Limited/Unlimited

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which He looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are His body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

I hold these words by St. Teresa of Avila close.

They really form the basis of my own point of view on how we are to act and live and be as Christians.

Because while Jesus might be with us, all of us, and receives our prayers and intercessions, he too did rise into the heavens with the Ascension.

Jesus, I believe, is both with us and not here.

You see, Jesus was the incarnate Word of God.

Jesus walked the earth and he was baptized.

He walked among us and chose his disciples.

Jesus healed as God heals, Jesus forgave as God forgave.

Jesus turned water into wine and turned death into life.

Jesus was fully human, fully divine.

And yet if we look at those last few sentences, we see they are all in the past tense.

He walked.

He healed.

He turned.

He was.

He was fully alive and then humanity in all its humanness judged him to be a disturber of tables and a disrupter of empire.

His preaching did not fit the expectations of the elite, he preached for a different kingdom the people could ever conceive.

Surrounded by crowds seeking healing and salvation, he often found himself alone in prayer with his father.

Yet, indeed, he was.

For when he was found to be the disrupter and when he did not fit into the plans folks had for him, when he was alone before Pilate, he was sentenced to death.

And he was resurrected from death.

And he walked the earth once more until he rose from this living plain to the one beyond.

His disciples, his friends, his brothers and sisters were left staring at the heavens.

Together, alone without Jesus, they left the place they were, the seaside perhaps, and began to start a movement.

And they tried.

They tried to inhabit the world as Christ did.

They tried to become the body, the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.

They were compassionate as Jesus was.

They healed as Peter did.

They experienced Christ in reality and shared that reality with all who would hear.

From Rome to Raigad they preached the Word.

They were the Body of Christ who no longer had a body in the world.

And that, I believe is our role in the world, how should be our default way of being.

We should heal.

We should be as compassionate to each other as Jesus was to Zacchaeus, a sinner.

We should serve as the hands and feet of Christ in this world who has no body.

I often reference a bible commentary when prepping sermons called Feasting on the Word.

It offers various perspectives from various others sharing four points of view, one each related to the following: homiletical, the art of preaching, exegetical, critical interpretation of scripture, theological, the study of God essentially, and pastoral, how to share the word with the congregation.

As part of this week’s pastoral reading of John, the author Rodger Nishioka, talks about a student of his he had a religious camp.

This student was given one of those WWJD “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets that were so popular back in the nineties.

And it’s a nice sentiment.

With every action we are to consider just what Jesus would do in that scenario.

Yet this student had an issue with the bracelet.

She felt uncomfortable with it.

Rodger would ask her, “Why the discomfort.”

And she said, she didn’t understand.

And he replied with an explanation about what the bracelet was for.

And she said she knew what it was for, but she just didn’t understand.

He then explained why she should wear it, that we all want to be reminded of Jesus in our lives.

And somewhat exasperated, she replied that she knew why she should wear it, but the fact is, we are not Jesus.

We are not fully human and fully divine.

We cannot know what Jesus would do because we are not Jesus.

Rodger, and through my reading his story, both thought this was a very good point.

So, this is where we encounter the both/and of St. Teresa’s poem for we should both act as Jesus did, we should serve as Christ’s hands and feet in the world, and (AND) understand that we are not Jesus.

We are limited by our humanness without divinity while at the same time we experience the boundless unlimitedness provided to us through our faith in Jesus.

If we suggest that we heal as Jesus did and not heal through Jesus we are imitating Christ, we are but going through the motions.

But by acknowledging our faith and understanding that God works through us we are becoming truer to our faith, truer to God, truer to each other.

This is why we worship God and not man.

This is why we worship God and not the church.

This is why we worship God and not manna.

We worship God who wishes us to be whole through Christ.

And we reach Christ through faith.

And through faith, we work through Christ.

There is a circle here, through Christ, through our Faith in Christ, we work through Christ and we are made whole, the circle is made complete.

And this brings us to our gospel reading this morning.

John the Baptist testifies that he saw the Spirit descend like a dove and remain with Jesus.

And the one who sent John to baptize told him that Jesus will be baptizing with the Spirit.

John then said that Jesus was the Son of God.

And even to his own disciples, John’s very own followers, he told them as the Christ walked by that Jesus was indeed the Lamb of God.

John preached the Word when the Word was amongst us; John pointed his followers to Christ.

He did not act as Jesus did but sent those he loved to Jesus.

And now we can act through Christ, we can forgive each other through Christ’s embrace of our very selves, we can look with favor upon our enemies through Christ’s eyes; we can walk this earth as Christians through Christ’s perfect love.

No, we are not Jesus.

We are not God.

But we will forever be Christ’s hands through Christ.

We can be Christ’s feet through Christ.

We can serve as John the Baptist did by pointing others to Christ.

The vision of Teresa for us is beautiful as it asks us to be members complete of Jesus’ body here on earth with the clarifying grace that we should not take on the burden of imagining ourselves to actually be Christ.

We are human.

We will make mistakes, we will sin.

And we will be forgiven.

Forgiven through our faith; forgiven by Christ.

Friends, let us go and serve each other.

For through Christ, our feet shall be Christ’s feet and walk to do good.

And our hands, through Christ, will be Christ’s hand that would bless the world.

Amen.