Pastor Darren: So I landed on body of Christ imagery despite our scripture this week.
Pastor Darren: Body of Christ.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: People have uh um, if you've journeyed in the church for a while, you've probably heard this med this metaphor, this imagery of how we understand all the people who are Christians together.
Pastor Darren: We talk about the body of Christ, meaning we are all one.
Pastor Darren: And the uh imagery extends to everybody having specific gifts and graces.
Pastor Darren: And uh so as you start thinking about that body and people's individual gifts, you start talking about the eyes and the ears and the mouth, the legs and feet, arms and hands, the heart.
Pastor Darren: You know, it's powerful imagery for us.
Pastor Darren: You know, you think about eyes as being those who can see kind of where we need to go and and how to get there.
Pastor Darren: You talk about ears, those those people who can kind of just hear what's going on and allow people to be heard on that on that journey.
Pastor Darren: The mouth, the people who can kind of speak things clearly to grab the vision and communicate it to the body so that it can move forward.
Pastor Darren: Legs and feet, these are the people that keep us moving, right?
Pastor Darren: Making sure we're moving, getting going and not standing still, arms and hands, the people who get stuff done, and heart people, the people looking out for everyone, the people who are uh have their finger on the pulse of how everything's going.
Pastor Darren: I'm curious in this room, this part of the body of Christ, how you see yourselves.
Pastor Darren: How many people are eyes people?
Pastor Darren: They they can kind of see what needs to happen and how to get there.
Pastor Darren: Are you eyes people, visionaries, prophets?
Pastor Darren: Not a one of you, I guess.
Pastor Darren: No wonder we're still in this same spot.
Pastor Darren: We have ears people, people who are good at listening, people good at feeling out anyone?
Pastor Darren: You cowards.
Pastor Darren: Here we go.
Pastor Darren: Oh, yeah.
Pastor Darren: Barbara was telling me, come to the choir every now and again, right?
Pastor Darren: Yeah, yeah, the peanut gallery.
Pastor Darren: I don't know, but I don't want to fall into a stereotype.
Pastor Darren: Just preaching to those people over there.
Pastor Darren: How about mouth people?
Pastor Darren: And I'm noting this because we need liturgists.
Pastor Darren: Legs and feet, people who are drivers getting things done.
Pastor Darren: There we go, Stephen.
Pastor Darren: There's so many cowards this morning.
Pastor Darren: I'm not like writing your names down on paper.
Pastor Darren: Arms and hands, people, people just can get her done.
Pastor Darren: There we go.
Pastor Darren: We've got a few of those.
Pastor Darren: Good for you.
Pastor Darren: We got a few on Wednesday mornings, I know, too.
Pastor Darren: And heart people.
Pastor Darren: I meet with our heart people on Tuesdays.
Pastor Darren: I'm sure there's more.
Pastor Darren: People who are in our prayer group, our care group, looking out for everyone.
Pastor Darren: Uh that's kind of the heart and soul of a church, is that that breadth of who's in the room and who's able to uh uh fulfill their role and bring that gift to the rest of the body.
Pastor Darren: So I land in the Luke passage, uh started in the Luke passage uh because it's Ascension Sunday.
Pastor Darren: We're talking about Jesus' uh last moments here before he ascends.
Pastor Darren: And if we break up the scripture, there's really four parts.
Pastor Darren: There is the reminder with some hope that his death, right?
Pastor Darren: His death, it is a fulfillment of scripture.
Pastor Darren: This is not an accident.
Pastor Darren: We should find hope in that.
Pastor Darren: Tragedy has occurred in a sense, but we should also recognize this was how it was supposed to happen, right?
Pastor Darren: Then part two is some instruction.
Pastor Darren: And this instruction is useful, I think, if you're somebody studying Luke, because it's instruction about what is the core message.
Pastor Darren: You got to figure Luke in the words that Jesus offers, he's going to be trying to capture what he feels like is the core message that Jesus brings.
Pastor Darren: In this case, instruction about repentance and forgiveness of sin.
Pastor Darren: That is the new reality that we understand in this new faith called Christianity.
Pastor Darren: It's about a loving God who forgives us and gives us the space to turn back, to turn and begin to follow in the ways that are blessings to ourselves and to others.
Pastor Darren: And after that instruction, there's further instruction to wait.
Pastor Darren: You know, many people believe that Luke and Acts were written by the same person.
Pastor Darren: So this would fit really, really well for those of us who know the beginning of Acts, where the disciples are sitting trying to figure out what has just gone on.
Pastor Darren: Their leader has passed away, they're not sure what it all means.
Pastor Darren: And next week we'll talk about the story of when it comes real for them at Pentecost.
Pastor Darren: But that instruction really does make sense.
Pastor Darren: And then finally Jesus ascends to go and be with God, which is why we end up with this as our scripture for today on Ascension Sunday, the Sunday before Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Darren: So it should all make sense.
Pastor Darren: And yet, over the course of this week, when I was wrestling over what to talk about, I landed in this Ascension Sunday, but also that it's music Sunday for us.
Pastor Darren: Music Appreciation Sunday.
Pastor Darren: And somehow I landed on the version of this same scripture, but in the Gospel of John, where John, uh uh uh where Jesus is is praying, and he's praying for his disciples that he's gonna have to leave soon, and he's asking for God's presence when he leaves, which we understand to be the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Darren: And he says these words, listen to this.
Pastor Darren: This is uh uh John 17, 11.
Pastor Darren: And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you, Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, and here's the key part so that they may be one as we are one.
Pastor Darren: So that they may be one as we are one.
