“ALL IN THE FAMILY”

1 Corinthians 12:1-13

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Easter was so early this year. I think it caught many of us off guard. With an early Easter, Pentecost and Mother’s Day fall on the same Sunday. Today, we celebrate two long-standing traditions - ‘Motherhood’ and the birth of the Church - the Family of God. And within both of these traditions, we celebrate some important birth days - the baptism of four children and the welcoming of new members into our church family. Each person is unique and special - each one adding a new dimension to the growing diversity of the family.

There is nothing quite like feeling the wonder of new life coming from within. Ask any new mother, who has been transformed into a wholly new being by the arrival of one tiny new being. Ask any new believer, who has been transformed into a wholly new being by the grace gift of God’s Holy Spirit. Just like the beautiful pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, God has formed each one of us perfectly in our mother’s womb, and gifted us with unique talents and abilities in order that we may be a perfect fit within the Family of God - the Church - the Body of Christ.

That was the particular understanding the Apostle Paul had when he wrote his letter to the Corinthian Church. Paul was definitely the apostle of diversity. The reality he encountered in Corinth was quite the opposite. Diversity had created dissention and division in the Church. Attitudes of superiority fostered the rise of the individual spirit of self-reliance. There were those who believed that the way to achieve harmony was that everyone should look, act and believe exactly the same - ‘cookie-cutter Christians,’ we call them.

I wonder if that’s why we have 30,000 different denominations in the world. As Christians, we are all part of Christ’s Body, the Church. With such variety, we have trouble getting along as sisters and brothers in the same family. Sometimes what we believe in our hearts doesn’t show in our outward attitudes and behaviours.

Sameness is not what the Family is all about. Variety is God’s plan. Just as the human body has many parts, all connected to each other, each part working in harmony with each other, so also is the make-up of the Church - the Body of Christ. We are unique individuals, but in the Family of God, we are all part of a much larger integrated life. As Paul said, “we’ve all been baptized, given spiritual birth, into one body.” In her book, ‘Christianity For The Rest of us,’ Diana Butler-Bass writes: “A Christian practice of diversity is a boundary-crossing community, a family bound not by blood but by love.”

I grew up in a family of seven children. I have four brothers and two sisters. We all came from the same womb, engendered by the same parents. Each of us have physical characteristics from parents. But we are not all the same. Some of us are tall. Some are shorter. Some of us are rounder than others. Our talents and abilities are different. But there is one element of commonality: individually, we are different, but we are all members of the same family.

“We have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.”

My friends, you and I are all part of God’s great dream for the world. Just as in the human family, there is a richness that our individual giftedness brings to Family of God. Where one member is weak, another is strong. Where one has a gift of hospitality, another has a gift of caring. Where one has a gift of teaching, another has the gift of serving. In the Christian Family, every person - even these four young children baptized this morning and their parents - are an important link in the strength of our community. Whatever the gift, we all have something unique and special to offer to the well-being of the whole Family.

God didn’t call on a smattering of Lone Rangers to go out and save the world. God called us together into the Church to do the work Jesus did in the world:

- to go where Jesus feet went

- to teach the Gospel as Jesus taught

- to see others in need as Jesus saw

- to hear the cries of those who are hurting as Jesus heard

- to touch the world with healing as Jesus did.

As I look out upon our gathering this morning, I see the potential for the world to catch a glimpse of what the Family of God is all about.

- we are diverse families

- we are young; we are old

- we are male; we are female

- we are rural; we are urban

- we come from different church traditions and communions

- we come from different homes and communities

There is great variety here this morning. We are all in the family. This has always been God’s plan since creation began. Today is certainly an occasion to celebrate a foretaste of heaven. God’s dream is here and now.