I Am Christ's Body
Preaching
Pulpit Science Fiction
I Am Christ's Body
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Years ago, Reader's Digest had a series of articles about a man named Joe and his wife, Jane. They were unusual because they had titles like "I Am Joe's Heart" and "I Am Jane's Womb," and were told in the first person by those parts of the body. Those different organs would tell about what they did, why they were important for our health, what we could do to take better care of them, and so forth. Very educational.
But I'm afraid that a lot of the story never got told. There were some unpleasant episodes that got hushed up. That's not too surprising. You know how it is in your family when people have a quarrel -- you usually don't want to go out and tell everyone about it. When there are disagreements among members of our church, we don't want everybody in the world to know it. Well, there was the same kind of problem with the body. The sad fact is that the different parts of the body weren't really getting along well with one another. They just couldn't seem to get together.
Oh, they were together -- they had to be, of course. They all lived in the same skin. They were like members of a family who live in the same house but are always disagreeing, or residents of a town who get together once a month at the school board meeting or city council to argue. The different parts of the body lived together, and every once in awhile they'd get together to quarrel.
A lot of the organs thought that they were the most important, and that all the rest of them ought to recognize that. The heart would say, "None of the rest of you could get along for a minute without me. I do the most important work, and if things don't get done the right way -- which is my way -- then I may just shut off the blood for the rest of you. No more free ride." And, of course, the heart was the biggest giver in the body, so nobody wanted to offend him. And the brain -- she would say, "Thinking is what a body is really for. I don't have time to be worrying about the problems the rest of you have. I've got important thoughts to think." And she thought to herself how much nicer it would be if the body were all brain. Of course, then she'd have some problems like figuring out how to get oxygen and a few other things that brains need, but she wouldn't have to associate with embarrassing things like kidneys and toes!
Or the skin -- that's what everyone sees. It's essential protection that the body needs to stay alive, and also wonderful decoration. A body has to keep up appearances, so the skin should get everything it wants, shouldn't it?
When the parts of the body got together, one of their favorite activities was bad-mouthing the mouth. "We just keep on feeding it, and all it does is talk." The mouth had plenty to say about that but they were tired of hearing all his speeches. Nobody likes a smart mouth after a while.
There were other parts of the body who were maybe too humble -- run of the mill things like elbows and fingernails and the gall bladder. They thought that they weren't important at all because they didn't do any of the really essential jobs and nobody admired them. People put pretty pictures of hearts on things to say, "I love you." Have you ever seen a valentine with a picture of an elbow on it?
And then there were parts of the body that didn't seem to do anything at all, that were just kind of hidden away and inactive -- useless things like the appendix and earlobes. The other parts of the body didn't know what they were good for and thought that they were just hangers-on. Sometimes, though, there would be a flare-up of appendicitis and or something like that, and trouble for the whole body.
So that's the way a lot of their discussions went, with complaints and cries. "I'm tired of doing all the work. I'm going to quit." "I'm tired of this body -- I'm going to get transplanted." "I can do all right on my own -- I don't need to be part of a body." (The feet were going to leave and get jobs as place-kickers in the National Football League.) Some said, "Everybody should be like me," and some cried, "I'm not good for anything," while others just wished that someone would notice the contributions that they made.
But then one day, the brain had something new to tell them. "I just realized something," she said. "We are most ourselves when we are closest together." Brains sometimes make puzzling remarks: They are quite smart and say things that are difficult to understand. So the other parts of the body just said, "Do you want to explain that?"
"Okay," said the brain. "We are most ourselves when we're closest to one another. Or in other words, we're the most individual when we're part of a community. I know it sounds strange -- that's why I never thought of it before, as smart as I am." She paused for a moment as the others waited impatiently, then went on.
"Look. Each one of us has a specific thing that we're supposed to do and can do well. Take the heart for example. He pumps blood. As long as he works at that, he's a good heart. He doesn't have to digest food, or walk, or even look pretty. If he had to do those things he wouldn't be able to concentrate on pumping blood, and wouldn't be a very good heart."
"But," the stomach, who was usually argumentative, broke in, "the heart wouldn't last very long if it weren't for me getting the food and the lungs breathing and all those things."
"Exactly," said the brain. "It's when each one of us is doing what we're good at, what we're made for, that all the others are also what they are distinctively meant to be. The skin is supposed to look good. (Yes, I know, you really do.) But without the rest of us you'd be just an empty sack.
"And those obscure parts, those organs that don't seem to be good for anything. (I'm sorry they're not here now. Maybe they'd attend more regularly if they were made to feel more like parts of the body.) How do we know how important they are? Remember, we used to think that the pituitary gland was useless. Then we figured out that the whole body never would have grown up without it."
