January 24, 2010
Rev. Lori Tisher
“Many Members of One Body”
1 Corinthians 12: 12-31
It is impossible to pick up this coin with only one of your fingers. Try it out! It can’t be done! You’ve got to use at least two fingers to do it. The two fingers need each other. They need to work together to get the job done.
All of our body parts include the same stuff … bones and muscles, blood and skin – they’re all the same, so why do we call them all different things - legs and arms and shoulders ... why so many different names for our body parts? They each do different things and they need each other to work together to keep us healthy and functioning!
Have you ever seen someone peel a banana with their feet?! It can be learned; it can be done. But it’s definitely easier with two hands, if they are available.
All of our body parts are different and unique, yet they are also all connected and all needed … just like human beings, all around the world. Everyone around the world is a child of God; all created and love by God … and yet we’re all different; we look different, we speak different languages, we act different from one another.
Remember that commercial for Lever 2000 soap a few years ago? “Lever 2000 thoroughly cleans from head to toe, giving you long-lasting freshness for all of your 2000 parts,” or so the commercial claimed. Do we really have 2000 body parts? That’s a lot! So many different things all connected together! Sounds kind of like the world we live in today ... a world in which we have all kinds of different jobs, different roles in our families, different traditions, different likes and dislikes.
And it sounds a lot like the world Paul lived in too. Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians when all different kinds of people were joining this new community of Christians. It was not an easy time for them! Paul had done such a great job of bringing people into the church, he now had created this faith community that was full of people who were so different from one another! This new, young congregation was made up of a variety of people — Jews and Greeks, slaves and slave owners, some rich, some poor, the powerful as well as the weak, and the wise as well as the less educated.
All these different people had to learn how to get along and make the church the best it could be before it died out, only years after it had just gotten started! To help this new faith community understand the importance of working together, even, and especially, in the midst of diversity, Paul used the common image of the human body. He was hoping that this comparison might help these new followers begin to understand how the diverse the world they lived in could to function best when everyone worked together.
Paul was trying to explain that when we create divisions amongst ourselves, it is impossible to work together effectively. When we see only our differences and not the potential unity among us, it is impossible to bring about justice and peace. When demand conformity without celebrating our differences, it is impossible to truly be the people God has created us to be. When this “dismemberment” occurs, not only are we unable to function at our best, but even more devastating, we tend to distance ourselves and sometimes even cut ourselves off from God. Our arguments or disagreements overpower our thoughts and actions and we forget to see and experience God in our midst. And then, we too often become unable to move forward in any sensible direction.
Instead, we need to be able to rely on one another in order to fully live out the ways in which God is calling us to live. And we need to support others as they attempt to live out their callings too. To think of God calling us to us to live or work in a certain way is common language for pastors – we often say that we are called to ministry. But God does not only call pastors. Anything you do in your life can indeed be understood as living out God's call. God has chosen to work in and through each one of us in a variety of ways and Paul is urging us to live out that calling – not to the detriment of others, but in order to build up the kingdom of God in our midst.
A yoga instructor often repeats this phrase as she begins each yoga session: "Let go of all judgment, competition, and expectation." This is a soothing invitation just to be: to be who you are, to be in the moment; to never compare yourself to anyone but yourself. This is something that that can be incredibly difficult for many of us to do; something that most of us need to practice over and over again. Too often we tend to measure our worth up against the standards of what others think. Too often judgment, competition and expectation get in the way of success. These things distract us and get us off-track; just like a train derailing. Paul and the Corinthians knew all too well about distractions and getting off track. When he wrote this letter to them, they were well on their way to really getting off-track, as they were attempting to spread Christianity. Let’s not make the same mistakes as they did.
Sometimes it is helpful to know what comes before or after a scripture passage. Sound bites can be deceiving and misleading. By reading back a few verses or looking ahead, we can understand the writer’s argument better. So, what we didn’t hear in the scripture reading this morning is that Paul had been complaining about the divisions that were hurting the Corinthians throughout his letter. They were fighting over who should or shouldn’t be allowed to have the communion bread and wine. Some of them were acting like they were more important than others. They were arguing over who they should follow – Paul or some of the other religious leaders. They fought over the value of religious practices like Baptism and speaking in tongues. They disagreed about theological ideas, like resurrection. Sources of their disruption included sociological, political, and religious factors, as well as personal and theological differences. It was not a good situation!
What follows this passage in Paul’s letter is equally important for know about though. The next chapter – 1 Corinthians 13 - is all about love. It is one of the passages that is often used in weddings … “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” Remember that passage? It is really important to notice that Paul first writes about divisions and then about love. Love is the only thing that can truly overcome differences.
In order to encourage the Corinthians in the midst of their arguments, Paul begins by listing all the talents in the community. He names certain people who had important jobs in the church – apostles, prophets, and teachers. In Paul’s time, apostles were the ones who helped spread Christianity to new areas and then tried to ensure that the new communities kept in touch. Prophets were the preachers in local communities. Teachers were the ones who read and interpreted the scripture. Some of these may be names or titles that we are less familiar with today, but their exact definitions don’t really matter all that much. Paul’s point was to highlight the major functions of the believers. It’s not about titles. It’s about roles, tasks and purposes. People have different talents and jobs or duties, but we all have some importance, living together as believers. Paul’s argument is that there needs to be solidarity among the various roles, so that the body of Christ – the world - can be healthy and communicate effectively.
What are your functions or roles in the world? … mother, father, daughter, son, mentor, writer, scholar, teacher, friend, neighbor? How do you strengthen or weaken the body of Christ through these roles? Through each of these societal functions, God is calling each one of us to spread love, rather than destruction or division. God calls all of us to bring about peace and justice. God calls all of us to fully live into who we are created to be. The challenge is to figure out who or what God is exactly calling you to be and what it takes to live that purpose out.
Remember, Paul challenges us all to see ourselves as the embodiment of Christ in the world – not necessarily individually, but rather, all of us, worldwide. Difference is acknowledged. People are not all the same. They do not all have the same talents. Paul deals with the common problems of divisiveness by bringing people back to basics. Our sense of identity lies not in the role we play, not in our social status, not in the rewards that our work brings, but in the sense of oneness with the life of Christ. Paul is not asking us as individuals to be Christ-like. We are asked to be members of a body of Christ, and to play out our part in that body. Amen.
