Christ Episcopal Church
August 5, 2012
13 Proper B
Every three years, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church meets and many decisions are made that garner all sorts of publicity as happened just last month. Every three years, at Christ Church, we gather up three years worth of pennies, and present them to the Church Periodical Club at General Convention. Those pennies are then used to purchase books and other forms of literature for ministries around the world. Last month, I had the privilege, as I did three years ago, to present the two miles of pennies which we have collected since 2009. Two miles of pennies is $1689.20, which is not exactly chump change. As important as the many decisions made at General Convention my be, I would like to think that our offering of pennies impacts lives as much as those decisions, even if in different ways. We have now presented 11 miles of pennies to the Church Periodical Club for this ministry, which totals 9290.60. That is a lot of pennies. Collecting pennies has become such a part of life at Christ Church, that I really don’t think very much about it. But the two times I have presented our check to the Church Periodical Club, the women there were amazed and wanted to know how we do this. All it takes, I tell them, is for every person to believe that each penny makes a difference.
For me, our pennies have become something of a parable about the body of Christ. In the three years between General Conventions, the pennies that I collect alone really do not make much of a difference toward a whole mile of pennies. In fact, my pennies make such a small difference that I am tempted to wonder why I should bother to save them at all. And if we all think that way, no pennies will ever get collected. But when we each save our pennies for three years, meager though each collection might be, together we make a huge difference in the lives of those who have no books to read. When we work together as a body, we can do amazing things. When we each work in isolation, we barely make a difference at all.
All of our readings this morning point to the fundamental truth that we are all connected and called together to build up the body. The reading from 2 Samuel illustrates what can happen when we fail to realize that we are all connected. In this reading from 2 Samuel, David realizes that his behavior has consequences that reach far beyond himself. David’s affair with Bathsheba is not a matter that will affect only the principle characters. David’s actions will have wide ranging consequences that will involve his yet unborn child, and his house for generations to come. While we might well argue that our God is not a God who visits the sins of the parents upon the children, and we are shocked at God’s harsh punishment for David’s sins, what the Hebrew scripture makes clear is that our actions sometimes have natural consequences that are inflicted upon the innocent. The people of God are one body, through out all generations, and our behavior affects those around us for better or for worse.
In the gospel reading, Jesus accuses those who are looking for him of following him because they ate their fill of loaves when Jesus and the disciples fed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus accuses the people of following him to satisfy their own hunger and perhaps to see what else Jesus can do for their own personal benefit. Jesus tells them that the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 points not to what Jesus can do for their own personal benefit, but to who God is and to God’s work in the world. God’s work in John’s gospel is not to feed individual bellies but to reconcile all people with God. To see Jesus’ miracles as an end in themselves that fill a hungry belly or heal a sick person is to miss the point of the Gospel. The miracles point to God, and God’s work in the world, not to a full belly.
Lastly, the letter to the Ephesians tells us that there are many gifts but the same spirit. Some of us are called to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, all to equip the saints for the work of ministry. To that list I wold add that some people are given the gift of hospitality, to others the gift of music, or outreach, or the ability to repair aging buildings. These gifts are not given to us for our own personal gain. No one of these gifts is adequate for the Body of Christ to work properly. All of these gifts are given and all of them are needed for the Body of Christ to build itself up in love and do the work we are given to do. In other places, Paul writes that when one member of the body hurts, all suffer, and that the body of Christ is made up of many members but is one body. There is no way around the fact that as Christians we are all knit together as one body, and that what one of us does affects all of us.
The temptation is always to think that what we have to offer as individuals is so little that we might as well not bother. I don’t sing well enough to make a difference in the choir or have enough pennies to make a difference in whether or not we reach a mile. The time I can offer to the Neighborhood Fair isn’t enough to make a different in the hospitality we offer our neighbors, or my lone vote at the annual meeting isn’t needed....the list goes on and on. The gospel tells us that what little we each have to offer is a gift from God and is essential to the Body of Christ if we are to build up the body in love and point to the Kingdom of God in our midst. The work of the body of Christ is not about what any one of us can do as individuals, but about how incredibly much all of us, working together as one, can do to build up the Kingdom of God. When in doubt about this fundamental truth, remember the parable of the pennies!
Amen.
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