Sun Kwak, “Life Together”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF9Lasp5nPg

TEXT: 1 Corinthians 12:11-21

[11] All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

[12] For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. [13] For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

[14] For the body does not consist of one member but of many. [15] If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. [16] And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. [17] If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? [18] But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. [19] If all were a single member, where would the body be? [20] As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

[21] The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

SERMON: “Life Together”

I want to introduce us to our new sermon series. This is actually in response to many of your requests — that you want to learn more about what it means to be a church. And a number of you have actually requested that we preach on giving — so, remember, that was your ask and not mine. But that’s coming in a later week. And a number of you have stated in one way or another some desire for the following — deepening community, serving the church, evangelism as a church. And these are all things that we’ll be addressing together during this next sermon series, with some intentionality. And before we get into today’s passage, I want to share with us a story — something I observed, but something that’s become somewhat of a parable for me that we’ll be coming back to throughout our series. Our family was attending a wedding for a family friend in Oakland a couple years ago. And one of my favorite things about visiting different cities is checking out their food scene. And since we were in a more Asian-dense area, we wanted some Korean food. We saw this new restaurant Joodooboo. And we could tell it was very intentional. It was branded well, it was  Dooboo is actually how you say tofu in Korean. And the founding chef’s name is Steve Joo. And everything about the restaurant was super appealing. It was branded well, it was in a prime location, the menu items looked hip and appealing, and the food smelled and looked amazing. So, Judy and I are excited, and we’re eagerly waiting to be seated to have some delicious food. Fast forward fifteen minutes, we’re not seated, and we actually haven’t even been checked on. So, all that excitement about branding, presentation, artistry, the smell of the food. All of that got replaced with disappointment, feeling unseen,disrespected, and disregarded. And I felt for the chef, because as a church planter and pastor who’s seen multiple iterations of this congregation, I know what it’s like to be short on manpower. Because my last observation was a chef who was not just making the food but also taking orders and bussing tables and running credit cards. He was a one man show. And it wasn’t just our family who was upset, but what we left with was a visual of one really busy and overloaded man with a host of complaining customers. So, Judy and I left that restaurant thinking — They’re not going to make it.

Fast forward a couple years, and I see this article spotlighted in the Food and Wine magazines. And it’s titled This Chef Turned a Tiny Tofu Shop Into Oakland’s Most Meaningful Meal. And it caught my eye, because I’m thinking — There’s no way. So, I’m reading through this article, and then, looking up the restaurant on Yelp. And sure enough, 4.8 stars with hundreds of reviews. So, I’m just thinking — What happened? As it turns out, Joodooboo went through a transition. And head chef Steve Joo had this aha moment, where he realized that quality food in and of itself wasn’t enough. That in order for him to do what he was gifted to do, he needed others alongside him to do what they were gifted to do. That he wasn’t great at managing tables and being hospitable and setting the ambience. He loved making really good food. And I said that this resonated with me, because I’ve seen many people come to the church, and I’ve seen many people leave. And the people who join with excitement usually say similar things about why they’re excited — it’s about the culture, the preaching, the branding, the liturgy, the big idea of the church. But the reason they leave actually is similar to the reason our family left Joodooboo a few years back. They felt unseen, the church felt unstructured, and thus, made people feel uncertain. And I share all of this, because I want to do better. But I also want us as a church to do better. That we might be served well and actively by one another here at this church. And not just sitting around, wondering if anyone will ever see me. That according to this parable of Joodooboo, we collectively might be less angry customers and more meaningful team. Because the church today sadly, is filled with congregants who look a lot like angry customers. Wondering when we’re going to be served and when our needs are going to be met. But what will change this church is when members shift from being customers to co-laborers. Because sin makes us experts at complaining about church. There are no shortage of things to complain about. But what the gospel has the unique capacity to do is to transform angry and complaining customers to becoming willing and hospitable servants. After all, it changed an angry Phariseewho persecuted Christians to becoming a loving apostle who was persecuted for his Christian convictions. I’ve shared with Cal numerous times. It’s one of the things I miss so much about Bora. She always made the conscious choice to be a fountain and not a drain.

