Living in a Body
This sermon explores what it means to live a life of embodied faith. Jacob, Paul, and the widow reveal that faith is not an abstract belief but a lived, physical practice of showing up—again and again—even when it hurts. It invites the listener to see their own weary, wondrous body as sacred ground where God continues to dwell.
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
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Transcript
There’s something humbling about waking up with a sore hip— or a body that simply won’t do what it used to.
It’s a reminder that we live in these beautiful,
complicated bodies.
And bodies carry stories—
stories of strength and struggle, of injury and healing,
of the ways we’ve been touched, held, wounded…and changed.
Jacob’s story reminds us that spiritual life is not lived apart from the body— it’s wrestled out within it.
The night before meeting his estranged brother Esau, Jacob wrestled with God… or an angel, or maybe even his own soul…until dawn.
And when the night ended, he was blessed. But he also limped. The blessing came not through escaping the struggle,
but through embodying it—
through staying with the fight until it changed him.
That’s what it means to live in a body:
to keep showing up—in body, in spirit, in prayer—even when it hurts. To feel both the ache and the blessing in the same step.
Jacob’s limp is not a sign of defeat.
It’s the mark of a life lived in honest contact with God.
I’ve felt that kind of wrestling in my own body—
in seasons of grief, or exhaustion, or doubt—
when the act of getting out of bed and praying
feels like its own form of persistence.
And I think Paul knew that kind of persistence too.
Paul writes to Timothy about something similar:
“Continue in what you have learned…be persistent,
whether the time is favorable or unfavorable.”
In other words, keep showing up—keep living in your body—
in a world that often wants to numb, deny,
or escape the embodied work of faith.
Faith isn’t an abstract idea we hold in our heads.
It’s something we practice with our whole bodies, our feet, our voices: We pray with our breath,
we forgive with our hearts,
we serve with our hands.
The Incarnation points to this:
Our bodies—fragile, weary, beautiful—
are not obstacles to faith, but the very place where God meets us.
Consider the persistent widow in today’s Gospel:
She doesn’t have power or status, but keeps showing up before the judge, day after day, wearing him down with her insistence on justice. Her body is her testimony.
She uses her voice, her very presence as prayer.
She teaches us that faith is not passive—it is embodied persistence.
When Jesus asks, “Will the Son of Man find faith on earth?”
he might be asking: Will he find people who still show up in their bodies, who still wrestle, still pray, still move toward justice—
even when the world grows weary?
There are so many ways our world tries to separate soul from body— to turn faith into a private belief, rather than a public practice. But the widow won’t let us forget that faith lives in our actions: in standing up, showing up, speaking up.
Living in a body faithfully is also to care for the bodies of others: the hungry body, the weary body, the unhoused body,
the body the world refuses to see.
We’re called to live our faith in the flesh…
taking shape as the Body of Christ.
To live in a body is to live in tension:
between weakness and strength, between pain and joy,
between what is mortal and what is holy.
Our bodies remind us of the illusion of control.
We are dust and breath,
divine breath still moving through mortal clay
…exactly where God chooses to dwell.
Jacob’s limp, Paul’s persistence, the widow’s voice—
all of them teach us that faith doesn’t float above our lives.
It’s found in the wrestling match, the scar,
the deep breath we take each time we choose not to give up.
To live in a body is to say yes—to life, to hardship, to love, to God. It’s to believe that the divine still meets us here:
in the pulse of our hearts, the ache of our muscles,
the warmth of touch, the persistence of prayer.
Friends, this week, when your hip aches, or your heart feels heavy, or your spirit feels tired,
remember Jacob, the widow, and Paul’s call to endure.
You are not failing for feeling.
It’s heavy being human.
You are living faithfully in your body—
and that is holy work.
May your breath be prayer.
May your heartbeat be blessing.
May every scar, every imperfection, every tired muscle, every aching heart remind you that you are dust and breath,
and God still chooses to dwell with you.
Amen.