Father Andy’s reflection on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

David Smith, in his book Learning from the Stranger-Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity, says: “Learning from the stranger is a necessary component of genuinely loving one’s neighbour.” This goes far beyond pity for the needy or the learning necessary for preparing for missions. It changes our ideas of how God calls us to welcome the stranger and sometimes to be the stranger.

Sometimes God calls us to step outside our comfort zone and be the stranger. Have you ever been in a situation when you were the stranger? How do we respond? First, there is fear, usually related to a lack of control we feel. We want to restore our sense of control. We pray “Yours is the Power,” but we often want that control. We need to lay down our cultural power at Jesus’ feet. We can’t always be the host; we need to be the guest.

We may also find that the knowledge we have about the world, the way we have made sense of the world may be changed. If we always look at the world from one perspective, stepping outside that perspective can be terrifying, and life changing.

This is what was happening at Pentecost.

But it didn’t stop at Pentecost. The early church was very diverse. People sit up and take notice when people reach beyond divisions. Greek and Hebrew, Jew and Samaritan, Gentiles, all praying together. No wonder the early church stories in Acts are so exciting as people notice this Body of Christ, a group like never before.

But is this unique to Jesus’ teaching and to the Body of Christ? There are many examples of this reaching across boundaries outside of the church in organizations, including peace building efforts.

I believe the Body of Christ is a place where we not only cross boundaries of race and culture, but also find a way of interacting, in which we learn from each other and complete each other.

Andrew Wells writes in  a book entitled Cross-Cultural Process: “The Ephesian metaphors of the temple and of the body show each of the culture-specific segments as necessary to the body, but as incomplete in itself. Only in Christ does completion, fullness dwell. And Christ’s completion, as we have seen, comes from all humanity, from the translation of the life of Jesus into the lifeways of all the world’s cultures and subcultures through history. None of us can reach Christ’s completeness on our own. We need each other’s vision to correct, enlarge, and focus our own; only together are we complete in Christ.”

In the book China’s New Nationalism, the author concludes that the only hope for the world is making a new “we” within “us and them.” He uses this story to illustrate: American bombs ripped through the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1999, killing four Chinese journalists. Anti-American protests erupted across China. American teachers were told to stay in their apartments to avoid trouble. One young teacher, Annarie, defied the order and went to class. Her students were mourning, and some were shouting in protest. Annarie stood at the front of the class with open arms and said: “I am so sorry. Please forgive us.” The class was silent, tears poured down faces as both the students and Annarie confessed to their part in a violent and hateful world. They talked of hope for peace, for finding ways beyond conflict. One of the students present that day wrote a letter to the editor of the very same national paper that had lost the four journalists in the bombing. This letter was published and read nation-wide as a beacon of hope that we can go beyond the violent rhetoric of “us and them” to a new “we.”

The teacher in this story is a Mennonite from the States. In practical terms, this is very hard work. It is not glamorous and involves very slow steps. For Annarie, that moment didn’t just happen, it was part of years of getting up every morning, spending time with students, allowing herself to learn, to change and to let God’s love flow through her to her students.

It takes humility. It takes admitting that foreign “others” are neighbours that I need. It takes compassion given and received, recognizing our mutual vulnerability. It takes a life of loving God so wholeheartedly that cherished boundaries are redrawn. It takes the power of the Spirit. The Body of Christ is the new “we” between “us and them.”

May God’s Spirit pour on us so that all may experience the wonder of being part of the Body of Christ.

Fr. Andy Boyer