Epiphany 3C (1 Corinthians 12:12-31a)

​Let’s contemplate on the body. This method of contemplation is often called a body scan. The purpose of this practice is to be aware of each part of our body and each sensation that it brings to our attention and to see how many parts are interconnected and make a sense of self. 

Starting from our toes, we can feel the texture that surrounds our toes and feet as we wiggle them. Go up to our ankles so that we can feel the socks and to our knees. If we somehow have difficulty sensing the parts, we can gently place our hands on them. Move our attention to our thighs and remain there to see how they feel. Then, stay around hips and back. Feel the belly and see its movement as we’re breathing in. As we’re breathing out, feel the back. We can move to fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders, and neck. We might have some tensions around them. Slowly and kindly move around the neck and shoulders to let go of tensions. Let’s get to our face: lips, mouth, its warmth, tongue, throat; nostrils where our breath travels in and out; ears that hear things around us; eyes, eyebrows where we can feel muscles around; foreheads. Then the back of our head and to the top of our head. 

Now, let’s reflect on the thought that all these body parts make up who I am. If there’s a pain in your right foot, it will affect your left foot because it will do the work of your right foot. It will also impact your legs and then your back. This is what St. Paul in the lesson describes one member’s suffering impacting the whole body. Or imagine you’re getting a massage on your shoulders. You’ll be able to relax as tensions ease. Your neck will in turn feel better. Fewer tensions throughout your body. You might feel drowsy and start yawning. What these two examples of pain and relaxation respectively tell us is interconnectedness or interdependence. All body parts are interconnected and dependent on one another. This interconnectedness/interdependence crafts a sense of me. In other words, we cannot make sense of “me” apart from each body part. 

Let’s expand this idea of interconnectedness beyond our bodies. Our body is a boundary between the world and the sense of me. But if we pay attention to the sensation that the body provides, which is the experience itself, that boundary disappears. Focus on what you hear, see, and smell or whatever surrounds your body. That experience in and of itself helps us go beyond the sense of me or the world and connects us with something larger. For us Christians, that which is greater than us is Christ while that experience embodies us into Christ, thus the body of Christ. 

However, this very experience of the five senses and the mental faculty of feeling, perceiving, and intending/willing, though how each one of us experiences varies, is not limited to Christians but is something universal for every human being. This bare experience invites us to the deeper level of interconnectedness that this is the only state where we become selfless. Only the experience remains, not any sense of me-and-mine or them-and-theirs. When we perceive the world as self, paradoxically there’s no distinction between me and the other. Then, we can see the reality of how you and I are interconnected, not through what we are (because that would ignore our uniqueness as human beings) but through how we act. We’re interconnected through actions. 

Just as our five sense faculties of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing perceive what’s around us and thus link us to the world by creating a sense of the world and me, we can only perceive one another through our actions. If there’s no action of reaching out to you by saying hi, we have no connection to each other. All our actions accumulate to the present time and are interconnected. This doesn’t mean we are somewhat destined to do something out of control. In the present moment, we can always make a change. We can choose to do something different for the better. This is what we’re called to do and why we need the help of the Spirit. So, both the Prophet Isaiah and Jesus confess, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:16-19)

Dwelling in the bare experience of naked awareness before a sense of self is born is to embody ourselves into Christ. With this contemplative alertness, we see ourselves as members of the body of Christ. Then we examine our actions from that place, how our unskillful actions are affecting other members of the body of Christ. This becomes our compassionate and genuine motivation and desire to change the way we act towards others, seeking the love of God in all we choose to do. Do we want to change the way we act, think, and speak? Can we do that? Yes, we can but it is only possible when we start from the place of contemplation where the Spirit transforms us.