January 27, 2013
The Joy of the Lord is My Strength
- Nehemiah 8:1-10
- Dr. Teri Thomas
Do you know what a plank is in pilates?
You are on the floor with your toes and your hands positioned as if you are about to do a push up.
But you don’t. You just hold your body, straight and stiff.
A few years ago I struggled to hold a plank for a few seconds.
Eventually my trainer got me to the place where I could hold it a full minute.
I struggled but could usually do it.
Then last week I’d been reading about gratitude and how helpful it is to take some time at the end of the day and run through a list of all the things for which you are grateful.
Well, the problem with that for me is that by the time I crawl into bed at night
the only thing I am grateful for is sleep. I am out cold before I can get two items on my list.
But I thought about that the other morning as my trainer began timing my plank
and I thought- Gee, this would be a good time to be grateful.
And I started my list.
I was grateful for a wonderful weekend in New York-
For my son Thomas and Sara and Linus.
For the places and possessions that keep me warm in this weather.
For the physical ability to work out
For health- and the fact that I only caught a cold, not the flu.
For Jack
For my job that assures I am never bored and always busy
For books and movies and popcorn
For people who care about others and reach out
and particularly those who have reached out to me in times of need
For good food,
good friends, and
good intentions.
I could have gone on but my list was interrupted by my trainer
announcing that I had held my plank for two minutes.
She was amazed- and when she asked what had gotten into me
I responded with the line we read this morning in Nehemiah
“The Joy of the Lord is my strength.”
I love this story from Nehemiah. Can you imagine?
People gathered in the town square to listen to scripture being read - for hours!
After all those folks had been through—their nation had suffered defeat at the hands of their enemy
they had been held captive in a foreign land
away from all they knew and cherished
finally they had been allowed to return home
to a city that was bruised and beaten
yet they come together for worship. they come needy, hopeful, questioning,
to hear the scriptures read and the very words of God bring them to their knees,
the words of the Lord move them to tears.
But Nehemiah and Ezra admonish them not to weep
but rather to celebrate and share - “for the joy of the LORD is your strength”.
They promise us all, we find joy no matter the circumstances
And we find strength no matter how we have suffered and we will find them in God.
And we find God- in community.
Our lessons today remind us that while we can study the Bible
and we can learn about Christianity on our own, we cannot be a Christian by ourselves.
It was true- even before Christianity came to be.
According to Nehemiah there were people who accompanied and assisted Ezra
in the task of expounding scripture.
The names were left out of our reading today (too hard to pronounce?), but their role is crucial.
They helped the people to understand the Scripture.
They gave the sense, so that the people understood what they were reading.
Living out our faith is a communal act, never an individualistic one only.
To understand God’s call one needs help, and one needs community.
This wonderful scene affirms that conviction.
In our second reading from 1 Corinthians Paul elaborates even further on the role of community.
God has given each of us unique gifts, and called us to work together as one Body.
And it is in the body, in our togetherness, that we find our joy and our strength.
When we are part of the body, we never rejoice alone and we never suffer alone because we never are alone.
We are together, in one body, whether we know it, whether we feel it, whether we like it or not.
Notice Paul doesn’t say we are like the body of Christ
he doesn’t ask us to strive to be the body of Christ
he says- we ARE the body of Christ.
Think about your body, there may be parts of it you don’t really like much.
There are probably essential organs you cannot even name.
There are some parts working harder than they should
and others that barely get any use at all.
Isn’t that the church?
The various pieces and parts are all connect in ways we do not even understand.
I have a cold and my ears are plugged up. It makes me dizzy and it’s hard to focus.
My feet, my brain, my nose, and my ears are all connected to my throat and my sinuses.
We accept the reality and the mystery when we are talking about our bodies.
“But then I end up in community with brains who want everyone else to think like a brain and hearts who want everyone to act like a heart and a hang nail who brings out the hangnail in all of us.”
Barbara Brown Taylor said it this way- “I am in community with a bunch of other people who look, smell, think, talk and act differently from me. One is perfectly cheerful but she can talk for thirty minutes straight without stopping to breathe, while another has been so beaten up by life that everything he says comes out as a sneer. One speaks so intimately of God that everyone around her feels like a spiritual slouch and another is a complete imposter, who prays big hot air balloons on Sunday mornings
and then goes home to knock his family around.” (BBT p. 86, Bread of Angels)
It is easier to talk about our kneecaps and our fingernails. Honestly thinking of ourselves as part of Christ’s body messes with too much of what we really believe. It makes the condition of our corporate spirit more important than my personal relationship with Jesus. The needs of the whole take priority over my individual wants and wishes. As a body, we cannot deny the corporate nature of salvation.
It means my role in the body may not be the most important one and I may not be irreplaceable.
Somebody, after all, has to be the appendix.
The reality is God is making a body for Christ.
Christ doesn’t have a regular body any more so God is crafting one
out of anybody who happens to be available…
anyone who looks as if they might just possibly do.
God is using other people's hands to be Christ's hands
and somebody’s feet to be Christ's feet,
and when there is some place where Christ is needed in a hurry and needed bad,
God will put the finger on some unsuspecting soul and for lack of anybody better…
you get to go and be Christ in that place.
Because whether we know it, whether we feel it, whether we like it or not, we are together, in one body. And since that is the way God intends it we will find our joy in community, we will discover our strength in community.
We ARE the body of Christ, we are in community.
It is just as easy, and just as hard, as that.
Thanks be to God.
Amen