"I get it," said the heart. "You're saying that we're all important to one another because we're specialized. Each of us has got something that only he or she can do."
"That's part of it," said the brain. "But it's more than just that. Take the elbow. Apart from the rest of the body, it would just be some funny-shaped piece of bone. (No offense of course!) But when it's together with all the proper muscles and blood vessels and so on, you see how marvelously made it is for its job. When it's together with all the other parts, you say, "Wow! That's what an elbow really is."
And the other parts of the body nodded as if a light had been turned on for them. "That's right. We're most ourselves when we work together."
Then the gall bladder (who was never expected to say anything intelligent) spoke up rather hesitantly. "Yes -- when we're together. But that means more than just being thrown together any which way. We have to be in the right places and in the right relationships with one another. When we are, we're more than just a collection of pieces. We're -- a body. Somehow, that's more than an assembly of organs that happen to be held together. It's something higher. I wonder if that means that our creator never really meant for us to be separate."
"That's probably true," said the brain thoughtfully. (Of course, the brain said everything thoughtfully.) We must have been meant to be brought together, to become something greater than each one of us individually. We were meant from the beginning to be parts of the body."
"Yes," said the heart, "but don't forget what you said to begin with. In becoming a body, in going beyond our apartness and not trying to manage completely on our own, we become most clearly individual. When we are parts of the body, we are most fully everything we were meant to be as individuals."
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ ... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
-- 1 Corinthians 12:12, 27
Comment
The Reader's Digest articles by J. D. Ratcliff were collected in I Am Joe's Body (New York: Berkley, 1975). This provides some details for working out Paul's analogy -- which is stronger than a mere literary illustration -- of the church as the body of Christ. Because different organs have different properties, the whole body can function effectively. On the other hand, because they are parts of one body, they can be distinctively different.
Teilhard de Chardin saw a connection between what happened in the course of evolution when individual cells came together to form more complex organisms and the coming together of individual persons to form the body of which Christ is the head, and he suggested that the church is the next stage of evolution. "Union," Teilhard said, "Creates ... differentiates ... [and] personalizes." (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970], pp. 115-116.) We see the creative effect of union when a person who may have seemed bland and undistinguished suddenly "comes alive" in a gathering of his or her family or close friends. We have already emphasized the differentiating effect of union, and Teilhard's final point is we become most fully personal when we are in fellowship with other people.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Years ago, Reader's Digest had a series of articles about a man named Joe and his wife, Jane. They were unusual because they had titles like "I Am Joe's Heart" and "I Am Jane's Womb," and were told in the first person by those parts of the body. Those different organs would tell about what they did, why they were important for our health, what we could do to take better care of them, and so forth. Very educational.
But I'm afraid that a lot of the story never got told. There were some unpleasant episodes that got hushed up. That's not too surprising. You know how it is in your family when people have a quarrel -- you usually don't want to go out and tell everyone about it. When there are disagreements among members of our church, we don't want everybody in the world to know it. Well, there was the same kind of problem with the body. The sad fact is that the different parts of the body weren't really getting along well with one another. They just couldn't seem to get together.
Oh, they were together -- they had to be, of course. They all lived in the same skin. They were like members of a family who live in the same house but are always disagreeing, or residents of a town who get together once a month at the school board meeting or city council to argue. The different parts of the body lived together, and every once in awhile they'd get together to quarrel.
A lot of the organs thought that they were the most important, and that all the rest of them ought to recognize that. The heart would say, "None of the rest of you could get along for a minute without me. I do the most important work, and if things don't get done the right way -- which is my way -- then I may just shut off the blood for the rest of you. No more free ride." And, of course, the heart was the biggest giver in the body, so nobody wanted to offend him. And the brain -- she would say, "Thinking is what a body is really for. I don't have time to be worrying about the problems the rest of you have. I've got important thoughts to think." And she thought to herself how much nicer it would be if the body were all brain. Of course, then she'd have some problems like figuring out how to get oxygen and a few other things that brains need, but she wouldn't have to associate with embarrassing things like kidneys and toes!
Or the skin -- that's what everyone sees. It's essential protection that the body needs to stay alive, and also wonderful decoration. A body has to keep up appearances, so the skin should get everything it wants, shouldn't it?
When the parts of the body got together, one of their favorite activities was bad-mouthing the mouth. "We just keep on feeding it, and all it does is talk." The mouth had plenty to say about that but they were tired of hearing all his speeches. Nobody likes a smart mouth after a while.
There were other parts of the body who were maybe too humble -- run of the mill things like elbows and fingernails and the gall bladder. They thought that they weren't important at all because they didn't do any of the really essential jobs and nobody admired them. People put pretty pictures of hearts on things to say, "I love you." Have you ever seen a valentine with a picture of an elbow on it?
