If All Are the Same Member, then Where Is the Body?

                   1 Corinthians 12: 4-27

           What’s more important? The organization or the individual? Who’s more important? The star or the team? Is Cam Newton the heartbeat of the Carolina Panthers? Or are the Panthers the heartbeat that gives Cam life for his talent? My mechanic used to tell me that an automobile is the only machine in the world that costs $25,000 assembled or $100,000 unassembled. So which is more important…the body or its members? If you use the logic of my mechanic and if you assign importance by monetary value alone, then the parts are  more important than the vehicle they help assemble. But if that is true, then what do you tell all those thousands of parts when the steering wheel is missing? Are they now unimportant? They can’t do what they were designed to do because there is nothing there to steer them. The car is useless without the steering wheel. So which is more important, the thing or its components?

          Paul writes to the church in Corinth. He’s trying to get those folks to understand the importance of unity. He talks about the trinity, though he doesn’t use the word. He says one God, one Spirit, one Lord, meaning Jesus. He says no matter what kind of gifts you may possess, they manifest themselves as the presence of the Holy Spirit, of God and his grace.

          One body. The concept is of immense significance. Here, Paul is talking about the church, the body of Christ, but he certainly is in good company. Paul’s concept of unity has been applied in other contexts for centuries. You hear it in conference rooms, boardrooms, judge’s chambers and dugouts. You hear it sitting around kitchen tables. Wherever there is something to be accomplished and more than one person involved, the cry is heard for cooperation, for teamwork, for unity!

          In Genesis, we are told that a man will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Easier said than done, but God’s point is unity. In the book of Deuteronomy appears the Shema, the first two words of the most important prayer of the nation of Israel. It calls the people to “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” We understand God as Trinitarian, but even in that community of deity Father, Son and Holy Spirit), there is but one God.

          The secular world tries to emulate these principles of unity. Our American union is a republic of United States. Companies band together under an invention called the corporation, whereby individuals join for a common purpose, issuing stock certificates to evidence their collective ownership of the whole. Churches and denominations also join for common purposes, making constitutions and charters to bind them as they exist in a multitude of locations under one common umbrella. Sports provide yet another example of how we group our individual selves for the good of the whole, the team.

          So it would seem that the whole is of more importance than the sum of its parts, the car more valuable than its individual components. Paul tells the church in Corinth, which is having all kinds of troubles, that “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.” We are all made to drink of, to answer to, one Spirit, the Spirit of God.

          In this passage, Paul is specifically talking about the Spirit of God bringing Jews and Gentiles together in one faith. But his thoughts have many other applications. Look again at Paul’s words and what they should mean to us today. It’s not just Jew and Greek, but rich and poor. It’s not just Pharisee and Scribe, but soldier and fisherman.  It’s not just Presbyterians and Baptists, but Christians. The church becomes the manifestation of the risen Christ on earth. Paul points out to us that as surely as a hand cannot operate without the body to which it is attached, so equally does the body require the hand…and the foot and every other part and system…to be whole and working efficiently.

          Look at my hand. It works great. It can grasp. It can squeeze. It can carry. Squeeze my wrist just right and you can feel my pulse. You can feel the blood flowing throughout my hand. It’s alive and vital and integral to what I am capable of doing.

          Now, cut it off. The moment it is severed, it begins to die. In a very short while, it will wither, and turn blue and become useless. That’s not all. Look at the stump where my hand was severed. If it is not treated, and with some careful attention and haste, I could bleed out. The act of cutting off my hand could cause my death.

          What if the hand represents you? What if the body represents the church? What if you are cut off from the church, the bride of Christ? Can you continue to be a vital, active Christian outside of the fellowship of the Church?

          Paul says that God has composed the body (the Church) that there is no division in it, that the members all have the same care for one another; that if one member suffers, all suffer; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

          But aren’t some parts are more important than others? Paul says no.  Even the seemingly weaker parts are indispensable. Take the liver as an example. Who wants to be a liver! Livers get no headlines. All they do are secret bile to carry waste away and make a little protein. But try living without a liver.

          Yes, the body can function without all its original parts. You can lose an eye and still see. But with each loss, the body is damaged and function is compromised. And the part, unless harvested for transplant, is lost. So, says Paul, the hand needs the eye; they both need the foot. Each member performs different functions, but all are needed. So it is with the church. God wills gifts for us, then gives them to us. Individuals come together, share those gifts and the bride of Christ can dance all night. Through the Spirit that unites us and guides us, we become unified in our incredible variety of gifts and diversity to do God’s will!

A thousand feet can walk nowhere, climb nothing. But one unified body? It can scale mountains and swim oceans. “If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”

There is one exception. Every body needs a guidance system, a mission control. We think of it as the brain or the head, the place where decisions are made, plans formulated. Without the head, the body is useless and will die. Christians understand that Jesus Christ fulfills that role for us. Writing to the church in Colossae, Paul acknowledges as much, saying that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.”

Through Christ, we receive…gifts of all kinds, talents of all colors. Through Christ, we manifest those gifts, apply those gifts, glorify his gift to us. Through Christ we have unity in diversity, diversity in unity. No one part can dismiss another. No one part can be more proud than another. God organized the church the same way he organized the body. It is interdependent. The church is its members and its members are the church. They, and it…rise to serve, and in that service, act out their loving duty as the children of God.

What are you? A hand, a foot, a finger, a toe, a liver? It doesn’t matter. You are needed. Jesus is counting on the Church—and we are the Church! We are his manifestation. We are his voice. Let’s speak!