Safe Harbor

Isaiah 58 and 61 -- 1 Corinthians 12:12-27

So there are things that we know about ourselves...things that frustrate, annoy and depress us...yet we go on doing them. Why is that? It seems so simple when we see it in others. We want to tell them how to fix it. We wonder, sometimes aloud, why they do this to themselves. Yet if we look upon our own lives we must see ourselves doing the same things. Things that frustrate, things that annoy and things that depress us. After such incidents, we find ourselves angry, irritable, confrontational, defensive...because we failed again, we screwed up again, we've disappointed ourselves again. And as a result, we hurt people we love, we're indifferent to those in need, and we build a wall around ourselves that no one can penetrate. So then the question "Why do we keep doing the things we despise?" leads to more questions. Like, "Why are we so self-focused?" and "Is there any hope for fools such as us?" and "Why, oh why would the God of the universe place such important tasks in our hands?" It's a ludicrous plan really.

And yet...God so loved the world. Not the saints, the righteous, the infallible, but the world. God so loved the world. Even me. Even you. "For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body...If one member suffers, all suffer together with it"--especially, I think, when that suffering is self-induced because with that comes a whole lot of other guilt and shame. "If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." This, my friends, is why we share our joys and concerns in Worship. And how many of us are guilty of not experiencing joys and concerns with one another? We complain because it takes up too much time in the service, we can't hear the person talking, we don't know who's talking, etc, etc, etc.

Verse 27 says, "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it." I think my favorite word in that sentence is NOW. NOW I am the body of Christ. NOW you are the body of Christ. Not tomorrow. Not someday. Not when we get to heaven. NOW. The Kingdom of God is at hand, because we are the body of Christ. Even in our failings and our frustrations. Even when the plan seems ludicrous. God is. And, we are. We are the body of Christ, and God is our safe harbor.