Willow, my 3 year old, recently told me that her sister was “big” and so that meant that I was “(add large arm gestures) SUUUPER BIG”. Willow’s perspective shows us something of the problem that we have with growth as Christians. Most of the time we consider that we are growing into the image of Christ, becoming more and more like Him – that is “SUUUPER BIG” growth. In fact, it is impossible growth for us. As much as we try, we can’t completely grow into the complete image of Christ ourselves.
When I was a kid, there were at least a couple tv shows on with the same basic idea: There were a team of people who usually drove some robots or something. Those people and their robots were usually pretty great on their own, at least for the first half of the tv show — but then when it came to fight the big bad guy at the end of the show, the individuals proved that no singular one of them could best the bad guy. What did they need to do? They needed to join forces! In one of my favorite manifestations of this, a cartoon called Voltes 5, the team would combine each of their individual vehicles to make one big super robot (with a sword!) that would ALWAYS beat the bad guys.
To some degree, that is a pretty good picture of who we are as the Church. On our own, we don’t grow into the the image of Christ – but as the Church, we are supposed to build up into being a picture to the world of who Christ is. That’s the picture that Paul paints of the Church in Romans and 1st Corinthians. No one of us can manage the “SUUUPER BIG” growth of the image of Christ, but that together we can get close – each of us bearing a part of the load.
Unfortunately, even combined with others, we still know that the Church cannot completely show the world who Christ is. In the very book that Paul outlines much of what the Body of Christ is like, 1st Corinthians, he also outlines how out of step with Christ the Church can get. We don’t just need cooperation, we need renewal – and renewal is something that only God can bring us.
This year, we consider what it means for us to be “Sprouting in the Spirit”. As we think of that, we have to consider two things. First of all, we are planted together. Our spiritual sprouting cannot remain a solo event, it has to reach toward cooperation with those God has placed us with in His Church. Secondly, even our communal cooperation isn’t enough. We need God’s Holy Spirit to work renewal in us by pointing us toward the forgiveness and renewal given to us by Jesus. With those two things in mind, I think we can grow as a congregation being renewed and put into cooperative action with one another to show just how “SUUUPER big” we can get.