This is My Body

Bodies matter to God. Our bodies matter, our hunger, our pain, our sweat, blood, amniotic fluid. All of it matters to God. Christianity is an incarnate faith, a faith that cares about flesh and bone, about life itself. We believe God became human, walked among us, slept, and ate, and sang. God was embodied. God breathed. God laughed, and God’s laughter and breath still echo if you listen.

A little over a decade ago, my friend Hannah Shanks survived a difficult pregnancy. She spent the last weeks before her son was born in the hospital on bed rest, being monitored for preeclampsia. Hannah and her husband eventually had to leave the hospital without their son. The baby was still was in the NICU, hooked up to tiny tubes and oxygen. In his place she carried home a rented breast pump. One night, Hannah woke up to pump and caught a glimpse of her body in the mirror. She didn’t recognize her reflection. The last weeks of pregnancy, the changes after the birth, she looked so different. Hannah says she saw the mirror and said groggily, “well, I guess this is my body now.” Then she heard what she had said, the words she had heard on so many Sundays, “this is my body.” She titled her book about the experience “This is My Body.”

Today Jesus heals the body of a woman who has been bent over for over 18 years. We don’t know what has caused the ailment. Luke tells us that she has “a demon”, which was a first century catch-all when the doctors didn’t know exactly what was going on. Today she might have been diagnosed with anything from osteoporosis to internal hemorrhaging, we don’t know. But what we do know is that Jesus sees her, calls her over, and heals. Jesus refuses to let any religious argument stand between a woman and her healthcare.

We hear that the crowd rejoices when the woman is healed. Imagine a church throwing a celebration for healed bodies. Imagine a party for all of the people who have recently gotten new hips, new knees, newly stabilized spines. The people of this parish have probably bought at least a new car, if not a new house, for the doctors at New Mexico Orthopedics in recent months. At the party, we could have walker and cane relay races, a bonfire for co-pay agreements. Maybe an ugly piñata labeled “insurance denials.” Though, opposite of what we do with the piñatas for the kids, maybe you’d have to wait in a line where the oldest gets the first swing.

The crowd celebrates when this woman is healed. Because in Jesus’ day healthcare access wasn’t a given, particularly for those on the margins, women, the poor, the elderly. The crowd celebrated, I think, because the moment helped them know how much their bodies matter, how much they matter to God.

Alongside this story about a woman’s healthcare today we have the words of the prophet Jeremiah, the words of God spoken through Jeremiah about his body. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” In recent decades Churches of many stripes have emphasized a political message that life begins at conception. Prohibiting abortion has become the center-point of political engagement for many Christians, at the expense of almost all other advocacy for human bodies.

Despite what these religious activists claim, the Bible isn’t clear about when life begins. There are at least two strands of thought in scripture, neither places life at conception. Adam’s life begins when God breathes into his nostrils. Life begins with breath. This is the dominant understanding in the Bible. There is a reason the Gospels tell us the moment “Jesus breathed his last.” Life is breath in Scripture. You are alive when you can breathe on your own.

The second strand is wilder, more theological, and it can be found here in Jeremiah, BEFORE I formed you in the womb. God cares about bodies, and life, for the Bible, is more complex than chromosomes, and cells, flesh, and bone. Life begins before all that. Life continues after our body returns to ashes, dust to dust. Bodies matter, because they are infused with a life that is greater than the body itself. Life is a mystery we can neither control or contain.

This line asks for our humility. Sometimes we try and pretend that we are in charge of life, of bodies. For years, as a cis gay man, I avoided the topic of abortion. I figured it want my business. But after about a decade as a priest, Abortion got less theoretical where I was living. The state legislature in Missouri like its counterparts in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, so many states, began to pass legislation that endangered lives by restricting healthcare. In response, I introduced some rabbi friends to my bishop. Together a group of Jewish organizations, the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, and a handful of other Christian churches brought a court case. The rabbis and the bishop sued under the first amendment. We claimed that Missouri’s law violated the freedom of religion. We lost, but the argument matters.

