How Do We Get to Community? 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

A text – 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

¹² 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. ¹³ For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴ Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many members yet one body. ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, ²⁴ whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, ²⁵ that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. ²⁸ And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work powerful deeds? ³⁰ Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

A reflection:

In last week’s portion of the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul taught that everyone has gifts, given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the community. No one gift is superior to another – at some point, the community needs them all.

In this section of the letter, Paul says that a body has many parts or limbs or organs. It needs them all. Eyes and ears and brains get more attention and glory than gall bladders or colons, but all body parts are affected if the lowly colon suddenly does not do what the body needs it to do. If the congregation is the body of Christ with a mission in the world, and a couple of members do not do what the community counts on them to do, everyone and the mission to the world will suffer.

This diversity of function is God’s design, Paul says. We are meant to live in community and need one another. And there are times in life when this natural need for one another seems like bad news. There are certainly many days when I would just prefer to go it alone because everybody else is messing up what I want to do.  There are times in church life when people start thinking, “If those folks over there would just leave, we would all be a lot better off.” That may have been the very situation the church in Corinth was in when Paul wrote these words to them. So what does it take to live together well in community? Something more than just all our individual personalities. A common cause. A common mission. A common calling. And the work of the Holy Spirit who puts us together in the first place, whether we acknowledge that or not.  When we know we have been called together and we have a mission together, it is much easier to feel like members of one body together. Unity of purpose, even with very different skills and interests. I can imagine that that is the community God envisions.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the gifts and grace you shower upon us. Help us to remember we are all here together for a reason, and that reason is the work you give us to do that together we are uniquely fit to do. Amen.