For year two of Eucharist, we thought it would be a good time to dive into a book of the bible and just work through it, week after week. Of all the books we looked over it was 1 Corinthians that continued to jump off the page again and again. 1 Corinthians is a letter, written by an early Christian pastor, who had planted a church in the city of Corinth.
So we are going to begin a study of the book of 1 Corinthians, which will take us about a year to work through.
Yes, you read that right. A year. Serious stuff.
The book is a journey of the wonderful and the bizarre - fractions in the church, a man sleeping with his mother-in-law, head coverings, our resurrected bodies, getting drunk off communion wine, suing your family to get more stuff, food sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, the way of love, and the body that holds it all together.
And at the end of the day, that is what this letter is all about: the body that holds this mess together.
In Greek (the original language of the letter) the word for body is “Soma.”
Soma.
The physical body you care for?Soma. A church community loving each other?Soma.The sun, the moon, and the stars?Soma. Bread and wine at the communion table?Soma.
The word Soma is used over thirty times in 1 Corinthians, far more than in any other New Testament writing, because 1 Corinthians is a letter about a body.
That body is broken and bruised, tired and worn, but it manages to hold all these worlds together. It seems like it ought to fall apart, like there isno possible way it will hold together, but it does.
And it is possible forthat body to become animated by God. Eventhat body can find new life.
And it can actually become beautiful and strong and compelling and Spirit-filled; and it can begin to change a city.
Sure, we can give a year to that.
