A couple of years ago a good friend of mine went to his favorite sandwich shop one day for lunch.  Jay said that the young man behind the counter making his sandwich didn’t look like he felt very well.  As Jay went to pay out he asked, “Are you OK?”  The young man said, “Not really.  I’ve been fighting some kind of stomach flu the last couple of days.”  Jay didn’t say anything but, when he walked out the door, he just dropped the freshly made sandwich into the nearest trashcan and went somewhere else for lunch.  He didn’t want to assume anything.  Had the sandwich maker washed his hands well before he made the sandwich or not?  There was no way to know and the risk certainly wasn’t worth the price of an uneaten sandwich.  There are a lot worse things than stomach flu.  But, when you have it, it’s hard to imagine what they might be.  Jay didn’t want to take anything for granted, like his health.  So, he just dropped the sandwich into a trashcan and went on down the road.

As we are now less than one month from entering our 40 Days of Purpose campaign, I’d like for you to think with me about some things we shouldn’t take for granted.  Like, we shouldn’t assume that just “doing a program” guarantees spiritual renewal.  This program is just a structure, of sorts, to help us all focus on the same thing for a given period of time, to get all of our energies moving in the same direction.  You cannot program spiritual renewal.  Spiritual renewal is the gift of God.  All we can do is make ourselves available to God in prayer and worship and community.  It’s not something to take for granted.  But, there is something more that I think we should be careful not to assume.  Something that is reinforced for us in the text of scripture we have just read this morning in 1 Corinthians 12. 

As far as structure goes, let me say at the beginning that, if you are a literalist, either the Bible is going to drive you nuts or you’re going to tear the Bible to pieces trying to make it fit your way of thinking.  A very significant portion of scripture is made up of metaphors or stories or parables that are meant to illustrate spiritual truths too great for the human mind to fully comprehend.  If you are a person for whom every little detail has to be literally true in order to be true, you may find yourself more confused by scripture than helped by it. 

The Old Testament, for example, is one story after another of how God worked among humanity through very human people to reveal himself.  Even the word, “himself,” when used to describe the eternal God of all creation, is somewhat metaphorical.  God is not limited to and is far more than human maleness.  Human maleness is a creation of eternal God, not the other way around.  We are made in God’s image, not God in ours.  So that, since we are all, male and female, made in God’s image, there is something about God that is both more like a woman than a man and more like a man than a woman; God is not limited to either or even both of them together.  But, we have to have some word to refer to God because we need something in human language to describe what is beyond human comprehension, like God. 

In some ways, all language is metaphor.  If you tell your child or your grandchild, “I love you,” do those three words really encompass all that you feel?  As powerful as those three words are, how could they possibly describe the depth of love a parent feels for a child?  “I love you,” only opens a little window to a much greater truth that is truly indescribable in words any human could utter. 

So, no one story in scripture tells us all there is to know about God.  And, no one was a greater master of storytelling than Jesus, who used one parable after another to describe for us what he called the Kingdom of God.  He would say, “the kingdom of God is like,” and then tell a story that was not literally true but represented literal truth that was beyond human comprehension.  No human mind can fully comprehend the Kingdom of God anymore than we can understand the infinity of outer space.  But, through parables, Jesus opened windows of finite understanding of the infinite for us.  Jesus reminds me of my father, who can hardly tell a story without saying, “this reminds me of the time when,” and then proceeds to tell another story to illustrate the story he’s already telling.  Anyone have a dad like that?  Well, actually, we all have a Father like that.  A heavenly Father who uses stories to tell us about himself. 

So much so that, when he was inspired to write part of what became our Bible, even Paul had to give in and use one now and then.  Paul’s mind worked more like an engineer’s.  He liked rational, logical structure in his sentences, which sometimes ramble on to such great lengths that he would have certainly flunked ninth grade grammar trying to explain the mystery of God.  But, now and then, even Paul gave way to metaphor.  And, the text we have read this morning is a perfect example of that.

