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Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 28, 2026
Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Your body matters.
It certainly matters to you. When a body part is injured, or fails, or gets diminished by age, you notice. It starts to impact other areas of your life. Even the smallest body part matters. I was listening to a podcast on the biomechanics of walking (I know, I live a very exciting life) and part of the discussion centered on how important toes are in regulating your gait and keeping your balance, which impacts other parts of your body in profound ways. Even your toes matter!
Your body matters to other people. Your bodily presence makes a difference. It means something. I was so touched last Sunday to be able to spend Father’s Day with two of my three sons. My youngest son requested the entire day off from work even though he’s trying to get as many hours as he can over the summer, and my middle son drove all the way up from Fife to be with me. We didn’t even do much other than eat some good food together, but their bodily presence was the best gift they could have given me. Your bodily presence means something too. Your bodily presence here today matters. It means something. It is a blessing to others to have you here.
Your body matters. It matters to you. It matters to other people. Your body also matters to God. Both our gospel reading and our reading from Romans show us that God is not only concerned with our souls, but our bodies as well.
As the Apostle Paul writes in our reading from Romans.
Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
And then a bit later:
For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
When Paul refers to our “members” in this passage, he is referring to our body parts. What we do with these “members” matters. Our body parts can be used as instruments of wickedness. Lies and gossip and cruel words are spread with the tongue. Lust and covetousness are pursued with eyes. Violence is done with fists. Greed is practiced with hands. Legs can be used to distance ourselves from others. This ought not be so, St. Paul argues. Having been redeemed by Christ in body and soul, we are called to “present our members to God as instruments of righteousness.”
The predominant idea in our culture today is the idea of the autonomous self. We see ourselves as entirely independent agents, especially when it comes to our bodies. This is perhaps best summarized by the slogan, “My body, my choice.” This idea animates questions about many different controversial social issues, from abortion to physician-assisted suicide to vaccine mandates. Christians have wrestled with these issues as political problems and have sometimes come to different conclusions about how they should be handled politically. You know I am not a political preacher, so I’m not going to discuss them that way – vis a vis our relationship to the government. But as a theological matter, as a spiritual matter for us as individual Christians, when it comes to our relationships with God we cannot claim to be autonomous selves. Before God we cannot say “My body, my choice.” Our bodies are given to us by God. They rightly belong to God. Our bodies have been redeemed by God, reclaimed by God. Because this is true, St. Paul is saying, because God has redeemed us in body and soul, our bodies belong to him. And because our bodies belong to him, our body parts cannot be used in service to sin. Instead, they are to become instruments of righteousness.
So, for us personally, as individual Christians, the slogan must instead be, “God’s body, my obedience.” Instead of speaking lies or gossip or cruelty, our tongues are to become instruments that speak the truth, instruments that build others up, instruments that speak life and love into people’s lives. Instead of gazing lustfully or covetously, our eyes are to shun wickedness and instead focus on the gifts God has given us. Instead of violence or greed, our hands are to become instruments of care and service and generosity. Instead of walking away from others, our legs are to become instruments for pursuing reconciliation and community.
Jesus has something to say about this too. In our very short gospel reading for today (just three verses!) Jesus talks about how our bodily presence matters. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says, “and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” Do you see what this means? Your bodily presence brings Christ to others! You’ve heard it said that 80% of success is just showing up? This is true for ministry too! 80% of it is just being there, because simply being present with others as a Christian brings with it the very presence of Jesus. It brings the very presence of God. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me,” Jesus says, “and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.” There need not be any heroic gestures. You don’t need to bring any great wisdom or eloquence. Simple acts of hospitality will suffice. “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple,” Jesus says, “truly I tell you – none of these will lose their reward.” When legs are used to show up, when hands are used in ways as simple as sharing a cup of water, Christ is present. God is there. And so, your body matters. Your bodily presence matters. What you do with your members matters.
We are becoming an increasingly disembodied culture. Our technology is constantly pulling us out of our bodily surroundings to focus our attention elsewhere. My wife and I were recently walking down at Windjammer Park, and we saw a guy flying a drone while wearing a big headset that completely covered his eyes. I assume he was looking through the camera on his drone, and I’m sure the views were spectacular – but while he was doing that, he was completely oblivious to the people walking past him. He stood there awkwardly, completely entranced by his electronic do-dad.
It was easy to shake my head at this, but is it really so different from the way all of us are so often enthralled by screens of various kinds? I’m not saying it is always wrong or bad to use screens. I use them all the time. But it does have a way of feeding this sense of disembodiment, living in our heads while ignoring or neglecting the reality right in front of us. It has a way of leading us more and more into living a life that is virtual – which means not quite real.
This disembodied culture can lead to a disembodied Christianity. We can start to think that faith is only in our heads, that the gospel is just content we can download, that the Christian life is just having the right ideas or feelings and that it doesn’t really matter what we do with our bodies.
But this is not Christianity, friends! God did not send us an idea. God came to us in the flesh through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was not a virtual savior; he bore the cross in a real human body. His resurrection was not an uplifting thought in the minds of his disciples; he rose with a real human body, with a heart that resumed beating and a stomach that got hungry and hands that still bore his wounds.
True Christianity is a deeply embodied faith. Through his physical suffering and his very real death and his bodily resurrection, Jesus has redeemed us, body and soul. And so, both body and soul belong to him. And because they both belong to him, our members, our body parts, are to become instruments of righteousness. Our slogan must become: “God’s bodies, our obedience.”
Because Christianity is a deeply embodied faith, Christ’s forgiveness is delivered to us bodily. Thank goodness, because we need it! Our members, that is, our body parts, are often instruments of sin as we struggle to live into the new obedience to which we are called. But when we were baptized, water was put on our bodies. Christ claimed us, body and soul, as his own. In Holy Baptism our bodies were marked with the cross of his forgiveness forever. When we receive the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s body is received bodily, so that we can be renewed in this forgiveness. Grace upon grace is put on and in our bodies as we bodily gather to receive this very real gift of Christ’s forgiveness.
And as we live into this gift of forgiveness, our bodies and all their various parts begin to move more and more at the direction of the one who gave his Body for us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church