Body-Building

Bodybuilding is a competition that is hard for many to warm up to. I don’t know much about it, but it seems to be a discipline of working muscles in such a way and eating in such a way, that the body takes a certain shape. The appearance of the body as a whole and of the parts of the body are then judged in comparison to other competitors’ appearances to determine a winner. That is not entirely different from other competitions, I suppose, but it seems a departure from athletics where the training of the body is for function rather than appearance. As an example of performance-sport, gymnast's bodies vary, but the competition hinges on how precisely they complete their moves.

I certainly did a lot of weight training in my participation in football and wrestling teams in my school days. Whereas I certainly worried about my appearance, out of ego, my training was for the part of my ego that wanted to compete and perform well. I wanted to be fit enough to win wrestling matches, and help win football games.

Each member of a team wants to perform well individually for the good of the whole. Also, focusing on the individual, people want all the parts of their bodies to be well so that the body as a unified whole is healthy and fit. These obvious principles have to do with the importance of individual parts, and the critical importance of the functional unity of the parts.

These principles of individuality and unity are spelled out by St. Paul in his writings on the infant church in the first century. Our reading from Ephesians on Sunday to come is one of those examples: he uses the analogy of the human body. He emphasizes the growth, development, and maturity of each member of the body for the strength of the whole. He wants Christians to maintain unity, as each member realizes fully the grace given, which is to say, the gifts each person is given. He uses phrases such as “equip the saints,” “building up the body, “full stature,” “grow up in every way,” and “promotes the body’s growth in building itself up.” He wants the Christian community to come to maturity by urging each member to measure up to the full stature of Christ. Examine this string of verses from the Sunday Epistle:

Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called… There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling… equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ… we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.” (To read the entire portion, see Ephesians 4:1-16)

He is suggesting a very special kind of bodybuilding indeed. Paul is suggesting that the Holy Spirit empowers us and coaches us to be Christ’s own body, to effectively minister in our part of the world. Paul is himself a strong and encouraging coach, knowing that Christ, the head of the body, wants to bring every person within the reach of God’s saving embrace.

That is a beautiful, though very generally stated goal. It takes careful and diligent effort to bring people into a saving knowledge of God’s love. The real job of the parish is to believe powerfully in God’s love, then, to bring people in, build them up, and send them out to make love known. The cycle repeats: bring them in, build them up, send them out. This is our work. I must ask, and you must ask, “How am I doing with that? We are not alone in the task. The Spirit and you together are building up the body. Even if our literal physical muscles are not massive, rippling, and bulging, we are all bodybuilders for the Church, the Body of Christ. The Spirit is here, St. Paul of the Scriptures is here, your fellow ministers are here to pump you up.