1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a
On Hierarchies and
Bodies
James Sledge January
23, 2022
The Apostle Paul, Rembrandt van Rijn,
I recently read an article on the growing
pay gap between CEOs and the typical worker. It said that CEO compensation has
grown 1,322% since 1978, while typical worker compensation has risen just 18%. The
CEOs at the top 350 companies in America make, on average, 351 times more than
the typical worker.[1]
Put another way, the average wage earner would need to work for 351 years to
make what those CEOs make in a single year.
ca. 1657, National Gallery of Art
Such numbers sound absurd, but they are simply extreme examples of how things work in our world. In companies, in non-profits, in government, in churches, some are valued more than others and their compensation reflects that. To varying degrees, all these organizations have something of a hierarchical structure where those at the top matter more than those at the bottom. Those at the bottom may do much of the actual work, but they are often thought of as replaceable and not terribly valuable. Recently, shortages in workers have challenged such ideas, but I dare say that the CEO-worker pay gap is not likely to change a great deal anytime soon.
Hierarchies, with those at the top valued much more than those at the bottom, are hardly new, and they certainly weren’t invented by American business. In New Testament times, society was envisioned as a hierarchy. At the top was the emperor and from him a structure flowed whose base grew wider as the importance grew less. At the very bottom were poor peasants without whom the system wouldn’t work but who received little benefit from this essential role in their society.
When the apostle Paul applies the metaphor of the body to the church, he is borrowing an image that was typically used to justify the hierarchical structure of Greco-Roman society. The reasoning went that those at the bottom should be grateful for the leadership and protection given to them by those at the top, their natural superiors. They should be happy and content to serve those at the top, the head of the body.
But Paul takes this body metaphor and turns it upside down while giving it a radically egalitarian spin. No part of the body can claim superiority over another. Each is essential in its own way. What is more, those who would seem to be of less value are treated with greater respect. Says Paul, But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.
Paul’s radical recasting of the body metaphor must have stunned and surprised his congregation in Corinth. After all, their little church was racked with dissension, in large part because they had developed their own hierarchy of spirituality. Some members imagined that they were truly spiritual because they could speak in tongues. I don’t know why that particular behavior became so important for the Corinthians, but if you didn’t speak in tongues, you were a second-class citizen.
That wasn’t all that was dividing the Corinthian Christians. The wealthier members often didn’t wait for the poorer members to finish their long day’s work and get to the home where they held worship. (There were no weekends in the Roman world.) Sometimes, worship was over and the wealthier members were finishing off the wine and food used for communion by the time the poor members finally arrived.
In a part of the letter a little before our reading, Paul condemns the behavior of the wealthy Corinthians. Then he begins to explain to them that the church needs a variety of spiritual gifts, and so the Holy Spirit gives different gifts to different members for the common good. No particular gift elevates one Christian over another. Finally, in our verses this morning, Paul employs his body metaphor to reinforce this point.
He speaks of an interrelated collection of individuals, each adding some essential ingredient to the mix. And quite the opposite of the society around them, those who seem to be of lesser value are to be granted more honor, which is precisely how Jesus operated. Jesus spent much of his time with the poor, the outcast, the lowly, those of little account in his world, and he said that the kingdom of God belonged to just such people.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it, writes Paul. The Spirit has created a unified body with each individual called to do their part. This unity of the church is a gift given to us, not something we create, but we can undermine it just as the Corinthians were doing.
It seems to me that there are a couple of very different ways we can undermine the unity the Spirit gives us. The first is to copy the Christians in Corinth and value some members and some ways of doing things more than others. Speaking in tongues likely won’t make our list of activities that elevate some over others, but we have other items that work for us.
We could value the soloist over the regular choir member or the choir’s music over congregational singing. We can imagine prayer groups a waste of time compared to the real, hands-on work of Welcome Table, or we can imagine Welcome Table a distraction from the real work of worship and faith formation. And the lists go on.
However, I suspect that a completely different sort of problem is a bigger issue for churches in 21st century America. In part because of the overly individualistic focus of American Protestantism, our unity is more often undermined by the failure of individuals to do their part. The body only functions well when all its disparate members are playing their various roles, but it is easy to think that Christian faith is all about what I do or don’t believe, about my personal faith for the benefit of me and little else,
But as Paul says just prior to the verses we heard this morning, To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Every one of us is given a gift that is essential to the body’s functioning. Some gifts may seem sexier or more impressive than others, but all of them are critically important, and the body cannot work as it should without every member doing their part.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Those words apply to each of us just as they did to the congregation in Corinth. You are a part of Christ’s body, and you are given gifts to be used for that body’s work in the world. So what gifts are you given and how are you called to do your part?
But strive for the greater gifts. That’s how Paul wraps up this section of his letter on various gifts working together in the body of Christ. That might seem to run counter to what Paul has just said about all gifts working together for the common good, about how no members are greater or more important than others. But Paul is not talking about striving for the sexiest, most impressive sounding gifts. He is talking about the gifts that help build up and strengthen the body, and as he will say in the famous verses that follow, the greatest of these is love.
All praise and glory to God the Spirit who equips each of us for the common good so that, together, we may be the body of Christ to the world.
[1] “In 2020, top CEOs earned 351 times more than the typical worker,” https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/in-2020-top-ceos-earned-351-times-more-than-the-typical-worker.html, September 15, 2021
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