Please pray with me. Dearest Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, open our hearts to receive 
Your Word. May my words and all of our thoughts be to the glory of You. Amen. 

For chapel staff training we based the week’s activities and discussions off of 1st 
Corinthians 12; so, when Pastor Paul suggested I used the same section as the main reading for 
today, I assumed writing the message would be a piece of cake. However, I was wrong—
wouldn’t be the first time. Left with a long list of scripture-inspired rants, I asked a professor for 
advice. Now if any of you have visited the Religion wing, you know that when you go in with 
one question, you leave with many more. Needless to say, I ended up creating more Scripture-
inspired rants. While I could read you those today, I am going to spare you the confusion and try 
to make some sense of this adventure. I need to be honest, though. I struggled with Paul in his 
writing here and I am guessing you did too. Normally when we hear this passage it leads to 
conversations of how to put together a community as the body of Christ, but I like examining 
situations through different lenses, different angles; so let’s try a new one. As we enter a new 
year we continue to use the word community. Whether we are welcoming the frosh to the 
Augustana community or rejoining a community of friends and faculty. Each community is 
brought together by multiple people with one or more goals to achieve. The different 
communities within the larger Augie campus are almost as numerous as the squirrels. Ranging 
from ASA to Cross Country, from International Club to 3N in Solberg, we are never short on 
communities here. However, there is a particular one that Paul references, the body, or as I 
would like to call it, the community of Christ, the church is another name commonly included. 
There are many people, many parts, but one community, one body. 

As we gather today in this community, we say all are welcome. Are all truly welcome, 
though? We must keep in mind that every human interaction involves a two way street. On the 
one side you have welcome statements discussing inclusivity, wanting to involve both the 
hurting and the ones who hurt; welcoming all. On the other side you have everyone that the 
welcome statement tried to capture by using “all” in “all are welcome.” However, what about 
those people who do not feel a part of any group, even those who do not truly feel a part of the 
“all”? If there is one thing that I have learned from the majority of my sociology courses is that 
our society in America is obsessed with labels. This is not a bad method for organization, just 
ask my roommates. However, it can be dangerous when applied to people, acting exclusive 
within the attempted inclusivity. To give someone a label strips them of their identity, who they 
truly are in their perfections and imperfections; who God created them to be. Yes, creating labels 
can find similarity amidst the differences; so, we use them to move towards equality and 
fairness. It is the way our society applies inclusivity, in a large group situation; and it is a pattern 
that we continue to reaffirm. So we do as Paul accuses us, we label and separate the different 
parts of the community of Christ, while trying to create equality. However, we cannot do it all by 
ourselves. Our labels will never be enough for the kind of equality we wish to obtain. As Paul 
said: “God has combined the members of the body and has given 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 eachother.” It kills me to say this..the part of me that wishes to save the world—but 
we cannot do this on our own. So we die to ourselves. It is through baptism, that we are all 
gathered here, as the body of Christ, it is the Lord who has brought us together. The Lord takes 
us, stained and weighed down by our sin, and marks us with the cross of Christ, reminding us 
that we belong to nothing on this earth. No label is greater than that of being God’s children. 


There is hope though and that is in the equality the Lord creates, in the everlasting peace 
and harmony for which we desire. We’re stubborn though, and we go forth and continue to try, 
or as some say “sin boldly” with the greatest intentions of serving our neighbors. I know I will 
continue to struggle with this, as I am even now. Thank the Lord for a house full of religion 
majors and minors, though because as I was writing, hoping for some direction, one of my 
roommates pulled up a YouTube video of Bishop Mark Hanson at a conference titled Follow 
Me: Sharing the Gospel in a 2.0 World. I would like to share some of his message. And I quote: 
“This God who has claimed me and named me by name in the waters of baptism hasn’t chosen to 
develop a relationship that’s just with Mark Hanson but is so gracious that god always is 
restoring me to community…” What a concept, that our differences are what make the 
community of Christ, out in the world, equal. No longer do we have to hide or sacrifice our 
differences; no longer do we have to worry about labels, here—go and be free. This message is 
to be shared with all, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 
Amen.