Embracing the body

Week 1: Friday

Reading

Ephesians 4.7-16

But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said,
‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people.’
(When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to 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 no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted 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.

Reflection

Oneness involves the body! Thanks in part to the legacy of “dualism” in Western thought we looked at yesterday, there has been a long history of seeing the body as less important than the spirit, or the material world as less valuable than the spiritual world. Christian theology has sometimes been charged with perpetuating deep suspicion or dislike for the body, seeing it as the place where sinfulness resides. But humans are embodied beings and true spirituality must include the body.

Today’s reading from Ephesians describes the Christian community as “the body of Christ”. Christ became incarnate (literally, “took on flesh”) and became a human being to make God known to us. Christ lived, died and rose again in the body. When we say the Creed, we affirm our belief in “the resurrection of the body”. Bodies matter to God, too!

Watch

Think about the ways in which you see your body or treat your body.

…and pray

for faith lives that are more grounded in our God-given bodies.

Copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2024.