Paul is trying to describe what it means to be a Christian, specifically, what it means to be a Christian in relationship to all other Christians.  He’s taking a stab at describing what we know of as the church.  Not, the building or the steeple, but the one we see when we open the doors and see the people.  How do you do that?  How do you describe a living organism that stretches across time and space to include all of redeemed humanity and that is not limited to buildings or programs or human organizations, like denominations?  How do you describe something that has been living for thousands of years without even one interruption caused by famine or peril or sword or death?  How do you describe something that is made up of all kinds of people, young and old, female and male, and of all races and colors and geographies, “Jews or Greeks, slaves or free,” all of them, bonded together by this one thing, their personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ?  How would you do that?

It’s beyond comprehension.  So, if you’re trying to tell that story, you need another story to illustrate it.  A story that is so familiar, that anyone anywhere would understand it.  No matter what their race or language or no matter what century they were living in, they’d get it.  If I told you that I once went to a rattlesnake roundup before I didn’t believe in rattlesnake roundups and actually ate some fried rattler, how would I describe the taste to you?  I’d say, “it tastes like chicken,” and, assuming you’ve had Kentucky fried at least once and you can get the image of a scaly, dirt-crawling, venomous pit viper out of your mind, you would know fried rattlesnake tastes like without having to actually eat any.  Hungry?

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul is trying to describe nothing less than the eternal church of the living Christ.  His words have to carry across cultures and centuries.  He needs an image any human can grasp.  So, Paul says that being a Christian is like being a part of a body, a human body.  Eyes, ears, noses, feet, legs and sometimes, even hair.  “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”  The church is far more, but if you need some way to think about it, it is like a human body.  It is one entity, but it has many different though interdependent parts, all functioning for the same ultimate reason.  And, therein lies the one thing I don’t think we should take for granted as we enter this 40 Days campaign. 

We, all of us who follow Christ as the Lord of our lives, are part of Christ’s body, his church.  We are part of the body but the body is greater than any one of us.  We were created to be a unique part of his body working with all the other parts of his body.  We all have a responsibility to someone and something greater than ourselves.  So, we have a unique place, but a responsibility to something greater than our uniqueness.  One of the very first things that being a part of the body of Christ does is remind us that the world was not created for and does not revolve around us; we were created for God and “‘we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:28) in him, or not at all. 

As well, one of the greatest mistakes we can ever make is to assume that being a part of Christ’s body means losing our unique identity.  That the only way we matter is if we are like everyone or anyone else.  “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 . . ..  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.” 

It’s been said that Jennifer Aniston has single-handedly set the pace for hairstyles more than any other person in America for the last ten years.  She’s so beautiful that she sets the standard.  And, every time Brittney exposes a little more, exposing a little more becomes the latest fashion trend.  But, did God really intend for every little girl to grow up with Jennifer’s hair and Brittney’s skin?  Didn’t God have something greater in mind?  Aren’t all God’s children beautiful?  Frankly, I have to be careful here.  I don’t have much room to talk.  No matter how hard I’ve tried, with each passing day I look more and more like what I do.  How is it that you can spot a preacher at 500 yards?  Bankers look like bankers, lawyers like lawyers, mechanics like mechanics and preachers like Brad Pitt.  Right?

One of the greatest shortcomings of believers in this generation is the sin of letting ourselves be remade in the image of what works best in someone else’s church instead of the image of the one who created us.  Romans 12, among other texts, makes it quite clear that the will of God for our lives is that we be remade in the image of Christ.  What sin has distorted God intends to reclaim, through Christ.  The more God does his work, the more we will be like Christ, not necessarily like each other.  Where’s our creativity?  Our uniqueness?   Too often, for example, in any given setting, we are made to feel like we can only be a part of the church if we talk a certain way or use a certain kind of language to describe our spirituality. 