And then there were parts of the body that didn't seem to do anything at all, that were just kind of hidden away and inactive -- useless things like the appendix and earlobes. The other parts of the body didn't know what they were good for and thought that they were just hangers-on. Sometimes, though, there would be a flare-up of appendicitis and or something like that, and trouble for the whole body.
So that's the way a lot of their discussions went, with complaints and cries. "I'm tired of doing all the work. I'm going to quit." "I'm tired of this body -- I'm going to get transplanted." "I can do all right on my own -- I don't need to be part of a body." (The feet were going to leave and get jobs as place-kickers in the National Football League.) Some said, "Everybody should be like me," and some cried, "I'm not good for anything," while others just wished that someone would notice the contributions that they made.
But then one day, the brain had something new to tell them. "I just realized something," she said. "We are most ourselves when we are closest together." Brains sometimes make puzzling remarks: They are quite smart and say things that are difficult to understand. So the other parts of the body just said, "Do you want to explain that?"
"Okay," said the brain. "We are most ourselves when we're closest to one another. Or in other words, we're the most individual when we're part of a community. I know it sounds strange -- that's why I never thought of it before, as smart as I am." She paused for a moment as the others waited impatiently, then went on.
"Look. Each one of us has a specific thing that we're supposed to do and can do well. Take the heart for example. He pumps blood. As long as he works at that, he's a good heart. He doesn't have to digest food, or walk, or even look pretty. If he had to do those things he wouldn't be able to concentrate on pumping blood, and wouldn't be a very good heart."
"But," the stomach, who was usually argumentative, broke in, "the heart wouldn't last very long if it weren't for me getting the food and the lungs breathing and all those things."
"Exactly," said the brain. "It's when each one of us is doing what we're good at, what we're made for, that all the others are also what they are distinctively meant to be. The skin is supposed to look good. (Yes, I know, you really do.) But without the rest of us you'd be just an empty sack.
"And those obscure parts, those organs that don't seem to be good for anything. (I'm sorry they're not here now. Maybe they'd attend more regularly if they were made to feel more like parts of the body.) How do we know how important they are? Remember, we used to think that the pituitary gland was useless. Then we figured out that the whole body never would have grown up without it."
"I get it," said the heart. "You're saying that we're all important to one another because we're specialized. Each of us has got something that only he or she can do."
"That's part of it," said the brain. "But it's more than just that. Take the elbow. Apart from the rest of the body, it would just be some funny-shaped piece of bone. (No offense of course!) But when it's together with all the proper muscles and blood vessels and so on, you see how marvelously made it is for its job. When it's together with all the other parts, you say, "Wow! That's what an elbow really is."
And the other parts of the body nodded as if a light had been turned on for them. "That's right. We're most ourselves when we work together."
Then the gall bladder (who was never expected to say anything intelligent) spoke up rather hesitantly. "Yes -- when we're together. But that means more than just being thrown together any which way. We have to be in the right places and in the right relationships with one another. When we are, we're more than just a collection of pieces. We're -- a body. Somehow, that's more than an assembly of organs that happen to be held together. It's something higher. I wonder if that means that our creator never really meant for us to be separate."
"That's probably true," said the brain thoughtfully. (Of course, the brain said everything thoughtfully.) We must have been meant to be brought together, to become something greater than each one of us individually. We were meant from the beginning to be parts of the body."
"Yes," said the heart, "but don't forget what you said to begin with. In becoming a body, in going beyond our apartness and not trying to manage completely on our own, we become most clearly individual. When we are parts of the body, we are most fully everything we were meant to be as individuals."
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ ... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
-- 1 Corinthians 12:12, 27
Comment
The Reader's Digest articles by J. D. Ratcliff were collected in I Am Joe's Body (New York: Berkley, 1975). This provides some details for working out Paul's analogy -- which is stronger than a mere literary illustration -- of the church as the body of Christ. Because different organs have different properties, the whole body can function effectively. On the other hand, because they are parts of one body, they can be distinctively different.
Teilhard de Chardin saw a connection between what happened in the course of evolution when individual cells came together to form more complex organisms and the coming together of individual persons to form the body of which Christ is the head, and he suggested that the church is the next stage of evolution. "Union," Teilhard said, "Creates ... differentiates ... [and] personalizes." (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970], pp. 115-116.) We see the creative effect of union when a person who may have seemed bland and undistinguished suddenly "comes alive" in a gathering of his or her family or close friends. We have already emphasized the differentiating effect of union, and Teilhard's final point is we become most fully personal when we are in fellowship with other people.
