The Beautiful Body of Christ 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

The Beautiful Body of Christ
Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Paul actually begins his teachings about the church being the body of Christ back in Chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians when he writes: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor. 10:16-17).

You and I together make up the body of Christ present and powerful in Seattle. The church, the body of Christ in the world today isn’t about buildings and budgets or programs and promotions, no matter how important American society tends to make us believe in those things.

Several years ago I went to visit an historic church in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania while on leading a youth mission trip. It was a beautiful cathedral the sanctuary of which could sit more than 2,000. However, on the day we went to worship with them there were less than 100 pitifully gathered together at the front of that enormous canyon of a room. I asked how they could care for and support such a large facility with such a small congregation. “Oh,” they bragged, “We’ve got tens of millions of dollars invested and the interest alone keeps the church running and the building cared for. We could go on for a hundred years or more without ever passing the offering plate again.” I wondered if they even cared about anyone getting involved in volunteering to do ministry to anyone. They had become nothing but a building and a budget. Everywhere we went there were signs that said things like: “Don’t touch the fabrics.” “Stay on the marked pathway.” “No entrance to this area allowed.” “Restricted admission.” They weren’t a church any longer. They were a museum.

Truly being the church, the Body of Christ is about persons united in belief and faith, creating a bond of love with each other by serving Christ and serving each other through the talents, and abilities that God has given to each one of us and using those to the fullest extent possible for the development and growth of the New Community of God.

What unites us? The powerful presence of God, the Living Jesus Christ, whose Holy Spirit dwells within each one of us and connects us to all of the rest of us.

There were some obvious problems in the church at Corinth that Paul was addressing in his letters to them. These new first century Christians were trying to create and grow one of the first churches in the world. They were doing something that hadn’t been done before. Paul had to help them do a lot of course corrections as they drifted off the path of Christ and into selfish human behaviors.

Apparently some of them felt that they were more important than the other folk in the church because they had a unique talent or ability that others didn’t possess. It probably wouldn’t have been unusual to hear someone think or even say, “I’m a better Christian than you are because I’m a missionary,” or “I’m the best Christian because I’m a spiritual healer.”
This need to one-up everyone else caused some might big problems between people and pretty much took the focus of that congregation off of Christ as they got into some petty arguments with each other about who was going to rule over who and who was going to have the most important position of leadership in their church.

Leading up to Advent and Christmas this past year we took a Biblical journey to Jerusalem with Jesus and his disciples. Do you remember a similar situation where James and John wanted to Lord it over everyone else by asking Jesus to put them into the most important positions of leadership when he establishes his earthly kingdom. Their request upset the other disciples and created quite a scene that only ended when Jesus turned around to them and asked them, “Just what are you boys arguing about?”

Of course, James and John and the others didn’t understand that the New Community of God Jesus would establish wouldn’t be an earthly government with positions of authority and power but a spiritual community where each person was to become a servant to others.

Jesus said it this way, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Or, in contemporary language, “If you want to be first in God’s New Community then you will have to go to the very end of the line.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t like going to the end of the line in any situation. In fact, at the grocery store I’ll even switch lanes if I think I can get a shorter line. However, when I do there is inevitably a problem at the checkout counter… “Price check in lane one!”…and the line I left behind a few moments ago because it was too long suddenly become the shorter line that I should have stayed in. Isn’t life ironic that way?

Paul extends Jesus’ teaching by telling us that we are all a part of the body of Christ, the New Community of God: No part of the body can say that it is the most important part, nor can it say it isn’t important, nor that other parts are more important than it is. The body of Christ needs every single part that God blesses the body with. Likewise as we grow our church, the New Community of God in Seattle, we need every single person that God blesses us with, no matter how different he or she might be from you and me.

It is very clear that Paul speaks about the health of us all being dependent upon our honoring and caring for each other. We all need each other, we all have something to give and we need to liberate ourselves from any barrier that we or society erects to keep us from achieving God’s goal.

Reading from the scriptures in Nazareth as he begins his ministry Jesus tells his hometown community that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, to heal, to lift up, to open eyes and free the prisoners. These are the things that Jesus will do in his ministry and he will not allow anyone to keep him from accomplishing that ministry even when he takes the Good News to those who his hometown folk feel aren’t worthy to know or receive God’s love. Now Paul says that we are the body of Christ, but the question we have to ask ourselves is are we a courageous body? IF we know what it is to be the Body of Christ, that is, if we know what it is we should be doing, if we are listening to God’s Word, then are we brave enough to bring justice and mercy to all of those who live on the margins of society and in the shadows of our community? If we are to know God fully, then we must live justly, we must be involved in bringing into reality God’s just community. If the world is to know Jesus through us then we must be about the business of bringing the good news to everyone, not just to those who are like us, but those who are different from us, too. But to do that effectively, you and I must learn how to live together harmoniously within the church. We cannot take to the world what we aren’t living out and sharing with each other.

We don’t get to chose who is a part of the our New Community of God anymore than my leg got to chose to be a part of my body or could decide to go off by itself because it didn’t like my nose. I don’t like my nose, but I wouldn’t chose to live without it. My leg doesn’t get to decide such things anymore than you and I get to decide who belongs or doesn’t belong to our community of faith.

It is God who invites. It is God who welcomes. If God invites and welcomes then you and I must do the same to and for each other and for anyone that God sends our way. To do otherwise would be to go against God’s Will and God’s Way. It would mean becoming less than God intends for us to become.

Never forget that you and I together are the beautiful body of Christ.