Members of the Body*

There are times when I think my body parts are at war with each other. Mostly my knees, which seem to be in a very bad mood lately. I love this reading from Corinthians. Can you imagine a knee saying to an ankle “I have no need of you”? No, I can’t either. All of the parts of the body, no matter how dysfunctional, are necessary, and what’s more, they’re all expected to work together in unison.

But, body parts is just the lovely beginning of this week’s scripture. We also have the fulfillment of scripture in the presence of the people of God. Beginning with Nehemiah. Now, what you need to know is, this event really did take place. And it was at the end of a very long exile, when the people had been brought back to Israel, and built a new city on the ruins of the old, and begun a new temple to God. In light of their sins, which they believed had caused their generations-long outcast and exile, they now wanted to turn again to God, directly. And this scroll Nehemiah is reading to them is probably an early version of the book we call Leviticus. “Rules” for the Levites, the tribe of Israel that provided the high priests.

So, I love this reading from Nehemiah. Of course, I can never forget the lecture Dr. Richard Corney gave in my Old Testament class at GTS about this reading. I could just see Nehemiah standing before the Watergate (like some ancient Richard Nixon) reading transcripts while the terrified people cried and the scribes gave interpretation. Well, if you’re old enough to remember the Watergate hearings, you will see the obvious parallel. (Otherwise, as Emily Litella used to say, “never mind!”) Look at this behavior! They  bowed their heads, they answered “Amen Amen.” They wept. Wow.

So, then, in the Gospel we have Jesus acting out this same thing. He goes to the synagogue where he had been an irrelevant little kid (or was he? we don’t know; maybe he had been a geek?). It says he’s full of the Spirit and he proclaimed the good news, which is God’s favor—release, recovery, freedom.” And then, sitting, a proclamation: fulfilled right in front of you.

So what is it that unites us with these stories? It is the truth about our lives as God’s children, as created gay individuals. God made us gay in God’s image. God calls us to constant work in God’s kingdom, which has drawn near, which is fulfilled in our hearing, if we will sit, stop weeping, and listen. And, as St. Paul notes, the body is one with all of its members, perfect in unity and diversity. No member of the body may cast out any other member of the body. God made you and me gay, because the body of Christ needs gay members. As former presiding bishop Edmund Browning famously said “There will be no outcasts.”

*3 Epiphany (Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19 Caeli enarrant; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21)

©2013 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.