9/25/21 "All In: Together in Christ" and Communion
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The New International Version (Chapter 12)
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.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus came as a helpless baby. His mother was shamed, his father wasn’t his father, he chose not to come to the “in” but to those who needed him most. Smelly shepherds and unclean gentiles visited him. He made it clear, he wanted all to come in.
1 Corinthians 12:14 “Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”
He grew, and he gathered his disciples. An unlikely lot.
calling of the fishermen
But 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.
Calling of Matthew
The New International Version (Chapter 9)
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ vFor I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The New International Version Chapter 12
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it
The woman at the well
The New International Version Chapter 13
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5
The Roman Centurian
Love does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Judas
The New International Version Chapter 13
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
The one who washed Jesus’ feet
The New International Version Chapter 13
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
People questioned him. People tried to warn him. If he just knew.
The New International Version Chapter 5
5 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
When we question God’s calling, we usually veer one of two ways:
God cannot use me
God cannot use “them”
We now go back to this unlikely lot of followers. Jesus, going to his death soon, calls them together, the loyal and the betrayer, the argumentative and the peacemaker, and calls them to eat together.
As we join together, following this God who calls us to be All In - what is God calling you to today?
The New International Version Chapter 13
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.