Now, I wouldn’t be doing our series justice if I didn’t include the most oft-quoted and referenced saying from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. He writes there —

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly. It is not we who build. Christ builds the church.

And if you know the section or have read the book, you know that Bonhoeffer concludes by urging the Christian to practice forgiveness instead of expecting improvement. Because once again, sin makes us experts at complaining. There are no shortage of things to complain about when it comes to church. But the gospel can transform the most prideful of hearts. Now, I’ve spent a lot of setting the table here — no pun intended. But one more thing from the Parable of Joodooboo, an excerpt from the article I referenced earlier —

Chef Joo’s ambitions remain grounded in feeding people with care. He speaks about hospitality not as a performance but as an act of love. “Just make sure that you’re taking care of them as you would take care of a friend,” he tells his team. That philosophy extends to his community, where he sees himself and Joodooboo as “a thread in the fabric of a neighborhood.” It’s a deeply personal project that reflects Joo’s culinary philosophy, life journey, and an enduring belief in food’s power to connect people – “that particular magic that food has.”

Because if a tofu restaurant in Oakland can do that, the gospel-proclaiming church can do so much more. It’s my prayer that we as a church might be so interwoven together that we might also be a thread in the fabric of our neighborhood and our city. And I believe we can, and I believe it’s what God calls us toward in doing life together as the church.

You might know about this church in Corinth. They were well-to-do people. They were a people of means and gifts. But they were fragmented and disjointed, which made them dysfunctional as a church. And here, the apostle Paul is seeking to reorient them by showing them this picture of a body. You look at verses 15-16, we read there: “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.’” And then, down in verse 21: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” Beyond their different functions, the repeated emphasis is with the word say. It’s what one member says to another. And even what one member says to himself or herself. And here’s how the apostle Paul is assembling this fragmented church. In this analogy of the body of Christ, where the eye and the head, use their words to seek to disqualify others who they arrogantly deem as less important. But also for the foot and the ear, who have the proclivity to disqualify themselves from the body — saying they aren’t as valuable and can’t justify their stay in the community. To these, the apostle Paul declares — it’s not what you say about you, it’s not about what others say about you, it’s not about what you say about others. You and I — our legitimacy for belonging in this community has everything to do with what God says about us. We are a community of people formed together by the power of the Word.

And before saying anything else, the first and most important thing that we must remember  is that what God says about us means more than what others say about us and what we say about us. Henri Nouwen would often counsel people who were hopeless. And the core reason he stated was that they believed deep down that they were utterly unlovable. And perhaps, for some of us, we need to get knocked down a few notches. We might have a higher and more inflated view of what we think and how we view ourselves. But for others of us, we might be carrying deep shame that causes us to believe that we aren’t worth God’s sacrifice and love. For both the self-righteous criminal and the self-flagellating patient, we need to be reoriented by not what we say of us or what others say of us. But what God says of us — that as children of God, we are redeemed, we are forgiven, we are loved, and we are cherished. And thus, we are commissioned, we are changing, and we are destined for heaven. Because we are what Martin Luther King Jr. called the beloved community — a family that’s defined by the Father’s love for his children. For here, we are not an assembly of individualsbut ultimately members of a whole body, where the story of God activates, animates, and mobilizes us toward doing life together as the church.

Now, I don’t usually speak of the Green Bay Packers with much positivity. So, this next statement shows that the gospel really does change everything. Well, it’s said that legendary head coach of this most hatable and detestable team in the NFL the Green Bay Packers. That Coach Vince Lombardi would have a regular locker room tradition at the start of every season. Where he would grab a football, he would hold it in the air, and he would proclaim to the team — This, gentlemen, is a football. Not that these professional football players were unaware of what a football was, of course. But this was to reorient them to look at one thing, to remind them of the basics, not to individual skills but to the common fixation they were to behold upon as a team. And with the desire for people to take their gazes away from themselves and collectively toward Christ, the apostle Paul makes this repeated usage of that word one throughout our passage. And as a church, we have a very specific recalibration station for this endeavor. Because you look at the way that the apostle Paul describes the servants who are a part of this body in verse 18 of our passage. And we read there: “But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each of them, as he chose.” And here, as he’s organizing this formless mass into a new creation, he’s dividing and apportioning. But the manner by which he does this is with an arranging. And that word for arrange in the Greek is the same words used in John 10 when Jesus is describing his behavior as the Good shepherd who lays down — who arranges — who lays down his life for the sheep. For what brings us together? It’s only when we together cast our eyes on one. One who, as our shepherd, saw his sheep — afflicted, wounded. Because of we, who in our pride and self-centeredness, stick out our chest saying — Look at me. But here, the good shepherd, takes upon the wrath of God and takes nails upon his hands and feet. And he urges us when we’re fragmented — No, look at me.

