The Old South Church in Boston
Embodying Justice Sermon by Jennifer Mills-Knutsen
July 4, 2004
I Corinthians 12:12-26
I want to begin this morning with a word of deep appreciation for the members of the Religion and Arts committee. We gathered together several times as a group to reflect on the words of the scripture in the context of justice, and we shared the way this passage called out experiences of our lives and concerns about our world. Out of those conversations came ideas, which became projects, which became the many expressions of faith you find in this morning’s worship. At each step, there has been collaboration, sharing and influence, such that no piece of this service, including this sermon, can be credited to just one person, but shows each individual’s representation of the collective discussion. Thank you, Committee Members, for our conversations and for your artistic offerings this morning.
This process has been, in many ways, an exercise in the parts of the body working together, just as Paul describes—each one bringing separate gifts, playing different roles, but working together to represent the Body of Christ. In fact, most preachers like to use this text to expound upon just that kind of teamwork—reminding us of the importance of Christian unity, honoring the valuable contributions of church members with varied gifts, and encouraging mutual respect and cooperation amidst competing priorities. All these make wonderful sermons, thoroughly grounded in the context of Paul’s letter.
Consequently, this text has become a favorite of preachers, and one of Paul’s most famous images. But unfortunately, folks, this morning I need to break some news to you about this passage. It wasn’t Paul’s idea. Paul didn’t come up with this image of the body—he stole it. Yes, like all good preachers, he took the idea from someone else, reframed it in his own context, and made it his own. From whom did he plagiarize this image of the body? None other than Socrates! In the first dialogue of Plato’s Republic, Socrates lays out a brilliant argument with the analogy of the parts of the body, each contributing in its own way for the working of the whole. But Socrates obviously wasn’t making the case for Christian unity, or trying to foster church teamwork. No, the subject of Socrates’ talk that day, the concept he was trying to convey with the image of the body, was justice.
Paul, educated in Greco-Roman philosophy and rhetoric, certainly would have known that. And the Corinthians, as cosmopolitan members of the Roman empire, would have known it too. And they would have been shamed by it. You see, it was an injustice in the Corinthian church that prompted Paul’s letter in the first place.
In the early days of Christianity, the Eucharist was no small piece of bread and sip of wine, but a ritual feast, a meal for the whole community. This meal remembered Christ’s presence by eating together at a table of welcome—where Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free persons, men and women, rich and poor, Samaritans, tax collectors and prostitutes all ate together. But the church in Corinth had perverted this practice. In Corinth, the host of the feast would invite over special friends to dine on good wine and food, and lesser associates would only be invited to join in later. That meant that the rich stuffed themselves on good food and rich wines, while the poor squabbled over leftovers and went away from the Lord’s Table hungry.
Paul’s famous passage, borrowing from Socrates, is a rebuke for their unjust behavior. Justice, Paul says, requires that the members of the church recognize their mutual dependence. For in God’s eyes, they are one body. Just like in our own bodies, if one part is hungry, the whole body suffers. If one part is in pain, the whole body feels pain. When one part feels pleasure, the whole body feels joy. Paul tells the Corinthians that, when they belong to Christ, they also belong to one another, and faithfulness requires that they widen their circle of concern to include every member of their budding Christian community. Justice works like that—one part can’t have justice while some other part doesn’t. So when we seek to embody justice, our field of vision is always expanding.
One of the best examples I know of the way embodying justice forces us to widen the circle is found in the document we celebrate today, the Declaration of Independence. Like Paul’s letter, those treasured words were also born in response to an injustice. “Taxation without representation!” That was the cry from here in Massachusetts, the cry from our forebear Samuel Adams, a Deacon in this very congregation, as he led his band of conspirators to dump that tea in the harbor. But each colony had its own grievances against Parliament and the King—for some, the denial of a trial by jury; for others, the forced disbanding of colonial governments; for still others, the quartering of troops, or the abrupt dismissal of judges and closure of courts. All the colonies had sent their own petitions of protest. Each thought they could assure fair treatment from the crown on their own. Some groups—like the town meetings of many Massachusetts communities, several some Pennsylvania militias, and even the New York Mechanics Union—had already gone so far as to send their own declarations of independence to the king. And the Continental Congress that gathered in Philadelphia in 1776 was known only for what it couldn’t do, which was to agree, on anything.
