The talking Body of Christ

With all the time and money I've spent here on traveling and socializing during my exchange, some people have developed (unnecessary) concerns about the time that's left for my studies. However, I can assure you that life here in Göttingen has treated me better than ever so far, and it holds true even in terms of my studying. Everything has been so well lined up here that I've had time for (almost) everything. Besides, life is really the most important subject that you can study. And for me, theology only offers the best window to structure and interpret all the different aspects of life.

Here in Georg-August-University of Göttingen, I'm taking some classes of intercultural theology that are taught in English. It contains a lot of discussions about religious and intercultural dialogue and ecumenism, so the classes cover a lot of those topics that this blog is fundamentally about. A couple of weeks ago we had an interesting conversation in the class about Christian unity and how it's being implemented at the World Council of Churches (WCC). This class discussion was the seed for this writing.

The Body of Christ is very commonly used as a metaphor for Christian unity. The metaphor was basically invented by Paul in his first letter to Corinthians. In the next bit, I will make a two-way approach this topic: First, I give my interpretation of the apostle Paul's vision of the Church as the Body of Christ, as it is written in 1 Cor. 12. The second approach, which I call the narrative approach, is based on how the Body of Christ is reflected in the story of the gospel.

The Body of Christ according to Paul

In 1. Corinthians 12, Paul initiates the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ. I do not intend to delve into great depth and detail here, since it would be simply too large a field to cover. Instead, I just want to give a basic overview of this topic, perhaps in the hopes of presenting my key and most valuable ideas.

The main idea of Paul's theology is that the Church is one body with many different parts, which are all equal and unique, and that Christ is the head of this body. This has consequences to our understanding of ecumenism, of course. Different Christian denominations would be understood as the many parts of the same body.

"The body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body."

The hand is different from the leg. The leg is different from the eye, the eye from the ear and so forth. We have varieties of gifts, missions and results. But the Spirit that works in all of them is the same. We have the same Lord.

Take the many Christian communities as different kind of enterprises to reach people and spread out the gospel. They surely don't have to agree upon everything, but still affirm that they belong to the same body of Christ. The binding belief that holds the body together is the common faith in Jesus Christ and its essence is the Holy Spirit, which makes the whole body alive.

"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 of Gentiles, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink."

The basic acknowledgment here is that unity cannot be achieved without diversity. However, while the many agreements of ecumenical councils work towards accepting the diversity of communions, it still needs to be recognized that there is a great demand for healing in the social levels of the Church as well to fix the brokenness and otherness of Christian people all over the world.

We also shouldn't expect unity just based upon the fact that we are confessing Christians. It is not a magic act that the one Spirit just performs miraculously. Unity is a slow process and it can only be achieved by appreciating our differences and collaborating to reconcile our controversies. Unity is being created on the way towards unity. And as we embark upon this journey of unity together, we (quite ironically) already become united on this Way towards it.

However, in this world it's not possible to be "united" in its raw or perfect sense. Besides, unity doesn't mean uniformity or similarity, so that everyone is like others, likes others and have the same mind. Unity is to be understood as the perfection of all the richness and diversity of human life; as the ultimate goal of human history under the providence of God for the fulfillment of love.

The Body of Christ according to Gospels

We will now move from Paul to the narrative perspective of the Body of Christ. The main point here is to look at how the body of Christ is presented in the gospel narratives. There are probably multiple angles to this, but I will place my focus towards the end of the story, where the events proceed from the Passover onward.

So first of all, what happened to the body of Christ? To put it bluntly: It was shamefully crucified on the cross. However, in the end Jesus was resurrected and glorified to heaven. Now that same story line should be an integral part of our understanding of the Church as well. The Christian body is bleeding and suffering. It's even crucified and killed. But our hope lies in the resurrection, on the final day of judgement and the upcoming glory of heaven. There is hope since our High Priest has traveled the path before us.

The interesting thing is how Christ offered his body. During Passover meal, Christ gifted his body to his disciples by saying: "Take and eat; this is my body." In a metaphorical sense, Christ gave his own body for his disciples to eat. In other words, he's saying that you mean so much to me that I would sacrifice my own body for your sake. There is no greater love than this.

This self-offering and self-sacrificing love must be the paragon of the our modern day Church as well. The Church is not fundamentally there to preserve its own inner life, but to offer itself to the world, to become consumed by the world, and to sacrifice itself according to God's will as the body of Christ for the salvation of sinners.

Today, we must be a talking Body of Christ, able to engage in dialogue between the many parts of the one body. It's not in our power or liability to exclude or include anyone in or out of the body. It's God's part to put the body together and the Spirit does the work. Everything happens according to the will of the Father. And that is why Jesus taught us to pray: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."