Bound Together in Love: The Body of Christ Beyond Death

Sub Dn. Timothy Grace reflects on St. Paul's teaching that without love all our efforts are useless, and that we are the Body of Christ and individually members of it. Our sins and our holiness affect the whole body, which is why no one is saved alone and why the saints still teach, heal and intercede for us. Turning to the Gospel, he explains how this bond of love transcends death, and why the Church prays for the departed and offers koliva in their memory.

Transcript

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today in the Epistle, St. Paul speaks about the great mystery that is our interconnectedness as the Body of Christ. He speaks of the diversity of gifts before making clear what unites us despite that diversity, and that is the love that we share in Christ. True love in Christ is more than just a nice feeling or some kind of abstract concept; it is the very bond of unity that connects us one to the other. Our dedication and devotion to this love has profound implications that I'd like to explore today, and we'll eventually come to the Gospel reading too.

We start by looking at the principle that St. Paul outlines in his epistle: that without love, all things are useless. How you do something is just as important as what you do. All things must be done with love. It's a frightening reality that we can accomplish great things but have terrible motivations. History is filled with examples of people who have made great discoveries, produced amazing works of art, or were perhaps astounding politicians, but have been terrible people, and we don't quite know what to do with them. Are they heroes or not? Should they be praised or not? St. Paul makes clear that without love in our hearts, we are nothing. It's not that there is no benefit to be had from the actions these people committed, but these people themselves have not benefited in terms of the state of their souls.

St. Paul himself was very aware of the potential in people to do things with the right motivation or not. When he was writing to the Philippians from jail, he commented on how his imprisonment had emboldened others to preach Christ openly. He says in his letter: "Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel, but the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment." He goes on to say that he rejoices in the sense that at least Christ is proclaimed, both by those who have good motivations and by those who do not. But for those who were preaching Christ out of envy, rivalry, and to spite St. Paul, it is not going to count in their eternal reckoning.

So let's take the time to scrutinize and reflect on how we do things in our lives. How do you go about your job? How do you talk to friends? How do you greet your spouse? How do you cook food for the family? How do you pick up the kids? How do you do everything? All things must be done in love.

Now you might be asking, why is this so important? Well, the reality is that we are connected in ways that we cannot even imagine. St. Paul says we are the Body of Christ and individually members of it. So what we do as part of that body affects everyone else. This works, first of all, in a negative sense. When we commit a sin, it has a hidden but profound impact on everyone else we are connected with. This is why we need confession. Confession restores us to God, but also to the community of faith, because what we do even in the privacy of our homes, the most private of all the private sins you can think of, is going to affect the body.

Just recently I was fortunate enough to go to Japan on honeymoon with Mai, and we went to the Orthodox church in Osaka. The Orthodox Church in Japan has been influenced by the Russians, so they have the practice that everyone who wants to receive Communion has to go to confession first. On this particular Sunday, it looked like the entire parish was lining up for confession before receiving Communion. And it was interesting: every single person in the line, just before going to the priest for their own private confession, turned around, faced the congregation, and made a deep bow, a full metania. It's an amazing embodiment of what I'm talking about. They are aware that even the sins they commit privately have somehow been an offense to the community, and they ask forgiveness of everyone before confessing their sins.

But this principle also works positively. The holiness of a part affects the whole body too. This is why, when we work on our own salvation and our own holiness, it's not just that we benefit as individuals, but that everyone can benefit. And we can understand a bit more about the impact that the saints have on all of us. St. Paul speaks of the various gifts in the Church, and all these gifts continue to serve us today because we are united to everyone who has gone before us. The teachers of the past, like St. Macrina the Elder, St. Gregory the Theologian, or St. John Chrysostom, are still our teachers now. The prophets of the past, like Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah, are still our prophets now, speaking into our situation. The apostles of the past, like Saints Peter and Paul, or even later apostles like St. Nina of Georgia, are still our apostles now. And the healers of the past, like St. Matrona of Moscow, Saints Cosmas and Damian, commemorated today, or St. Luke of Simferopol, are still our healers now, and we turn to them for our healing. All these are parts of a body that we are still connected to in Christ. And if we become healers, teachers, miracle workers, helpers, or administrators, then we share in the same grace that our forebears shared in. So we can, in Christ, influence the whole.

This is the way that we actually contribute to one another's salvation, and it is part of what we mean in the Orthodox Church when we say that no one is saved alone. This shouldn't sound as surprising as it does. When Jesus heals the paralyzed man who is lowered down through the roof, He heals him on the basis of his friends' faith: because of their faith, He forgives that man's sins. God tells Job's friends that He will accept Job's prayer of intercession for them to be forgiven. St. Paul even says that a believing spouse sanctifies the unbelieving spouse. And finally, the Book of James points out that whoever brings back someone who has gone astray from their sins will save that soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. We see that it is God's good pleasure not to make us replacement saviors of some kind, but to enable us to share in Christ's saving work. This is why we so often say, "Most Holy Theotokos, save us." She, above all, participates in Christ's saving work for the world.

This connection that we have in love connects us to one another, and in St. Paul's words, it never ends. It even transcends death. Here we turn to the Gospel story. We agree with its essential message that we cannot effect our own salvation after death, as the Gospel story says. It's an important lesson for us to realize, and in particular for Christ's main audience. He was speaking to the wealthy, to people who were becoming too concerned with material things and not really living lives of love, warning them not to become so obsessed with greed that they ignore the needs of others.

But the love connection that we have in Christ, of being part of the same body, is such that the people of God have prayed for their dead for millennia. This is a beloved Orthodox practice. These prayers work because the departed are still part of the Body of Christ after their death, as we are. We see evidence of this thinking in the Scriptures. In the Second Book of Maccabees, Judas Maccabeus offers sacrifices and prayers for his fallen soldiers, and it says, "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." St. Paul echoes this sentiment when he prays for his departed friend Onesiphorus: "May the Lord grant that he find mercy from the Lord on that Day." The dead are still a part of the Body of Christ.

You know, we've had a tough year in the Church, haven't we? But we are comforted by the fact that Khouria Janet, Gabriel, baby Phillip, and other beloved friends and family we have lost are as much a part of the Body of Christ as anyone sitting here. And though we believe that they cannot do any more for their eternal destiny, we can, because of our connection to them in the Lord, and because we see so abundantly God's desire to show mercy to some due to the love and effort of others. Those friends lowered the paralyzed man through the roof. It took effort. It took love. And God was well pleased to show mercy to the one on behalf of the effort of the others. So we make an effort for our beloved departed, taking the time to remember them in our prayers and noting the anniversaries of their passing.

This is the beauty of a food like koliva, the food we eat at the remembrance of the dead. You can't just pick it up at Coles like some kind of cheap mud cake. You actually have to go out of your way to find hard-to-find ingredients like wheat berries, pomegranate seeds, and other special ingredients. You have to take the time to make it, and then you have to decorate it really nicely. Don't they all look beautiful, like the ones we have on the Sundays of our commemorations? Making something like koliva is truly an offering of love, pleasing to the Lord, on behalf of our beloved departed.

So St. Paul makes clear that we are the Body of Christ and individually members of it. It is a mystical Body of Christ that transcends space and time, past, present, and future, and even transcends death. What connects us all to one another is our love, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. We have to realize, brothers and sisters, that without this love, all our efforts in life are useless. So let's take the time to realize just how interconnected we all are, and that our actions have a profound impact on those around us in ways we don't understand. May God grant us an awareness of the need for this love. May it comfort us in our distress, and may it draw us into closer communion with Him, with the saints, and with one another.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.