But the justice they sought from the British crown, the justice of being treated like an equal part of the British Commonwealth, this justice could not be gotten unless they stood together. They had to widen the circle of their concern, so that the people of Massachusetts stood with the people of Virginia, the people of Georgia with the people of Delaware, and the people of Maryland with the people of Rhode Island, until 13 stood as one. The Declaration of Independence, in order to have any power to bring about justice, required colonial unity. In the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin, that esteemed statesman who was baptized as an infant in this very Old South congregation, the colonists realized, “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
And so in the Declaration they compiled all the grievances from all the colonies, and gave voice to a vision of justice wider than the interests of any one group, with Jefferson’s most famous words: “All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It took days of debate, many compromises, and a firm commitment, but in the end, the document begins: “the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” The colonies had once considered themselves independent entities, but now they were constituent parts of one united body. The signers pledged to one another “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Where one suffers, all suffer. Where one is honored, all are honored.
Now that tale of colonial unity is enough to support this preacher’s tale, but we all know that was only the beginning of the story. Because when Jefferson and the other founders talked about supporting equality, liberty and human rights for all, the really only meant white men with property. But the ideal set forth in the Declaration has taken on a character and a power far exceeding the imagination and vision of its authors. Throughout the history of these United States, there have arisen faithful groups of people who push us to keep our eyes on justice, and to widen the circle. The ideal of all being created equal became the foundation of the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves, the campaign for women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement to overthrow Jim Crow, and most recently the cry for equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian people here in our own state. Each injustice is rooted in the fact that some parts are being treated better than other parts, that some members of the community are considered less than others, and consequently denied rights, resources or honor. And the call to embody justice, at every turn, is a call to recognize once again that we are only parts of a larger whole, and that, in the words of Martin Luther King, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Thinking about the meaning of Paul’s scripture as an image of embodied justice, thinking about how the Declaration of Independence we celebrate today has also been a tool for widening the field of justice—all that’s a long way looking back. But as great as this history has been, the greatness of God’s realm still lies in the future. We have not yet arrived at a just world. The gap between rich and poor continues to grow wider, and like those Corinthians in the early church, some parts of our world feast while other parts go hungry. Like in the days of the Revolution, there are imperial powers at work demanding resources, labor and loyalty from communities they continue to treat as second-class citizens. Poverty, the AIDS epidemic, the care of the environment—embodying justice in these arenas requires expanding our circle of concern even wider, to the whole global community.
Thanks to a member of the Religion & Arts Committee, I had the opportunity to hear United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan speak recently at the Harvard Graduation. He argued that now, more than ever, the world needs to think of itself as one body. He captured it best when he said that in the wake of terrorism, “the strong feel almost as vulnerable to the weak as the weak feel vulnerable to the strong.” Like it or not, our safety and security in these United States cannot be obtained by building stronger walls, but only by building stronger bridges—finding ways to work together as one body to promote justice, peace and security for all the world’s citizens. We may be the richest nation in the world, but our fate is thoroughly entangled with the fate of the poorest nations. We do not have the luxury of saying to any part of this world, “I have no need of you.” We must negotiate ways of cooperating with our brothers and sisters across the world as necessary and valued members of the global body.
I think our artists have captured this image better than any words I could assemble on the magnificent fans you hold in your hands. On one side, in bold, bright color, is a symbol of this day, the American Flag reminding us of the coming together of our nation around the principles of liberty, equality and justice. But square atop that flag, an image of a part of the body—just one part—to remind us that we as individuals and we as these United States must always think bigger. On the reverse side, an image of global unity, still unclear, still uncertain, behind those strong words from Paul, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
Paul’s image of the Body of Christ reminds us that we are all connected to one another as one body, but it also assures us that we need not be overwhelmed by the whole. We each have a part to play, a contribution to make as members of the body. As you celebrate this Fourth of July, rejoice over all that has been done to embody justice in this nation and in the Christian community. But remember also the suffering ones, recommit yourself to embodying justice, and stretch your circle of concern as wide as this great world. Justice does not end with our individual efforts, but it does start there. Or should I say, it starts here. Amen.
The Old South Church in Boston
645 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 536-1970