The Body branding problem
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2012%3A12-31a&version=NRSVUE]
I know this will be shocking for you to hear, but sometimes... sometimes there is conflict in the church.
In the church! I know... hard to believe, right?
That sometimes Christians would do things contrary to the ways of Jesus... but it seems like that's what's going on in the church in Corinth.
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Alright... The church is, of course, a human institution, and individual congregations are made up of individual people, and whenever people come together in human community, yes, sometimes there is conflict.
Sometimes the age old issues flare up around power and status and who's in and who's out.
And as we can pick up on in the 1 Corinthians text that I’ve linked to in the text version of this post, all this very human drama is playing out within the church in Corinth, the church that Paul himself founded, amongst the people that he personally knows and loves.
There are problems specific to those people at that particular time, but as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun, so there is benefit to try and understand what was going on then, to illumine what we deal with now.
It is edifying to hear Paul's "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" message to the church there to see how it may still resonate with the church here.
And it's important, because when you boil it all down - and this becomes clearer when you read the whole Epistle - Paul is fundamentally talking about the identity of the church and what it means to be a Christian in the world.
And Paul the pastor has to find the words to say to the people that he loves that they are getting it wrong - that, as the Biblical professor Frank Crouch puts it: "they have strayed from their essential identity and purpose—to be the church—created by the Spirit to love and serve each other and the world in Jesus' name".
You see, instead of serving others, certain members of the church in Corinth have prioritized serving themselves - their own basest desires, their own puffed up egos, their own need to feel "holier than thou" because of certain spiritual gifts they possess or traditional markers of power they have outside the church like money or education or social ranking.
In short, some of the people think they are better than others, and this is playing out in very unhealthy ways within the life of the community, and is pulling the church away from its essential identity.
And so Paul does, what Jesus himself did so often, he uses metaphor to help people understand his understanding what it means to be a Christian.
Paul leans into the metaphor of the church as the body, saying: "For 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 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.’"
Paul tells the church, then and now, that we live in relationship with each other, and the well-being of the individual is inseparable from the well-being of the whole.
And Paul preaches that unity comes not through conformity but through diversity.
Just as the eye is different from the foot, we are all different - different backgrounds, different perspectives, different skills and gifts - but all that diversity is valued - is needed - to make up the living, breathing, singing, serving, praying, dancing, loving community that is Christ's body - the church.
This is what Paul the pastor preaches… but too often... too often... then and now, other voices fill the space between us that preach, not welcome, but fear. Fear of that which is different, resulting in the demonization of so-seen outsiders and a culture of division that tears the fabric of human community.
Too often the head says to the feet "I have no need of you!"
And when this is done in Jesus' name, we are getting church wrong - we lose the essential identity of what it means to be a Christian in the world.
And make no mistake, the world is watching.
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Within our church, some of us are educators, some of us work in healthcare, others are entrepreneurs. We have lawyers and homemakers and accountants and people that work in technology and customer service. We have young people in school, retired people and those who's current circumstances do not allow them to work for income but still have vital gifts to share with the church and the world.
We all have different backgrounds and my background before becoming a minster is in marketing and communications and branding, and over my time of being a Christian, I have done my best to take Paul's message seriously, and bring these gifts into the body of Christ.
I am a Christian because of my relationship with Jesus, and also because of my deep belief in the church and it's calling to be an active agent in addressing the problems we face as a species, which so often stem from spiritual problems.
I know, because I have personally experienced it, that the church can be a place of hope and healing and beauty in Jesus' name.
But as a human institution, the church is far from perfect, and without a doubt, sometimes it gets it wrong.
And at other times, and this is especially true in mainline denominations like ours, the church’s failure comes in the inability to articulate a coherent and compelling vision of what the church actually is, ceding the ground to much louder, angrier voices.
I know, because I see it every day on the news, in popular culture, on social media, that the church has a serious identity problem - or to use a modern term: a branding problem.
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There was an article in the Toronto Star last Sunday, perhaps you saw it, written by two experts in the Sociology of Religion.
Now, the prevailing understandings around the shift towards a more secular society generally focus on increased individualism, materialism and pluralism, and the rising authority of science.
But the authors of the article argue that there's another dimension that's driving people, especially young people, away from organized religion: it's the public perception of what religion is.
It's a branding problem.
The researchers surveyed Anglo-Canadian Millennials who identified as ‘spiritual but not religious', and asked them about their perceptions of religion, and came back with some, I think, un-surprising results.
According to the study, young Canadians believe that religion is: anti-modern, colonial and conservative; specifically defined by a certain brand of American conservatism.
The young people said they see religion as antithetical to modern views around social progress, especially for the LGBTQ community.
There is also visceral anger towards churches for their role in the residential school system and the perpetuation of colonialism.
And seeing the movement towards Christian nationalism to the south of us, there is an almost patriotic pride these days in turning away from religion as if to demonstrate that "we're not like that".
In short, the researchers found that being religious in this country is increasingly socially unacceptable, especially among the young.
