“We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another” (Rom. 12:5).
In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus makes a not quite solitary mention of the “church”: “on this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), as he says to St. Peter. There’s only one other place in the gospels where Jesus uses the word “church” (Matt. 18:17), and the infrequency of the mention has led some people to wonder whether Jesus actually intended to found a Church at all! Maybe this wasn’t part of the original game plan, but a word slipped in later by some itinerant preacher or enthusiastic church goer.
Let’s think about this for a little while. If Jesus didn’t intend to start a Church, life would be a whole lot simpler. Sunday mornings would be free, to catch up on our rest. No need for stewardship campaigns or pledging, since there would be nothing to support. Fewer hang-ups too; less guilt. We also wouldn’t have to get along with each other. There could still be Christianity, or at least people interested in what Jesus did and taught: probably some friendly-disposed volunteers would still see that Jesus had his own memorial web site and social media channels, where interested people could connect.
You would probably be able to buy a bible, or something like it. It might even be popular, since the story of Jesus would still be interesting. Without the Church, however, we wouldn’t have to argue about what it meant, since each of us could decide that for ourselves, and no one else would be particularly bothered by what we thought. What’s more likely is that we wouldn’t think about it at all, since the community that assembled the bible and which brought faith in Jesus Christ to everyone’s attention would never have existed.
As we know from our Gospel today, Jesus did intend to found a Church, and not just because he talked about it. He chose twelve apostles, and sent them out in mission: twelve, because they were to gather the twelve tribes of Israel and fashion a renewed community of faith. The fact that we’re here today is a sign that they got moving.
The balance of the New Testament, after the gospels that proclaim Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, are letters to churches: without the Church, they wouldn’t have been written. The apostles wrote them to the small communities of faith to provide guidance and instruction. The Church was there at ground zero, when Jesus rose from the dead.
“We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). Our reading from Romans gives us a vision of the Church as an extended body, composed of many members. This isn’t the only place where St. Paul talks about the Church as a body. “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of the Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13): that’s First Corinthians. Jesus is “the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:18), as Paul writes to the Church in Colossae. Or as he says in the Letter to the Ephesians, “There is one body and one Spirit” (Eph. 4:4).
As St. Paul puts it in our reading today, the Church is like a body that has parts or members that have different roles. “Not all the members have the same function” (Rom. 12:4). Then the apostle goes on to enumerate the different gifts of the different members: “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” (Rom. 12:6-8).
St. Paul is keen that the different members get along with each other: even way back then this was identified as a problem! “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment” (Rom. 12:3). Again, to borrow from First Corinthians, “God has so arranged the body… that there may be no dissension within the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Cor. 12:25). Because we are members of Christ’s Body, as St. Paul writes in our reading, we are members of each other.
The agenda that God lays upon the Church, our reading suggests, is transformation. “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” (Rom. 12:2). God has brought us together, like the members of a body, in order to conform us to himself: to make us actual members of the Body of Christ, the Church. That means change, a journey from where we are to where we need to be, as members of the Body. God has brought us together for a purpose. The Church is where it all gets worked out.