noon hit at slightly different times depending on where and how it was calculated.

I just sat in silence and let the musical Arabic words wash over me.

As we walked back to our van after lunch, I saw a wall that was spray painted with graffiti that read, The lesson was Srevenica.

I couldn't let a statement like that just hang there.

I had to learn more.

Now, I'd been in high school when the war was ravaging the countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia.

So while the name of that town was familiar to me, I had to do some research on the drive back to Dubrovnik to understand the full impact of that spray-painted statement.

To put it succinctly, the Srevanica massacre was the systemic killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak or Bosnian Muslim men and boys by the Bosnian Serb or Christian Orthodox forces in July of 1995.

There's obviously more to the story than that, but that massacre was the culmination of a series of events in which the UN was involved.

I need to drink some water, hold on.

Sorry about that.

As I heard and read stories of the violence that unfolded in this part of the world in the 1990s, I remembered that a friend of mine who had traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina with Church World Service and Week of Compassion had done so about 13 years after those wars had ended.

Now he went there for a different purpose than I had.

I was just going for a family vacation, but he was going to learn.

And he was going to be with people who had survived something horrific because of their differences.

And now we're learning to live together despite those differences.

His experiences with the aftermath of the conflicts were therefore sharper and more focused.

He was one of several seminarians who made that trip, and he spent a lot of time processing what he had learned in that land, trying to figure out how these lessons would impact his ministry.

Traveling through that country, it was clear that the scars from the war fought there 13 years ago were far from faded.

I could still see them when I was there five months ago, and that would have been more than 30 years after the wars had ended.

When my friend was there, there were some areas where the wounds were still gaping.

And even in locations where reconstruction had happened, where the rubble had been carried away, the scars on the people remained.

Now, as I mentioned before, there are basically three ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, each representing a different faith tradition.

The ethnic Serbs are Orthodox Christian, the Croats are Catholic, and the Bosniaks are ethnic Muslims.

The community in which my friend found himself toward the end of his trip was one that had started out as primarily ethnic Serb.

However, during the war, the area was invaded by the Croats, who essentially replaced the ethnic Serb population.

And during Reconstruction, many of the Serbs had been relocated back to that area.

However, there were still some Croat as well as Bosniak members of the community.

And so, amidst this ethnic and religious diversity, my friend found himself in a region of breathtaking natural beauty, a beauty that continued to haunt him after his return to the states.

That Saturday evening, they made their way to a lodge in the mountains outside the town.

Being away from the city limits, the lodge had no electricity, but they were able to comfortably settle down for their overnight stay in their rustic surroundings.

Fellowship was shared throughout the evening, with the numbers dwindling as the hours passed and people grew sleepy.

At some point, it dawned on my friend that he was the only American remaining in the group.

Although he and his companions did not speak the same language, they were able to muddle through conversation with the help of an interpreter from Church World Service.

Occasional laughter broke out when familiar cultural phrases uttered by my friend in English caught the attention of those gathered with him.

As the darkness of the night wrapped the lodge like a blanket, as laughter and wine were shared in this place, my friend realized that he was partaking in communion.

Here he was, a lone American, surrounded by ethnic Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks.

Here he was, a lone disciple, surrounded by folks who were Catholic, Orthodox, and even an atheist.

Here he was, surrounded by people who in the past were supposed to be sworn enemies.

And yet this night were gathered together, sharing the wine, enjoying one another's company, dwelling together in peace.

Here he had found the body of Christ.

Here was communion.

A young man from the United States worked as a doctor in Rwanda in 2007.

He was living with a host family, and for all intents and purposes, was living life as much as he could as the Rwandan people did.

He shared his experiences in a blog, and one particular story stood out for me.

Here it is in his own words.

Of late, most days in Kigali have been difficult, and the exceptions are few and far between.

This is not a complaint or solicitation for sympathy, but simply a cross-section of life that I want to share.

For it is the for this is what it's like, if this is what it's like for me, you can imagine what it's like for most Rwandis.

Most of the difficulty is fueled from not having much money.

Spending$5 per day renders my account bone dry before I get home.

So sometimes I skip meals, but then I am hungry and subject to depression.

The other night I brought biscuits home and set them on a shelf.

When I came back five minutes later, they were gone.

I asked my little brother how that could be, and he told me, because you cannot own food, it's to share.

