Becoming Ecclesia; The Body of Christ

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 Pentecost XV, September 6, 2026,Year A God’s Community

A sermon preached on the beach in Port Aransas with Trinity by the Sea and friends. Readings from Exodus 12 Romans 13 & Matthew 18


"Let such a one be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector." 

    This is one of only a couple of places in the Gospels when “the church” or in Greek, "ecclesia", is mentioned. Remembering Jesus’s teachings thirty years after his death and resurrection, Matthew wrote down this particular teaching and included that term that describes the sacred community of followers of the Way that had formed. The Ecclesia; Church, a community called to follow the Way of Jesus. 

In the Church, as with any community, sacred or otherwise, problems arise. Human animals are animated earth, clay with Spirit breathed into our nostrils, and we often we will find ways to get out of sorts with one another. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit spends her time inviting us back into community, with an abundance of persistence and patience with us. 

St. Paul used the word ecclesia, or church, in his letter to the Corinthians, though in his address to the Romans, written after the Corinthian letter, he describes the relationship "ecclesia" means when he addressed them as, “The beloved called by God.” And while Paul spilled a lot of ink articulating how to follow the way of Love Jesus taught, he ultimately agrees with Jesus’s singular commandment love one another. We who have been called into ecclesia are to follow all the commandments by loving one another. It’s that simple and complex. 

Amidst the realities of our struggles, our abiding quality as a church is agape love. Taylor reminded us in her sermon last week that "love does". Love is not an emotion, but activated in our being. 

The church--and I suppose I mean here the church universal, fractured as we are--the church should shine with

agape love in our relationships with one another, AND in the way we treat our neighbors who may not hear the call of God to follow the Way, we are to love. 

That's a profound responsibility we’ve been given, gifted: to be the community called by God to continue Jesus's work in the world; as a reminder, his work is healing, feeding, raising to life those who are living a hollow, dead life. 

In our gospel reading, we read Jesus teaches his disciples, and so he is also teaching us, that what we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, what we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. In other words, what we do in the world matters in the spiritual dimension of life: How we treat one another, church and neighbor, matters greatly to God. Agape love is the love that empowers us to become who God created us to become. 

Now, that doesn’t mean saying yes to everything others


want from us…sometimes even prayers are answered with a “no.” And that’s where our Gospel begins, Jesus taught, if another member of the church sins against you, talk to them in person! Please notice he doesn’t recommend calling them out on Facebook, but in person and with a conversation. Then if they don’t listen take another person, and finally get the church weigh in, then finally treat them as a Gentile and tax collector. 

That’s a curious line that many have taken to mean excommunicate or exclude that member from the church, but if we have read the rest of the Gospel, we can find how Jesus treats Gentiles and tax collectors: he feeds them, teaches them, loves them. Back to the commandment: Love one another. 

Bishop Loya, the Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, pointed out a feature of the spirit of our times is that, “we trade in the currency of scorn.” Ouch; the truth hurts. I keep getting postcards from politicians that prove his point again and again. Look around and you will find examples of people trading in the currency of scorn; there seems to be an expectation that we look for ways to tear one another down; the opposite of loving one another.  

I’m not just pointing at our capitals and laying blame on politicians. For we, myself included, give affirmation to those who are destructive to creation, including our neighbors when we silently witness others being mistreated on our behalf. What we bind on earth is bound in heaven. What we loose on earth is loosed in heaven. So, what are we binding and loosing? 

I pray that we bind ourselves together in a loving community, and loose love upon our neighbors.

I pray we learn to bind ourselves to trusting the voice of the Holy Spirit as she whispers into our hearts, teaching us to treat sinners as Gentiles and tax collectors; helping them who do not know how to love wake up from their slumber; help them to feel who've become numb to the currency of scorn we deal in.

I pray we bind our heart and soul to God when proclaim "we lift up our hearts to him", taking courage from God’s gift of grace to each one of us, and then, then offer that grace in kind to others, young as they may be in their faith. 

I know the church, universal and our church in particular, does not always live up to our calling. We have failed, we have fractured and we have abused God’s creation. I lament that reality. That’s why confession is part of our regular practice.

I don’t stop at lament, though. I accept God’s forgiveness, new life, and listen for our new calling in our own time to be God’s ecclesia: called to be the community of Agape love, completing Jesus’s ministry. Just as the Hebrew people were passed over by the Angel of Death with the blood of the lamb sacrificed (in our reading from Exodus), so we have are passed over by the judgement we deserve with the blood of Christ our Passover.

What a gift we have been given, what empowerment we have received, what a calling we seek to answer: to be Christ’s body in the world, nourished by the Body of our savior. 

That’s what we remember here at this altar; the sacrifice of God’s own body for our salvation, our passover. During this communion you may be tempted to catch up with someone, to chat with a friend you haven’t seen in a while. I’d invite you instead today and at every communion, to resist that temptation, and recognize the invitation to listen to the Holy Spirit: as you witness others receiving communion, as you await that gift, as you digest Christ’s Body, Commune with God. Abide in God’s presence. Accept Christ’s flesh being knit into your cells, becoming part of your being.

Listen to the waves, wind, music; listen to the ways the Holy Spirit speaks. There will be time to talk to others in a little while, but during communion, when you accept Christ’s Body and Blood, also listen. Be still, remember the judgement of your soul is being passed over: you are being woven into the Body of Christ, empowered to share Christ’s love with the world. Listen for how you are called to do that today, in this particualr season of life, and with your whole being. 


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