When I was growing up, it was fashionable within the youth group that I desperately wanted to be a part of to say, “Praise the Lord,” as the response to every single thing that happened.  Certainly, there are times when “Praise the Lord” is an appropriate thing to say, the only appropriate thing to say.  But, I was often made to feel that if I didn’t use it as some kind of holy expletive then I was in some way or another less than spiritual than everyone else.  It is one thing to be ashamed to say something that would in any way identify you as a Christian.  It is another thing altogether to think that the only way you can give praise to God is say “Praise the Lord” as the knee-jerk response to a traffic light changing from red to green to suit your schedule or a parking space opening up nearer the mall entrance just when you drive by.  When words, even holy words, are used too much they can lose some of their sacred meaning to us.  At one time, the Jews refused to say the name of God because it was too holy to utter.  Familiarity can breed sacrilege. 

This is what the metaphor of the body of Christ means, as I understand it.  There may be only way to heaven, through Christ.  But, there is no one single way to look or act or talk or think while we are in the process of discovering what it means to follow Christ.  While there is much more, 1 Corinthians 12 teaches two things at a minimum about the church, the body of Christ. 

First, in Christ, we all have a place to belong, which, by the way, is one of the single greatest and yet often overlooked avenues of appeal we have to this lost world.  Second, in Christ, there are as many ways to live for Christ as there are personalities that God, in his infinite genius, created.  There are as many ways to praise the Lord as there human personalities on the planet.  I think God intended it that way.  Think of how lifeless a rainbow would be if it were only one color.  Think of how bland this world would be if it were all Baptist.

The purpose of this 40 Days campaign is not to force you into the mold someone else has made for you but to help you discover and embrace the very unique, once in all of humanity purpose for your life as you are remade in the image of the Christ who died for you.  You have a place to belong; you also have a unique contribution to make.  In Christ, no matter what, you are never without that.  Think of the power of inviting people to belong and to make a contribution, which is the genius of the Home Teams.  One of the greatest needs in this huge metropolis is the indescribable loneliness in which most people live. 

Loneliness is not the absence of crowds but the absence of meaningful relationships.  You can be married and still be lonely.  You can have sex and still be lonely.  You can work in a crowded office building and still be lonely.  You can watch a ballgame in a stadium crowded with tens of thousands and still be lonely.  You can attend church and still be lonely.  No matter how many people are around you, if you have no meaningful relationships you will be lonely.  If you can identify four or five meaningful relationships in your life, truly intimate, caring, deep friendship relationships, you are by any standard one of the wealthiest people in this city.  And, for every one of us who could say we have those relationships, there are scores who cannot.  Inviting people to become a Christian can be a simple as inviting them to have some place to belong where their presence matters, their absence does not go unnoticed and they are given the opportunity to discover their unique purpose in creation.  The purpose of this 40 Days program is not just to make us feel better about Jesus but to help us reach out to our lonely neighbors and friends and invite them to belong and contribute.

Do you know what age group of people suffers the greatest number of suicides every year?  We hear a great deal about teenage suicides.  But, it might surprise you to learn that one of the highest rates of suicide occurs among men in the 60’s.  It’s not uncommon for a man who no longer has a career ladder to climb to feel that he has no place to belong that matters.  Home Teams are not just for young adults.  They are also for older adults who have reached a stage in life where they need a new reason to live because the one that drove them for the first sixty or seventy years has gone away. 

Sitting on the sofa in the home of one of our homebound folks recently (his wife has Alzheimer’s and his health is not good), I was reminded by his heartfelt cry for help that everyone needs a place to belong and our church is obliged, in the name of Christ, to incarnate itself in the living rooms of those who can no longer be physically present with us here but who are still part of our body. 

There is only way to heaven and that is through Christ.  But, there is no one way to be Christian.  When God created you, I don’t know if he made you to be an ear or a hand or a foot or an eye in the body of Christ.  But, if you allow yourself to be poured into someone else’s mold instead of being remade in the image of Christ two things will happen.  You will never discover God’s unique purpose for you and the body of Christ will in some way suffer because you didn’t make your unique contribution.  There are some things we just cannot afford to assume. 

The importance of your place in and your contribution to this community of faith, the body of Christ, is literally one of them.