1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Discerning the Body
James Sledge January
27, 2019
I
recently read about a study on why young
people leave church. The study surveyed a couple thousand people, ages 23 to 30,
who had attended Protestant churches regularly while in high school. Two thirds
of these had dropped out, and they were asked to say why, checking as many
items from a list of 55 that applied to them. Almost all checked one or more
boxes in a category labeled “life changes.” This included things such as going
away to college or work responsibilities that made attendance difficult.
Most
of those surveyed said their departure from church was more accidental than
planned. Only a tiny fraction cited a loss of belief. Most were not averse to a
possible return.
This
study got me wondering about the nature of these twenty-somethings connection
to the church. When they had attended, what was the connection? No doubt many
originally went because of parents, but some likely developed an attachment of
their own. Perhaps there were church programs they enjoyed, music, youth
mission trips, a service opportunity that became meaningful. But their
situation changed, and they moved on. They might come back some day. They might
not.
What about you? What is the nature of
your connection to the church? What binds you to the body of Christ? What sort
of thing could break that bond?
_____________________________________________________________________
The
Christians in Corinth are different from us. They didn’t grow up with Christian
faith, or Jewish faith for that matter. They were recent converts with a lot of
excitement about their new-found faith. It wasn’t routine to them. They didn’t
come out of habit or expectation. Still, Paul is concerned about their
connection to the body of Christ, about what binds them to the church.
Corinth
was nowhere near the individualistic, consumer culture that we live in, but it
was more so than the one Jesus had lived in or that the church had emerged in.
Perhaps that is why the Corinthians failed to grasp the extremely communal
sense of Christian faith.
Paul
has already addressed a couple of problems related to this, getting particularly
riled up about the Lord’s Supper. The Corinthians worship in the evening in
someone’s home, likely a wealthy member’s. The Lord’s Supper was part of a
full, fellowship meal, but the wealthier members, who were able to get there
earlier, began the meal before the poorer members could finish work and arrive.
At times they had eaten all the food and drunk all the wine before the poorer
members ever got there. Paul chastises them and says that those who
eat and drink without discerning the body eat and drink judgment against
themselves.
Later
Christians have sometimes understood these words to be about Christ’s mystical
presence in the meal, but the situation in Corinth and Paul’s words on
spiritual gifts, coming immediately after his instructions on the Supper,
suggest a very different understanding.
Along
with failing to appreciate the very communal nature of the Lord’s Supper, the
Corinthians have missed the equally communal nature of spiritual gifts. They
have viewed the presence of the Holy Spirit as something primarily for their
own enjoyment and benefit. They especially crave ecstatic gifts such as
speaking in tongues. They are fascinated and caught up in the personal
experience of being taken over by God’s presence, so much so that they look
down on and disparage members who don’t speak in tongues
Immediately
prior to our reading, Paul says that God allots different people different
spiritual gifts for the “common good.” Now Paul develops this idea, using the
famous metaphor of the body with varied members serving varied roles. This
metaphor is not original to Paul. It was quite popular in the Greco-Roman
world, but Paul uses it in a totally new way.
In
Paul’s day, this metaphor was used to support hierarchical institutions. Some
members of the body were the critical, important parts, and others were less
so. The emperor, wealthy patrons, the priestly class, and so on were the head
and heart, indispensable parts of the body. Peasants, soldiers, the poor
existed only in so much as they were connected to and did the bidding of those
indispensable parts.
Our
own economic system works this way. The CEO is indispensable and so makes
millions, while the worker at the bottom is easily replaced and may not make
enough to support herself, much less a family.
But
Paul tosses out such notions, insisting that all are essential and that those who
seem to be inferior are afforded the greater honor. The plight of any member is
the plight of them all. If the institutions in our country were truly
Christian, as some claim, then the janitor who is about to miss a car payment,
or the driver who cannot afford medicine for a child, would be a pressing issue
in the corporate boardroom.
But
Paul is not writing on how to structure an economy. He cannot conceive of a
world where Christians are a majority. He is worried about this one congregation
and how they understand their relationship to Jesus and to one another.
Now you are the body of Christ, and individually
members of it. For
the body of Christ to flourish and do its work, it needs the varied gifts of
all its members, each doing the part God calls her or him to do, each bringing distinct
gifts and strengths granted by the Spirit so that the body can do all it is
called to do in the world.
What essential part of the body are you?
What isn’t there if you were to drift away?
____________________________________________________________________
The
Washington Post recently ran a piece on Joan Mulholland, the last surviving member
of a 1963 lunch counter sit-in captured in a famous photograph. She says this
in the article. “Not everyone has to demonstrate… I’m not marching anymore. My
knees have been operated on too much. But I can make signs. I can offer to put
people up in my house.” The article continues.
In that famous
photograph, three people sit at the counter, but when Mulholland looks at it,
she also sees the many people who aren’t in the frame.
She sees the
people who dropped off the demonstrators and the people who picked them up.
She sees the
people who talked to the press and the people who kept Medgar Evers, the
NAACP’s Mississippi field secretary, informed.
She sees the
people who washed her and other women’s nylon stockings after the sit-in, so
that they could clean that day off themselves and keep walking toward the next.[1]
In
other words, she has discerned the body, and she knows she has something to
contribute to the work of the body. She isn’t called to the high profile role
she once was, but she is still an integral part of the body, and she knows
that.
Now you are the body of Christ, and individually
members of it. The
Spirit has been poured out on you, gifting you, no matter who you are, for an essential role in the body’s work in
the world.
Thanks
be to God.
[1]
Theresa Vargas, “ ‘The lunch counter
now has two empty seats:’ She is the only one left who can describe what it
felt like to sit there that hateful day.” The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com, January 16, 2019
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