One Body, Many Members

One Body, Many Members (January 21, 2007)

“Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many….Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” I Corinthians 12:14,27

Over Christmas Johanna Glaser’s niece, Eveline, visited us, came to worship, and was in my home with Johanna and others for dinner. She recently wrote a thank you note. “I am very grateful for the time I spent with you all in the church,” she wrote, “and at Christmas dinner….For me, it was lovely to see that aunt Johanna has so many warm and loving people around her. I really do admire her energy, her strength and her enthusiasm, and that for her age!...Your community could be an example to the whole world and I wish it could be this way for everyone. My time in New York was wonderful, thanks to you!”

What I like is she said “your community could be an example to the whole world.” Over the years many who have loved this church and then moved from New York but always kept a place in their hearts for this commuity had exactly that idea. This place was special because it was one body but many members. There was no sense of division or people carping at one another, but of doing our best to pull together, and everybody no matter what their background was treated with respect and love.

St. Paul believed strongly in church unity, and he was opposed to all forces that would create disunity. Last week we heard him talk about the different “gifts” that were given – some to be apostles, some prophets, some teachers, some speakers in tongues, some as interpreters of tongues, etc. Doubtless there were some who thought some gifts were more important than others. And very likely those who put on airs over the different gifts they had. Paul would have none of it. These were people who needed to be reminded that the church is one body, with many different members who all work together to make the one body. They also needed to be reminded that Christ himself came as a servant and said he had come not to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.

One of the things I always tell the Confirmation class is that, despite the way we usually use the word, the “church” is not a building. The church is people. It happens the people meet in a building, and we are grateful for it and we care for it and love it, but the Church itself is really the people. For three hundred years the Church existed without buildings, meeting only in people’s homes. It was still the Church – the body of Christ.

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Now you are Christ’s body and each of you a limb or organ of it.” This is an astonishingly revolutionary idea. The “one body” is Christ’s body on earth, with many members. Taken at its most basic meaning it gives to each person a tremendous new dignity. Each person is valued. Each member is significant and vital. Wherever the gospel of Christ has gone and this message has been preached with clarity and conviction people have realized its power. This is not just about the Church, it is about ourselves and our purpose in the world.

There is an old story that when Jesus got to heaven he was asked what he had left behind and he answered that he had left a small group of disciples. Who were they? He was asked. Several were fishermen, he said, one was a tax collector, one was what they call a zealot, but mostly they were ordinary people, he said. And what if that plan doesn’t work, he was asked, do you have another plan? There is no other plan, he said.

William Barclay has written this is the supreme glory of the Christian, to be part of the body of Christ on earth.

If more people took that more seriously, churches wouldn’t be having the difficulties they are having. A body is healthy and functioning when each part if functioning perfectly, making a contribution.

In Paul’s list of roles – apostles, prophets, teachers, healers, forms of leadership, there is one often unnoticed called simply “forms of assistance” or “helpers”. The New English Bible translates it as “ability to help others”. Helpers were really the social workers in the church and they did many practical things. Churches just can’t function without helpers.

A few weeks ago I was in a doctor’s office and picked up a copy of Time magazine. There was an article about the drop off in volunteerism. The article said that people who retire often want to give time to volunteer work but after a short while they drop out. And the reason is that while they may have been doing very significant work before retirement, having important jobs, etc. In the volunteer world they find they are often regulated to envelope stuffing and other menial tasks and they have no say in the organization. After a while, they lose interest and drop out.

I thought that is true of many volunteer organizations, but it is not true of the church, Christ’s body. Here indeed, under the authority of Christ, people have enormous opportunity to have a say in what happens, to run things, to be involved at every level and to be fully part of it. In the Presbyterian church, the people who are paid are not, at least in theory, in charge. It is the volunteers who are in charge, for it is Christ’s church and hence their church, for they are part of the one body. This makes all the difference and it is a marvelous difference. Many volunteer organizations come and go, but churches have enormous staying power and it is precisely because unlike the other organizations, people are part of an enormously powerful idea, not just an organization – the idea of the body of Christ on earth.

One reason we encourage people to become members, and then to take their membership seriously, is of course only members can make decisions.

The writer Ann Lamott says that once she visited Jewish Theological Seminary – the famous institution across the street from Union where I went to seminary. She saw a sign saying: “A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be a part of a great meaning.”

The one body of Christ offers the many members a chance to be part of something with a great meaning, the force of redemption in the world, the continuing act of God incarnate in the world, working for the good of others, just as Christ did, and giving itself for the life of the world, just as he did.

“He has no hands but our hands to do his work today
He has no feet but our feet to lead men in his way.
He has no voice but our voice to tell men how he died
He has no help but our help to lead them to his side.”