The Heart of the Matter
Rev. Beth Hoffman Copenhaver
January 26, 2025
1 Corinthians 12, selected verses (The Message)
Since November 6 it seems most people I know, including many of you, have been holding a collective breath in trepidation of this week and the establishment of a new administration. Waiting and wondering, hoping things would not escalate to the height of our fear, the events of this week have lived up to the hype of hate we all prayed would not come to fruition. And so we gather this morning anticipating reminders of love and grace and hope and promise as we face together an unknown future, where so many people, as Bishop Budde rightfully stated, are scared. For many of us here, a way of life is unlikely to be altered. Yet for some in this sanctuary and others in our church, and throngs of people in this neighborhood and city, in this state and country, fear rules through mass deportation, the dehumanizing edicts around gender identity and systemic racism. As we prepare to mobilize and protect, to live in to the radical purposes of welcome and inclusion that define Plymouth church and as we know joy this day in the widening of our circle to celebrate six new members, let us ground ourselves in the remembering of communal equality where everyone is necessary and brings forth essential spiritual gifts. This is what the Apostle Paul exhorts in the 12th chapter of I Corinthians. These are selected verses from the translation, “The Message”:
What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable.
4-11 God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people!
12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life centered in the Spirit. Each of us is now a part of this body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—the Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance. You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this.
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Prayer
In 2019 I preached a two-part sermon – a rare endeavor here in our rotational style – but it was a message that relied on a bit of homework to hone in on the thesis. Because it was before the pandemic, which now feels like ancient days, I wouldn’t expect you to remember. And while referencing a past sermon may feel like cheating to some, it’s message wouldn’t let go of me this week. We are in a new and much different time now, and we are being collectively called to decipher the heart of the matter.
Kate Braestrup is a Unitarian Universalist and a chaplain to the Maine Warden Service. She is also the author of several books – all part memoir, part observations of life from her field of work as well as her personal experience. I was charmed by one of her books: Marriage and Other Acts of Charity which includes a delightful and meaning making story about being the “classroom parent” during the month in which “human sexuality and reproduction” is to be taught to her daughter’s middle school class. The teacher decides, given Kate’s vocation, that Kate will teach the VALUES section. Morality, meaningful relationships and so forth, the teacher says, in 30 minutes. Kate shows up on the assigned day and winds up doing a recap of the “practical aspects” of the topic which quickly gets a bit too raucous and out of hand, so Kate writes, “I brought it to an end with a fierce look and declared them all adequately sex-educated for the purposes of the day’s discussion. I erased the word SEX from the board. In its place I scrawled:
NOTHING MATTERS MORE THAN _____________________.” (Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, pg. 156)
Nothing matters more than…. Than what? I hope that an answer swam into your brain. It may not be a definitive answer, but at least the wheels have begun to turn. The children in Kate’s class began to call out that which mattered to them – family, the earth, friendship, pets, music – Kate wrote them all on the board. “These are definitely things that matter. Which one matters most?”
The children in Kate’s class felt a bit like we might be feeling now, having to choose just ONE thing. “This is actually, like, hard,” one little girl said. I think we would agree. It is surprisingly difficult to fill in the blank… nothing matters more than ___________.
Kate says to the group: “You will probably spend the rest of your life not only answering this question, but also figuring out how to live your life according to what your answer turns out to be. Once you’ve filled in the blank, this sentence will become, in effect, your working definition of God.” (Ibid, pg. 157)
In a time of stripped human rights, families being separated, borders closed, identities unrecognized, atrocities committed against others, we need to be able to name what matters most. This is both a personal spiritual quest and a deep evaluation of our core values as well as a defining moment for Plymouth Church. In a church where we celebrate a diversity of opinions, beliefs, paths and practices, I wonder if it is possible to find unity for this community around the question What Matters Most? And if we could – would it change the way we do church together, especially in this time, as we care for and protect the scared?
The apostle Paul might fill in the blank… “Nothing matters more than ___________” with unity. At least that is what the 12th chapter of I Corinthians suggests. When we let go of our self-importance and recognize that we are not whole without the inclusion of all, “every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.” This speaks to those of us especially drenched in privilege, saved by the calamities of administrative power because of our whiteness. It is time for us to vest ourselves in the care and keeping of others, for our communal survival depends on it. The Right Rev. Mariann Budde embraced the theme of unity in her sermon at the inaugural prayer service as she wondered aloud what unity could even look like in a country so diverse and polarized as ours. The Bishop proclaimed that unity is only possible with four elements: dignity, honesty, humility and mercy. Potential words to fill in the blank. Nothing matters more than…..
Perhaps the answer is courage. For courage is necessary for these times now, especially if we are to work towards unity. Yesterday Birdie Cunningham pointed me toward the words of Frederick Buechner from a daily devotional of his writings she and I read. Buechner, a favorite theologian of mine, wrote: “My mother’s apartment by candlelight was haven and home and shelter from everything in the world that seemed dangerous and a threat to my peace. And my friend’s broken voice on the phone was a voice calling me out into that dangerous world not simply for his sake, as I suddenly saw, but also for my sake. The shattering revelation of that moment was that true peace, the high and bidding peace that passeth all understanding, is to be had not in retreat from the battle, but only in the thick of the battle. To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake – even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death – that little by little we start to come alive.”
Retreating is an option right now. Cozying ourselves behind closed doors with our blankets and our books might provide some momentary and at times necessary comfort, but if we back away too long from the realities of the world the unified community Paul envisions becomes cracked and impossible. Buechner reminds us that the life that really is life is when we venture into the world to love, to repair, to mend, to be. Especially when doing so is a risk.
It is likely to surprise no one listening that the way I filled in the blank six years ago is the same way I would today. Nothing matters more than relationship.
Life’s meaning stems from how we interact. I fiercely believe that all of the maladies of the world could be resolved if we only looked upon another – or the other – with an intention to build relationship. Creating relationship implies a feeling between two or more people – kindness, compassion, love, honor, respect, interest. If we make relationship our first priority, we build community and with community comes the possibility of revolution, of transformation, of changing the status quo and most of all, promotes unity. We all know what happens when we lose focus and pay little attention to relationship in our lives. Hearts are broken, families are fractured, individuals lose hope. Relationship is the beginning and the ending of all possibility. Nothing matters more than relationship.
Progressive Christian theologian Bruce Epperly explains the priority of relationship in this way, “within the church, we are called to live by an ethic of service and loving-kindness, recognizing that in caring for our siblings, we are responding to God’s presence in our midst. In the spirit of the Benedictines, we are to treat everyone as if they were Christ. What I give to another nourishes me. The success of another contributes to my own well-being. The walls of isolation are broken down; we are intimately connected with one another, constantly creating and re-creating each other in our relationships.” This thought echoes Paul’s “The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive… For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of.”
Change will not occur overnight. We must commit to the long arc of justice. The heart of the matter is that we must not just name what is most important, we must have the conviction to live it out – boldly, broadly, courageously, honestly. We must preserve the dignity of all people and that seems impossible if we are not able to practice humility and let go, at Paul’s urging, of self-importance. What might this look like if we journeyed together for the world’s sake? Perhaps nothing matters more than this.
Amen.
