Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Well, it is such a joy to be here with you today, to worship together as God's family here at Tyndale. So yeah, George introduced me well. I started at Tyndale this summer, and it's just been a joy to be here. And we moved from Saskatchewan, and so something you need to know about me is, I am a farm girl. I grew up on a grain farm. So I love driving farm machinery, like combines. I love working with my family, on the land that we've stewarded for generations. And whenever I'm far away, I actually really miss the land and skies of Saskatchewan. But my first year after my, after my first year Bible college, I had to get a job off the farm for the first time. And that was a shock, you know, your first real job. And I worked from 7am in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon at Honey Bee Manufacturing. Okay, it has nothing to do with honey, has nothing to do with bees. It's just owned by a family whose last name is Honey. And they make farm machinery. So the the part of a combine that cuts down the crops and harvests it. And my job was every day to come in and build knives. Now this was not like a "forged in fire" situation where I'm like forging knives. No, what it is, is I was just bolting little sickle sections or like little triangle, serrated triangles on a bar. So it was just repeating this over and over again. So you take an, a bolt and a nut, bolt and a nut, bolt and a nut, bolt and a nut, and then you tighten them all up with an air gun. Sounds riveting, doesn't it? It's not riveting, it's bolts, those are really different. Okay, so it was repetitive.

And imagine, 18 year old me, in a cloud of welding smoke, because we were really close to a welder. My hands are all oily. And I, my coworker is a lovely woman, but she does not wear her hearing aids at work. So she does not hear me, and does not talk to me. So it's a pretty long morning. And then the 10 o'clock bell sounds, and it's time for break. I didn't know what to do. You know, that kind of panic that you feel where you don't know where to sit, where to go? I really legit did not know where to go. So my coworker took me with her to where she goes to take her break. So I go outside, and there I am at a picnic table with a bunch of people who are old enough to be my parents. Many of them are smoking. And a lot of them are quite unhappy in their lives. And I was just like so uncomfortable. I was like physically uncomfortable, and socially uncomfortable. But I didn't know what else to you. So I was there for the 10 o'clock break. I was there from lunch from 12 to 12:30. And then at the, I think it was like two o'clock break. I was just sitting there at the picnic table, trying not to cough from all the smoke, when Andre comes by. You might ask who is Andre? Well, I'm gonna tell you, Andre, is this tall, big man from South Africa. He was a rugby player. And he's just this teddy bear of a person, a family friend, who had my back as I started my first day of work. And he looked at me and said, "Why are you eating lunch here?" And I didn't have a good answer.

So the next day, I'm there bolting knife section after knife section after knife section, when Fred shows up. That is not his real name. But he's a guy I grew up with. He's one of those, he was one of those cool guys, you know, the popular kids. And I'm from Saskatchewan, so that means he was a hockey player. Okay? And he said, "Okay, come on, Jen. I'm going to show you where eat, we eat lunch." And my heart lifted. I had a much lighter step for two reasons. I didn't have to go back to the picnic table and inhale all the smoke. But also, maybe I'm actually friends with the popular group. This is a group of hockey players, and Fred's girlfriend, who's cooler than Fred is. Maybe we're actually friends after all. And so I started to take breaks and coffee with this group. But then after a few days, Andre stops by again, and he asked me how nice building is going, and it's like your expect, repetitive. And then he says, oh, "Did, did Fred come show you where he and his friends take breaks? I told him to include you." And in that moment, I felt two things. First of all, I was thankful for Andre, who had really had my back and was watching out for me. But, on the other hand, my heart kind of sunk, because I realized that I didn't belong to that group. That I've only just been included. Have you ever felt like that, that you didn't belong, but you were just included, maybe out of pity or politeness, but they didn't really want you there, that you weren't really part of the group.

Now, I think some of our brothers and sisters in Corinth might have felt that way too. So if you remember anything about Corinth, especially Paul in Corinth, their relationship status was complicated, to say the least. And in Corinth, there was just like so many groups, so many cliques. There was Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor, there was the shiny people who hang out in the spotlight and get all the attention. And then there was the people in the corners doing all the other stuff. And this church kept hurting itself by its disunity, by how it was splitting off in groups and treating some people as more important than others. Now, Paul, he gets that when we're reconciled to God, that actually means we're part of a new family, that in fact, we're reconciled to each other. And one of the biggest signs that Jesus' Kingdom is here, that he really has reconciled us to God, is that people who didn't even use to associate with each other, are now one family, like, do you get how incredible that is? And Paul wants the Corinthians to get this. And so he does what good preachers do, he uses familiar language, he uses the language of the body. Language we still use today, we talk about the body of Christ, the body of the Messiah. Now, in my hermeneutics class, we sometimes talk about suitcases. And this is something I'm borrowing from N.T. Wright. He talks about how a lot of our theological language is a suitcase. That it's, it's a way that we can talk about these big ideas and big stories in a manageable package that we can carry around. And so the body of Christ is a kind of suitcase. It helps us to hold together a bunch of big ideas. But the problem is, is sometimes we don't unpack our suitcases, and we actually forget what's inside. So sometimes we need to unpack the suitcase and remind ourselves what this is about. And that's actually what Paul is doing in that passage that George read for us. First Corinthians 12. He's unpacking the suitcase of the Body of Christ, this familiar suitcase that you've been using to talk about what it means to be a part of God's family. He unpacks it to make you think what it actually means. It's a familiar phrase, but it's important for us to think about. And so I'm going to read it one more time, and I want you to think, really think about that image of a body, and what it means that we are a body. Okay?

