We Need our Nose

Romans 12:1-8

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

I know, that just like me, you’ve been riveted by the readings from Romans over the last few weeks.  We’ve been reading from Romans the last few weeks?  Well, it was a surprise to me too, but it turns out that we have, and in today’s reading from Romans there is a “THEREFORE” that goes with a “BECAUSE” from back in those previous lessons.  

Over the last few weeks, Paul has been going on about how God’s grace and love extends to both Jews and Greeks (which is Paul’s way of saying it extends to everyone).  All the reasons that people fling at each other to keep THEM out and US in have been wiped away in Christ.  In God’s eyes EVERYONE… EV-RY-ONE has been made ONE because that's the way God created the world to be.  BECAUSE of what God has done first (and now we get to today’s lesson from Romans)  Because of all that, we THEREFORE have the opportunity to respond to God's gift of love and grace.  

Paul’s opinion in today's lesson is that BECAUSE God’s love and grace is total, complete, and without limit… our response to that love and grace ought to also be total, complete, and without limit.  Just as God has made us ONE, it is as ONE that we are called to be a “living sacrifice”… we’re to live like a burnt offering, the whole of ourselves given up to God.  Paul is challenging us to respond to God’s unconditional love and grace as ONE, in literally every moment of our lives.  

A very, very, very few people are called to do that by being ONE in church all the time.  Some contemplative monastic orders come closest to living out Paul’s challenge in that particular way.  Most of us, however, are called to respond to God’s love and grace as part of all the other things we are called to do in this life.  We’re called to respond to God’s love and grace while we’re parenting, playing, making music, reading legal briefs, keeping people safe, making, writing, building and growing things, cooking, serving, volunteering and all the other things we do.  So how do we do all those different things apart from each other, but still as ONE?

There’s a quote attributed to Martin Luther that goes like this:  “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.”  And another from Martin Luther King Jr. that goes like this:  “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Each of us is called to this variety of things but not primarily for the thing itself, but rather for the connection it helps us make with others.  The cobbler is called to make shoes not just to create a great shoe, but to connect with someone who needs shoes to do the things they have been called to do.  The street sweeper is called to clean the streets, not primarily for a paycheck or even for a spotless sidewalk, but to facilitate others connecting on those streets.  Paul uses the human body as his example.  All of our various body parts have things they are good at.  Noses are better at smelling than ears.  Hands are better at picking things up than kidneys.  They do different things but it is in their connection that the body has life.

The more connected we are, the more we live into the world as God created it to be.  When the importance of human connection is lost or forgotten... when the shoes, the market, and the profits become more important than the people on whose feet those shoes will go... we distance ourselves from the abundance of life God created us to live.  Severing human connections is like cutting our nose off to spite our face.  When a nose is missing, it's hard for the whole body to stop and smell the roses.  Each of us matters.  That is true.  And each of us matters to one another even more.  

Paul says that God has joined us together in Baptism and that we are now one body.  We are reminded most clearly of that connection when we eat together at the Lord’s Table in “communion”.  There we taste and see how God's infinite love and grace has made us ONE and how it is as ONE that we are called to deepen and strengthen our connections with all of creation in the same way that God first connected us... with infinite love and grace, all the time, everywhere, and in everything we do. Amen.