Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Sermon for 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany
By Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels -
Pastor Shafer called me after the hostage crisis at Congregation Beth El in Colleyville, Texas last weekend. He wanted to know how I was processing the event. He wanted me to know that he was there for me as a colleague, but more than that, as a friend, to lend whatever support he could. He wanted me to know he felt my anguish, my anxiety, my pain. It was just one of the countless examples I could cite for Pastor Eric’s unusually expansive, compassion, sympathy, and empathy. Where does that come from in him? Why does he do it? Is it the “Christian thing to do”? Is it some innate sense? Maybe he’s just a “good guy!” Probably a little bit of all these. I made outreach as well this week to some of my Muslim colleagues because the hostage-taker in Texas identified as a Muslim. I wanted them to know I prayed that there would be no uptick in Islamophobia because of this horrible incident and they could count on me to be with them in case such an increase occurred. They all responded with deep appreciation. Why did I do it? Was it the “Jewish thing to do?” Was it some innate sense? Maybe I, too, am just a “good guy”? I hope so.
Are both Pastor Eric and I examples of what many people say: “Religions are all basically the same.”? Or, “All religions just want you to be a good person.”? Even more, “I don’t need a religion to help me be good!”? Some of those sentiments work for me and some do not.
This week’s readings from the Christian and the Jewish Bibles help clarify. As we heard earlier in Corinthians 12, Paul writes:
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Paul continues with a marvelous expanded metaphor detailing various parts of the body and how each is powerful and completely differentiated from the others in affect and effect. Still, he says:
“God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
He concludes:
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.
These people, gifts, and more are the “body of Christ,” according to Paul. Similarly, in the book of Nechemia, we read about the moment when, after half a century of exile in Babylonia, the Jewish people gathered together for the first time to read the Torah, the Five Books of Moses. In Nechemia we read:
The priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all Israel took up residence in their towns. When the seventh month arrived…the entire people assembled as one person in the square before the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the scroll of the Teaching of Moses with which the LORD had charged Israel.
Paul says: “Now you are the body of Christ”, and Nechemia recounts, “the entire people assembled as one person in the square”. Wonderfully similar, don’t you think? In Corinthians, Paul ends his calling together of the various parts of the body of Christ” with the enigmatic phrase, “Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.” And in Nechemia, he says, “Go, eat choice foods and drink sweet drinks and send portions to whoever has nothing prepared, for the day is holy to our Lord. Do not be sad, for your rejoicing in the LORD is the source of your strength.” For Nechemia, the criterion that brings about the possibility of celebrating a holy day, a day set apart, is the people coming together as one person, rejoicing in their hard work and including even the least equipped to rejoice, those with few if any resources. There was no miraculous arrival of the mashiach, an anointed one, that Isaiah promised in his prophecies. Instead, the people acted “messianically,” rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem on their own. Then, in an ultimate reflection of mashiachkite, tastes of the messianic time, they gathered as one person, not leaving anyone outside that “grand body.” Likewise, Paul understood, now that Jesus was no longer a physical presence among his followers, it was vital that they become the body of Christ, together, no matter their societal role or ranking. Once again, no one was left behind. In other words, they became the body of Christ because they took on his role. That role is articulated in today’s passage from the book of Luke, when Jesus, in the Nazareth synagogue, reads what we Jews would call a haftarah, a prophetic reading linked to the weekly Torah portion. What Isaiah was declaring about the goals of his prophetic pursuit, Jesus proclaimed was also his mission:
“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me;
He has sent me as a herald of joy to the poor,
To bind up the wounded of heart,
To proclaim release to the captives,
Liberation to the imprisoned…”
In both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian testament, when the Messiah doesn’t arrive or no longer is physically present, it becomes incumbent upon the people to coalesce as one, with respect and dignity for all, living out what Messiah was hoped to bring by the Jewish people or was seen in the years of Jesus’s life by those who would ultimately call themselves Christians. We must be those be a herald of joy to the poor, bind the wounds of the broken-hearted, and free those imprisoned by the color of their skin, their gender expression, their roles in society, a lack of educational or economic possibility, and more.
Here’s a beautiful song that I believe reflects this both musically and lyrically. It’s called “I Need You to Survive,” written by the great gospel artist, Hezekiah Walker. I’ve nuanced the words a bit to make it fit Jewish and I hope most theologies. The notion of “one body” of all of us including every one of us, is the core of the song’s message. We really do need each other to survive, Jew and Christian, Muslim and Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist, God-believer, agnostic, atheist, Republican, and Democrat. If we act like we need each other for our very survival than, what Paul promised, the time of “greater gifts” or as Nechemia called a “holy day” will truly arrive – for us all.
I NEED YOU TO SURVIVE
© 2002 Hezekiah Walker
© 2022 Lyric adjustment for Jewish/universal perspective by Neil Comess-Daniels
Verse 1:
I need you, you need me,
We're all a part of One body.
Stand with me, just be with me,
We're all a part of One body.
Within this world, where every need is supplied.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.
Verse 2:
I pray with you, you pray with me,
I love you, I need you to survive.
I won't harm you with words from my mouth,
I love you, I need you to survive.
Within this world, where every need is supplied.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.
Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels
Rabbi-in-Residence - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
January 23, 2022