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one body. So it is with the body of the Messiah. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit. And we all share the same spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. And if the foot says, "I am not a part of the body, because I am not a hand", that doesn't make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, "I am not a part of a body, because I am not an eye", would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye? How would you hear, or if your whole body were an ear, would you smell anything. But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it only had one part. Yes, there are many parts but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, I don't need you, and the head can't say to the feet. I don't need you. In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important, are actually the most necessary. The parts we regard as less honourable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honourable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honour and care are given to these parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it. And if one part is honoured, all the parts are glad. All of you together are the Messiah's body and each of you is a part of it.

So maybe today it Tyndale, it'd be good for us to really listen to what Paul is saying. So just like in Corinth, I think it's pretty easy for us to settle into groups. I've seen them, and I felt some of it. Sometimes it's easiest for us to separate into seminary and undergrad. Freshmen, upperclassmen, rich students, poor students, young students, old students, we have so many different cultures here, we have different learning styles, different kinds of capabilities. It can be really easy for us to chunk up the way that Corinth did. And I think especially so, as we get used to life together again, after the disruptions of COVID. We're learning what it means to be a body in person again, as we rebuild the rhythms of community. We need to think about what it means to belong to the body.

So there's two things on my heart that I want to say to you. First of all, to some of you, maybe you're enjoying your group too much. Maybe you don't actually see your brothers and sisters around you, because you're so focused so much on yourself, and your group, and the good time that you're having. And perhaps there's moments where you kind of congratulate yourself, pat yourself on the back, because you included someone. But as the theologian, Willie James Jennings reminds us, belonging is really different than inclusion. Because inclusion says, oh, Andre told us that we needed to invite you. So think about Paul's image of the body of Jesus, think about that body. Okay. We don't congratulate ourselves by being like, "Hey, guys, guess what I brought along my left hand." Okay. Right, it's part of the body, it should be there, we should be taking care of it. None of you, like in the body of Christ, we need to take care of each other. And I've never had one of you come up to me and be like, "No humblebrag here, I brushed my teeth today." We don't do that. Because it's your body, you're supposed to take care of it. You're not doing something heroic, by taking care of what belongs to you. Okay, I want you literally to look around this room. Look at these beautiful, made an image of God, faces. These people, they belong to Jesus. And that means they belong to you. And because you belong to Jesus, because I belong to Jesus, that means we treat each other differently, we treat each other with care. We look at each other as people who belong, not things we need to be included. Now, I think there's others of you, and I've talked to some of you, who doubt your place in Jesus's family here at Tyndale. I have talked to some of you who feel shame, you feel like you don't know enough, or that maybe you don't know Jesus enough, that you don't belong. I know that you feel pretty lonely. But you also need to listen to what Paul is saying, You are a part of the body. You belong.

So again, let's think about that image of a body. Imagine that you're being at the doctor's office, and the doctor is like, Hmm, I see what the problem is here. That isn't actually your hand, it doesn't belong. Yeah, that's kind of a silly example, but it's kind of how we treat each other, right? Or how we might see each other. A doctor is never like, Oh, I see, those teeth don't actually belong in your mouth. No, you gotta trust that God puts you where you're supposed to be. You belong. And so the image of the body speaks to all of us. You belong. You belong, you belong. And I'm going to say, even though we're a school, it doesn't actually matter, all of your papers, all of your accomplishments, if we haven't done what Jesus asked and love one another. You notice that it's, it's one another, each other, because we all belong. So I just want you to hear this. Andre didn't make anybody invite you. And I didn't just scrounge up a chair for you, but there's always been a place for you. You belong. And in fact, we all belong, because we belong to Jesus So let me pray for you.

Jesus, we are so humbled, and overjoyed and blessed that we belong to your body, that in being reconciled to you were reconciled to each other. And I ask that you would help us all to live from that place of belonging, that we would know that you have accepted us and redeemed us. And that we would know that about our brothers and sisters as well. Lord, I ho, ask for those who are struggling to know that they belong, and that they would know that they are a gift and a blessing and not a burden. That you would give us all eyes to see each other, and hearts to love each other. Because we belong to you, we belong to each other. Pray these things in your holy name. And all of Jesus's body said Amen.