Our Jewish siblings approach the same scriptures so differently. Jews do not tend to see the Bible as the way you end debate, but rather as the starting place. The Jewish faith is thousands of years older than Christianity. Maybe humility comes with age because my rabbi colleagues are far less likely than most of my fellow Christians to say they have figured out exactly what scripture means.

Judaism does not have a doctrine against abortion. Our Jewish siblings want room for nuance and discussion, but the rabbis do have some strong consensus on a couple of matters. The first is that any pregnancy which threatens the life or the health of the pregnant person should be terminated. The life and health of the mother, of the pregnant person, morally is far more important. Second, Jewish organizations argue that no one religious perspective should be turned into law in the United States. We honor diversity of thought, of religious practice, by protecting access to reproductive healthcare.

We are not of one mind in this society about when life begins. I would venture that we may not even be of one mind in this congregation. Humility matters. When I hear Jeremiah say “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,” I hear a call to humility. There is so much we cannot know about bodies, about life itself. Christianity could do with a far humbler stance. Bodies will humble you.

I have walked with couples who have wrestled with fertility. I have prayed for stillborn infants, and cried with people who desperately wanted to be parents. I’ve also baptized kiddos doctors said weren’t supposed to be possible. I’ve celebrated adoptions and foster placements as well. What I know about so much of our debates about abortion is that we could use more humility.

I do consider myself pro-life. But I cannot identify with a pro-life politics that is only concerned with the theoretical life of the unborn. Bodies matter to God. People matter to God. I am pro-life because I believe every child should be wanted, should know love. I am pro-life because I am anti-death penalty, I believe our government should not terminate the life of anyone, even a convicted murderer. I am pro-life because I believe we should weigh the real human cost before choosing war. I call myself pro-life because the lives of people locked up in immigration detention centers matter, their rights matter. I am pro-life because I believe we should know why poor women are more likely to die in childbirth, and we should pour money into researching other critical questions in women’s health that remain unanswered.

I am pro-life because I believe we should fund healthcare for trans people which improves their chances of survival. Life matters to God. The lives of the poor, the hungry, the oppressed matter to God. Bodies matter to God. I reject any narrow definition of “pro-life” which limits God’s concern for bodies to the unborn.

Life is precious. Bodies are precious. Bodies are to be celebrated at every turn. Ten plus years later, my friend Hannah’s son is healthy, brilliant, full of questions and energy. She would tell you: Yes, there are moments when we will catch a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror and think “I guess this is my body now.” But Don’t miss the sacredness of those words. This is my Body.

St. Augustine says when you say the great all caps AMEN at the end of the Eucharistic prayer, you say “amen” to your very mystery. You say amen, you say true that. We acknowledge that our bodies are a gift given to us, a trust given to us, that we might also offer our lives for the sake of the world.

Bodies of all shapes and sizes matter to God. Bodies of all colors and genders matter to God. Bodies of all ages and abilities and with all diagnoses matter to God. No change to our body will make God love it any more or any less. I’m convinced God laughs with us at our bodies, if we listen. God giggles about the wrinkles in your skin and when knees creak. Age has its own beauty, if we’re willing to see it. God weeps about how we judge our bodies too, how cruel we are to ourselves, and one another about bodies, when bodies are meant to be a gift.

Whatever time you have left in this corporal life, use some of it to breathe deeply. Hold onto that sense that your body is caught up in the wild mystery of God’s affection. God loves bodies enough that God chose to be born, to walk with us in all our messy reality.

When you feel sand beneath your toes. When the wind tickles your skin. When you taste an incredible meal or catch a whiff of piñon and mesquite burning in the fall air. When you catch yourself humming along to a beloved melody, take a moment. Remember: This is my Body. Humble. Alive. Beloved. This is my body.