And here’s how I want to begin bringing this to a close. When looking at verse 12, John Calvin makes note of the word we translate as members. It’s the Greek word μελη or μελος. And Calvin’s observations of the usage of this word member is that it was also used of in other Greek literature as musical parts or instruments. And so, what Calvin deduces here is that God is the great conductor of a diversity of instruments who have been divided, apportioned in accordance to the instrument played and arranged in accordance to the conductor’s design. And if you’ve heard an orchestral arrangement, you know the value of diverse instruments. And there is this beauty to the way that God arranges different people to do different things. We carry different tunes, different pitches, play in different volumes with different parts. But all of these differences work together only when our eyes are fixed upon one conductor. There’s this scene in one of my favorite movies Whiplash. And J. K. Simmons plays the role of a jazz band conductor Terence Fletcher. And as a conductor in a high level jazz band at an elite musical institution, he demands perfection out of his band. And in this scene, it’s just practice, but he hears someone out of tune. And for the next couple minutes, he makes it his mission to find out the person he refers to as the squeaker. And he grills this trombone player, who doesn’t even know if he’s out of tune. And he makes this scene, yelling and screaming, saying that one instrument out of tune would sabotage his band. Because he demanded perfection out of his band as the conductor.

And I think that’s the trepidation some of us feel when thinking about our place in the church. We’re conscious of being out of tune. And we don’t feel like we belong here. Because we might be sabotaging our conductor’s arrangement of the church. We look at our past sins, we look at our current sins, we look at mistakes and severances and failures and doubts. And we might be wondering — Would a perfect God actually want someone like me in his orchestra? And here’s how I want to address that question. Because it’s not about what you say about you or what others say about you but ultimately what God says about you. Because as we mentioned just now, our orchestral arrangement and tunes are formed together when we are cued and guided by the movement of our conductor’s hands. And for the Corinthians and for us. When the church looks upon our great conductor who arranges us, he has his hands lifted up. And the first thing to note about these hands — these hands have holes. Because Jesus, not in marred form, but in glorified perfection, still has holes in his hands. And do you know what those holes represent? Every time we feel like we don’t belong here, and every time we have this inner voice that wants to disqualify ourselves, we look up and see those holes. Every time we let out a squeaky tune, every time we feel like we slip and mess up, we look up and see those holes. Those holes are there to proclaim to us — I’ve covered your mistakes. This is my life for you. I’ve arranged you, I’ve positioned you, I’ve bought you, I’ve claimed you. You can’t leave from my grip, because I’ve secured your stay here by my life and blood. In this new arrangement, as our conductor, he takes our cracking voices and broken chords to create a sweet harmony, because his new song is about redeeming cracked and broken people. Redeeming splintered people and taking us to the story of the splinters of a tree, where the hands of our conductor were bloodied and pierced for us. And so, we play and find belonging with that gospel assurance. And bit by bit, he teaches us to play the tune of self-sacrifice. Less complaining and more participating. Up and against the social narrative of My life for me, he teaches us to sing together — My life for yours, week by week, as we are gathered around the Story of the cross and power of its orchestral arrangement. And we’ll make mistakes. That’s part of family life. But let’s make them together, while in active participation in each other’s lives. For it’s my hope that this catalyzes us to learn to do life together here in our church community, as we learn how to be a messy, broken, and beautiful family.