After a particularly long and depressing day, I finally got home last night and collapsed on my bed and lay there for probably two hours, exhausted, frustrated, defeated.

Wanting more than anything to be understood, I pictured putting a USB adapter at the end of an IV so I could shovel my depleted state into words for you to understand.

I want to do that sometimes with Diet Coke.

Have Diet Coke IV into me.

All sorts of tough questions swarmed through my head.

Why am I here?

Why did I give up the comforts of home?

Why am what am I supposed to do with all that I see and experience?

Then without straining, an answer just appeared.

I came here to serve and not to be served, because that's what Jesus did, and he is my model.

And then I remembered something about being part of the body of Christ, about setting aside the self, and how testing of faith develops perseverance.

So I got up and went to the dining room, poured wine into a cup, tore off a piece of bread, and took communion.

And at that moment, better than ever before, I understood what it meant to take the body in remembrance of him.

I was exhausted, but not in despair.

In the realization of purpose, in the giving of oneself in service to others.

One of my former professors.

And her husband traveled to Taiwan to work as missionaries.

She brought back rich stories of her experiences there, but an early encounter in worship gave her new eyes to see.

She wrote, Now that I live in Taiwan, so far from home, so far from all of you, so far from all the people I love, communion has become for me a powerful bond that transcends the seemingly impermeable walls of space.

Every time we celebrate communion here, we know that somehow we are reconnected with our community in the United States.

At the same time, we have also come to know what it means to be connected to a community that we hardly knew existed a year ago.

Here in Taiwan, we gather around the table with people whose literal words we do not understand, and yet who speak for us the language of our hearts in the prayers, in the ritual acts, in the sharing of bread and wine.

Not only are the walls of space and time penetrated in communion, the walls of culture and language become the bridges of thanksgiving and praise for the God who calls all people to share the good gifts that have been given to us.

Surrounded by a foreign language and foreign customs, engaging in familiar ritual that connects opposite sides of the world, here was the body of Christ.

Here was communion.

Reflecting on these stories, thinking about hospitality being extended across planes of difference, I remember something else my friend who traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina shared with me.

He said he found himself in a land of unfailing hospitality.

Biblical codes of hospitality were lived out in this country.

Throughout the course of his stay, my friend found himself being welcomed into the homes of the people who dwelled in the land, the homes of the people whose lives were forever changed by war, the homes of the people who saw their neighbors and their loved ones carted away and executed.

And yet, despite all of the horrors they experienced, they still had it in their hearts to open their homes to a young man from the middle of the United States who had lived in comfort and with ease most of his life.

He had never known the pain of war on the streets near his home, the fear for his very life.

But they didn't begrudge him any of that.

They simply welcomed him and they fed him when it was clear they hardly had enough for themselves.

And as he sat at their table eating their food under their proud, watchful eyes, part of him felt guilty as he knew that his full belly would mean their empty bellies.

But then he realized it wasn't like that at all.

He had a purpose here.

His presence fed them in another way, for in the eyes of his hosts he saw something incredible.

It was as if they were saying, We can't believe that you would come all the way from the United States just to see us.

His presence honored them.

He was doing something very holy in Bosnia just by showing up.

He was standing with them in solidarity by listening deeply to their stories and being changed by them.

The holy experience was experience was consummated at the table where they invited him and fed him, even though they didn't have enough to give.

And how crass would it be to deny that hospitality when it was offered, especially knowing the sacrifice.

It was an incredible gift.

How could he deny it by refusing it?

Seated at a table of hospitality, sharing the stories of others, here was the body of Christ.

Here was communion.

Today at this table, we will eat the bread and drink from the cup just as we do every other week.

But today, at this table, we do so acutely aware of the millions of others who are joining us in this communion meal across the world.

In a day and time when it feels like more and more is driving us apart.

We are participating in an act of subversive love and extravagant hospitality that reminds us that even in our incredible diversity, we are united as part of one body, made stronger and whole precisely because of our differences.

Today at this table, we come together from across the world and across so many lines of difference as many members of the one body of Christ.

Today, at this table, we gather young and old, rich and poor, outcast and elite, neighbor and stranger, friend and enemy.

Today, at this table, we take part in something that reaches across time and space to unite the whole people of God in our common faith in the Christ who calls us here.

For here is the body of Christ.

Here is communion.

Thanks be to God for setting the table.