Preacher's Post: On Haiti
ICorinthians 12 and Luke 4 The Body of Christ and Jesus' first sermon at Nazareth Haiti Christopher Wendell preached this sermon The Word
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When I was first introduced to physics in high school, I remember a colorful illustration that our teacher used to explain the relationship between force and area. What hurts more? He asked. When a woman stomps on your foot wearing a sneaker, or wearing stilettos? I’m not sure what personal experiences in his life prompted him to ask this particular question, but he spoke with great confidence as he assured us that the correct answer is stilettos – and that he’d had a broken toe earlier in his life to prove it!
He went on to explain that the reason why a stiletto hurts so much more than a sneaker is because with a high heel, the entire weight of the person is concentrated into a tiny area on the foot. A sneaker diffuses the force of the body’s weight onto a wider area, and thus reduces the intensity of the pain. The science lesson here is that the wider the area across which a force’s impact is distributed, the less impact the force has on any one part.
Of course, this illustration about stilettos and sneakers doesn’t have any spiritual or moral dimensions to it; it’s just a basic fact of physics. However, today’s passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians develops this simple physics lesson into a theological reflection on relationships among Christians and the ethical implications of those relationships.
Like my high school science teacher, Paul also uses body parts as his central metaphor for communicating his lesson. Paul’s elegant prose introduces the idea of the Body of Christ, a theological idea that remains at the center of our understanding of what the church is, even now 2000 years later. Through this concept, he attempts to persuade the early Christians who lived in Corinth that while each person in the Christian community is, in a biological sense, a complete individual being; in a spiritual sense, they as individuals, are incomplete beings. They are each just parts, appendages of a larger whole. To be sure, each individual person has beauty and value in God’s eyes. But their individual beauty and value is found in their uniqueness, not their completeness. For Paul, there is no such thing as spiritual self-sufficiency. Our spiritual identities are inherently rooted in community. Each of those Corinthians, and each of us, may be biologically complete beings as individuals, but we only become spiritually complete as we live into the relationships we have with other parts of the Body of Christ.
So what does this theological idea of the Body of Christ have to do with stilettos and sneakers? Quite a lot, actually. Paul finishes this section of his letter with the following observation about the Body of Christ: When there is suffering in one part of the Body, all members of the Body suffer with it. Paul is observing that through the Body of Christ, forces that cause acute suffering in one location, like a stiletto, become distributed over wider areas. And because more people allow themselves to be impacted, the forces that cause suffering in one part of the Body of Christ become less concentrated, and the stiletto begins to feel more like a sneaker.
But there’s one major difference between my high school teacher’s example and St. Paul’s. The example from physics simply describes what is true, while the example from Paul is an ethical imperative. It’s a possibile outcome, but it only becomes true if we make it true. What Paul is really saying is that living in the Body of Christ means choosing to share in the suffering of other members of the body, to freely bear each other’s burdens. When we make these choices we are acknowledging the God-given reality of our shared humanity, our connectedness, and the equal worth of our lives.
Perhaps, like me, many of you have been sifting through a whirlwind of emotions as you’ve observed the destruction in Haiti this past week through the news. When I see photos of lifeless bodies on the streets, of abandoned children, of decimated buildings, of the struggle to preserve safety, I’m filled with sadness and perhaps even some despair. I think my sadness comes from seeing the distress of so many people whose lives have been thrust into a chaos due to forces beyond their individual control. And I think my despair comes from knowing that as a people, preventing this scale of devastation is not beyond human control. Humanity has learned how to build societies in seismically active zones with minimal risk – I lived through a similar-sized earthquake in 1989, in which about 100 people died. And yet because the sophisticated building codes that save lives and property require more expensive construction material and processes, developing nations experiencing earthquakes like China, Pakistan, Turkey, and now Haiti suffer death rates three orders of magnitude (that’s one thousand times) greater than we do in America.
Of course, alongside my sadness and despair, I’ve also been feeling incredibly hopeful, because many people around the world have chosen to share in the suffering of the Haitian people: mostly through donating money to immediate relief efforts and through honest conversations with God in prayer about how witnessing suffering of this magnitude affects the human family. So many people have chosen to acknowledge our connectedness with our sisters and brothers in Haiti. This is particularly wonderful for us as Episcopalians because the Diocese of Haiti is actually part of The Episcopal Church; in fact, they are the largest Diocese in The Episcopal Church with 83,000 members in their ministries.
Right now, this part of the Body of Christ needs our prayers and our money. But in the months and years to come, our Haitian sisters and brothers will need even more from us. They will need witnesses and advocates around the world. People to call attention to the important questions of redevelopment strategy and rebuilding methods, when the next big story pushes Haiti out of the media spotlight. People to advocate to our own government to play an active and respectful role in helping this neighboring nation rebuild their common life. People to welcome the increased numbers of Haitians who are being invited to live in this country at least temporarily. They will need the Body of Christ, about which Paul writes so eloquently.
But, you know, in the Body of Christ, need is always a two way street. Givers are always receiving, and receivers are always giving. And if you really listen deeply to Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage, you can hear him proclaiming this truth.
This story about Jesus reading from the prophet Isaiah in the Temple is Jesus’ first public act of ministry in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus chooses to begin his ministry by announcing that God has not abandoned those who are suffering, oppressed, or captive. In taking on Isaiah’s words, Christ becomes a public advocate for people who are poor; Jesus declares his solidarity with those who suffer, saying that he has come to save them, to bring them comfort. Of course, this is hardly news to those of us who know about Jesus’ life and ministry.
But once he’s finished with this declaration, something remarkable happens. He concludes his speech with the words, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s a little confusing, given that the scripture is all about these other kind of people who aren’t in the synagogue, poor people, oppressed people, people in prison. For the scripture to be fulfilled, wouldn’t THEY be the ones who need to hear it? But that’s not what Jesus said; he said the scripture has been fulfilled in YOUR hearing. What could he have meant by that?
I can think of two possible explanations. The first is that, since we have heard this message, we are to become the agents of mercy and liberation that God has promised through Christ’s ministry to assuage suffering in the world around us. This explanation is pretty straightforward, and is true. It urges us on to make sacrifices in our own lives as an act of caring for and living in solidarity with our sisters and brothers who are suffering.
But I think that explanation is only half of what Jesus meant. I think his proclamation had a whole other dimension to it. Because I think Jesus was implying that somehow, it is we, the ones who come to the holy places and hear teachings and preaching, who are also the ones in need of some kind of liberation, of greater freedom, of good news. And I think the point of this incredible statement is that as we become agents of this message, bearers of hope and aid and witness and advocacy to people who suffer, we also find healing and liberation for ourselves. From what might we need liberation? From what kinds of poverty might we be suffering? Perhaps we suffer from our sense of global isolation, from our sense of distance from the world’s incredible need. Perhaps we suffer from a latent despair, believing that we can do nothing meaningful to respond to disasters like the ones in Haiti. Perhaps we suffer from cynicism or even from a kind of fear that God has abandoned the world. Perhaps we suffer from this kind of poverty, a poverty of spirit.
Well, just as God works through the Body of Christ’s incredible generosity to help assuage the physical suffering of the world’s most needy people; so too the God works through the Body of Christ to assuage our spiritual suffering and alienation: opening our blind eyes more fully to the reality of poverty; forming new relationships across racial and ethnic differences; and filling our hearts with hope for a more reconciled future of greater justice and peace. Amen.
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Haiti is one of the country that has been affected to a greater extent by the massive earth quake and lost loads of life. I pray jesus to take care of the lives of survivors. My prayers for haiti people to face this world with charisma much sooner.