Pastor Darren: He's talking first about the unity that God and Jesus have together.
Pastor Darren: That would be an important emphasis for John and his gospel, that unity of Jesus and God, but there's also this unity he's asking for that might be true for the disciples going forward.
Pastor Darren: He's asking God to say, bring them together.
Pastor Darren: And I think we can safely extend the understanding that he's inviting God's presence in our overall unity as the body of Christ, that we Christians would move together as one.
Pastor Darren: We landed in this imagery in the Bible study this week.
Pastor Darren: I guess uh um we shouldn't be too surprised that if you're doing an intro to the New Testament and you reach the Paul sections, that you're going to be talking about the body of Christ and that it would overlap to a certain extent with this season, ascension, and uh moving into Pentecost.
Pastor Darren: Um but we talked about the body of Christ passages this week, and I think that's part of why I landed on this Christ imagery.
Pastor Darren: Most of those passages that talk about that image, the body of Christ, the large ones are in Ephesians, the letter to the church in Ephesians, and the letter to the second letter to the church in Corinth, right?
Pastor Darren: Second Corinthians.
Pastor Darren: And Paul at the time, and those of you who studied your New Testament, especially with Pastor Walt, you know this.
Pastor Darren: Paul's trying to establish a structure for this movement, right?
Pastor Darren: The Christianity just kind of getting going, you know, especially after Christ's uh resurrection.
Pastor Darren: And now there's this group of people trying to figure out what they're going to do, and that's where Paul steps in.
Pastor Darren: Most effective gift of mouth, shall we say, with the ability to speak some truth that inspires people, helps them understand where they need to go?
Pastor Darren: And uh in this case, the churches, all these new churches in these cities, well, they're they're trying to figure out how they're gonna move forward.
Pastor Darren: And believe it or not, there was a certain amount of disagreement in the right way to do it.
Pastor Darren: Does this shock any of us?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: You know, Christians then would wrestle, uh, they wouldn't always uh get along with each other and all, you know, not like today.
Pastor Darren: I'm grateful that here in 2026 we have figured it all out.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: We Christians today not only get along with each other, we get along with non-Christians too.
Pastor Darren: Paul, I decided we need like a sarcasm button on the stream, just in case it's not clear as I'm speaking.
Pastor Darren: So, yes, it's perfect today, but back then they needed structure, they needed it figured out.
Pastor Darren: Paul was trying to help them do that.
Pastor Darren: And when you read the letters, you can see this backdrop of infighting that's happening uh in in uh um in these early churches.
Pastor Darren: Everyone feels like they have the right answer.
Pastor Darren: Paul's response in many in many of the instances is to remind them of everyone's value.
Pastor Darren: In essence, everybody has their role.
Pastor Darren: Everyone has been blessed with something to bring to enhance God's light and love, and by extension, we suffer when anyone is inhibited from bringing that sharing.
Pastor Darren: The larger body is weaker when some aren't represented for whatever reason that that happens.
Pastor Darren: On a day like Music Appreciation Sunday, hopefully you can see why I made this scripture a pivot.
Pastor Darren: How much of music performance, especially with a choir, is grounded in this imagery, in this understanding of this body of different people bringing different gifts, being able to make something great in their unity.
Pastor Darren: I think the final piece of how I landed in this scriptural pivot to John came from our friend Carol up here in the choir.
Pastor Darren: She sent me this Facebook post from a uh pastor over in uh the first congregational church.
Pastor Darren: Wait, can't so the first congregational church UCC in Melrose MA, is that Maine?
Pastor Darren: Is that Massachusetts?
Pastor Darren: Massachusetts.
Pastor Darren: All right.
Pastor Darren: Sent me this Facebook post that really wraps it up well.
Pastor Darren: Now, you should know, we pastors, we have enough pride slash arrogance that when we see something that's written, we change it just a little bit so we don't feel like we have to.
Pastor Darren: But this guy wrote it really, really well.
Pastor Darren: So I'm gonna cut this corner right now.
Pastor Darren: An ode to Reverend Dominic Taranowski at the First Congregational Church UCC in Melrose MA.
Pastor Darren: Let me read this to you.
Pastor Darren: The bell choir always strikes me as a metaphor for our church.
Pastor Darren: No single ringer in the bell choir can play the entire melody alone.
Pastor Darren: There is no way any one person can hold the necessary full set of bells to play the song, although Nick will try sometimes.
Pastor Darren: By themselves, they can offer several notes at the right time, but never the full hymn.
Pastor Darren: That's what makes it such a powerful image of the Christian faith.
Pastor Darren: The Apostle Paul reminds us that the body of Christ has many members, each with a different role.
Pastor Darren: In a bell choir, that truth is audible.
Pastor Darren: You can't jump the gun and play your part first.
Pastor Darren: But when each ringer rings the uh watches the director, waits for the right moment, and rings faithfully, something larger emerges, a song no single person could create.
Pastor Darren: Church life works the same way.
Pastor Darren: Some of us carry bright high notes, others of us provide the low, steady tones that give depth and grounding.
Pastor Darren: Some ring often while others wait patiently through long measures of rest.
Pastor Darren: Even silence has a purpose.
Pastor Darren: It creates spates for someone else's sound to emerge.
Pastor Darren: Friends, this is embodied in all music, I would argue, and particularly in our music program here at the United Methodist Church of West Village.
Pastor Darren: So, choirs, today we celebrate you for the time, for the joy, for the spirit that you bring to us each week.
Pastor Darren: But we also we also salute you for being the model of the body of Christ for us with every anthem, with every hymn, each and every week.
Pastor Darren: Amen.