Day 205: The Global Body of Christ

 DAY 205

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Monday 5 October 2020

The Global Body of Christ

“We are one body, so the Bible says. ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.’ COVID-19 has brought with it many painful lessons. COVID-19 has unearthed just-below-the-surface realities in our world (food insecurity, inaccessible health care, living a paycheck away from financial disaster, no sick leave). COVID-19 has relentlessly revealed just how vulnerable we are physically, economically, socially. COVID-19 has also brought home the truth of our interconnectedness.  As it turns out, we are, in fact, one body – whether we like it or not. When one part of the world gets the coronavirus, the rest of the world, eventually, will be infected too. …Parts of the body are unarguably suffering more than other parts.  Do we care?...Like climate change, natural disasters and so much more, COVID-19 has an outsized, harmful impact on those already on the margins of our world, but all of us are vulnerable to its sickening effects. We are indisputably and irrevocably one body, and as followers of the Savior of the world we are called to respond with love to any part of the creation that suffers.” - From an article in the current issue of a Christian denominational magazine.

Yesterday was World Communion Sunday for millions of Protestant Christians, an annual recognition of the interconnectedness of the Body of Christ world-wide begun in 1933 by an American Presbyterian pastor that has since spread across denominations and across the world. Its focus is the Sacrament of Holy Communion as Christians gather around the Lord’s Table. The writer above is calling us to view this world-wide body from the perspective of a shared humanity and legitimately so. Jesus died for the whole world, and His concern remains for the whole world.

Paul connects the Lord’s Supper with Christ’s second coming: “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” 1 Corinthians 11:26. At that time I think all the Communion tables and altars of the churches around the world will be joined for the spreading out of the culmination of this Sacrament when it will be said, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” Revelation 19:9. Until then, ……..

To help address humanitarian need around the world

go to World Vision at worldvision.org.

Reflective question: Will you be open to and even seek ways you can share with Christ’s body elsewhere?

Reflective Scripture: Matthew 25:40 – “…whatever you did for one of the least of these…you did for me.”

Reflective hymn:

“In Christ There is no East or West” – John Oxenham (1852-1941)

In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north,

But one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.