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This past summer, after I did a wilderness right of passage in the Dartmoor forest of England, I went to Ireland and was very graciously hosted for a few days by one of members, Grant, who has a home there in the Midlands. We had a wonderful time together. Grant is a great tour guide and is rightly very proud of that part of the world in which his family has deep roots.
On one of our excursions, Grant took me to St. Patrick's well
Now perhaps there are many "St. Patrick's wells" in Ireland, I don’t know, but this one was special because it was far from being a tourist destination.
We had go down these windy backroads and get the local farmer's permission to walk through his field, navigating cow plops along the way.
But there in the field over a little hill is this ancient stone circle with spring-fed pool at it's centre. And next to the well is a white thorn tree.
And the tradition is that you take a piece of fabric, and dip it in the water, and stand where Patrick himself stood, and say a prayer, and then tie the fabric to the tree.
And there in that field, by the well, on a tree that you have to go on a journey to find, there are hundreds of pieces of fabric, representing thousands of diverse dreams and longings, but collectively, they form one beautiful monument to the common human need to be bound to something greater than ourselves.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the metaphor of the vine to describe himself "I am the true vine" he says "and my Father is the gardener."
I've been thinking about it these past months, and I've come to consider that that thorn tree with the fabric flying in the wind as again another way of seeing the church - as a place of ceremony where we bring our hopes and our longings, our wounds and our gifts, and, as St. Patrick wrote in his famous prayer: I Bind Unto Myself Today.
The church is formed by binding our lives unto Christ.
This is not something that can be forced, it’s a choice that presents itself only when someone feels compelled to connect with something greater, something more.
And when this happens, it’s the church’s role to affirm that everyone who approaches the holy water with an open heart is welcome to bind their life unto Christ in the company of others.
It is the church’s role to communicate into our culture that there is an imperfect, but deeply connected community, where all are valued. All are cherished, whether you are male or female or non-binary; whether you are gay or straight or 2 Spirit or trans; whether you are rich or poor, young or old; whether you are new to this country, or you can trace your heritage back generations, or your ancestors have been on this land since time immemorial, all are welcome to bind their lives to the life of Christ.
This binding, through baptism and the living of our lives in a way where the well-being of each individual is inseparable from the well-being of the whole, forms the basis of the Christian life.
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If you've been to Metropolitan United Church [https://www.metunited.org] in the past months, you will know that we have been developing a relationship with the Official Estate of the great Canadian Ojibway artist Norval Morrisseau.
As a first step in this relationship, with the support and generosity of the Estate, we have jointly placed a series of Norval's artworks in the sanctuary.
Being Christian means valuing diversity within the church and also outside the church within the wisdom of other spiritual traditions. For whenever we fall into the age-old trap of focusing solely on who's in or who's out, we've seen too many examples of religion turning self-righteous, self-serving and cruel. People get hurt, and all those problems identified in that public perception study of young people I mentioned earlier are entirely... entirely valid.
And so here, through the sharing of sacred space, and the intentional making of space to encounter the richness and resiliency of Indigenous stories
here where we tell the Christian story, this project is a small, but meaningful step in our reconciliation journey as a church and our healing journey as a country.
Over the past months, a number of school groups have come through to see the art.
After one of the visits, one of the students said "With the paintings and the stained glass and everything, it’s like the whole building is one piece of art."
And in another session with a class that was learning about the residential school system, a student said: "We’ve been learning all term about the harm that was done... I never imagined I would see an exhibit like this in a church. It is amazing!"
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If we want to change the public perception - the brand - of what the church is, it starts with doing a better job of being the church.
Of being humble, recognizing when we've got it wrong, and making amends when we've caused harm.
It also comes by standing in the footsteps of those who have gone before us and leaning on our traditions, not with dogmatic rigidity, but in ways that offer stability within these unsteady times while also inviting people to go on a great spiritual adventure in the company of others.
And just as Paul did with the church in Corinth, changing public perception requires continually coming back to Jesus, and preaching him as Christ crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. The one who comes to bring good news, even in the bad news of our days.
I am a Christian because of my relationship with Jesus.
I have traversed the field with the cow plops and have chosen to bind my life unto him, and I am better for it.
And I am a Christian because of my deep belief in body of Christ - the church - that messy and mystical community of intertwined individuals collectively called to be an active agent in addressing the problems we face as a species, which so often stem from the spiritual problems of meaning and identity and belonging.
And I know it to be true, because I see it lived out every day, that the church as a community of intertwined individuals, can play a role in shaping public perception of what church is by living into a brand of hope and healing and beauty in Jesus' name.
And just as the eye cannot say to the hand "I have no need of you" I can tell you with confidence, that the body of Christ needs ALL of you and all of YOU, including your voice.
The Church needs your voice to help counter the louder and angrier voices that have dominated public consciousness for too long.
This church needs your voice to proclaim that there are places of hope and healing and beauty in Jesus' name where we are all welcome to bring our longings and ours gifts and be bound to something greater than ourselves - to be bound up together as the living, breathing, singing, serving, praying, dancing, loving body that is the church of Jesus Christ.
And with God's help, may this always... always be so. Amen.
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