We Are the Body of Christ
By Pastor Paula Lund Burchill
I have used First Corinthians, chapter 12 on so many retreats and with so many groups and with so many bible campers, I don’t know if I could count them all. It is such a rich chapter, one of my favorites and would be so worth a read.
Paul starts out by talking about how there are a variety of gifts in the body of Christ, but they all come from the same Spirit. You get the sense that some people have been acting like they have more or better gifts than others. That maybe there has been some competitiveness in the Corinthian church. So Paul reassures them that God gives gifts to everyone and that God gives us gifts for the common good.
And then he starts talking about bodies. When I was a camp counselor, we used to do a skit we called the little toe skit. Each counselor would pretend to be a part of the body and do a sort of soliloquy on how they were the best. We’d say things like, I’m the heart, I’m the most important because I pump the blood. Or I’m the brain. You couldn’t do anything without me. Each body part trying to show why it was the most important.
Then would come the toe, who got laughed off the stage as thinking it could have any importance at all. But then all the parts would get together, and try to walk, only they would fall over. So we would yell, little toe, we need you, and the toe would come and give the body the balance it needed to walk.
It was a silly skit for sure. But it was so much fun to teach the kids that the bible says each of them is important. Each of them is a part of Christ’s body.
We would read from I Cor 12: 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 parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we are all the body of Christ these days, particularly when I see how very divided we are over just about everything. We hide behind social media to spout off our beliefs in hurtful and disrespectful ways. And it’s no wonder. We hear our leaders being hurtful and disrespectful all the time.
Paul was writing to a similarly divided church. They could not get along to save their lives, so he told them—you’re together whether you like it or not because you share one body. You are Christ’s body. No one part more important than the other.
I wonder if we can look at someone we disagree with and say: I’m looking at a part of me. At a sister or a brother I share the same body with. It’s kind of mystical, almost, but so powerful.
We had a bishop in the SW WA synod years ago named Rob Hofstad who said something I’ll never forget. He said that both republicans and democrats want to help the poor. Let me say that again. Both republicans and democrats want to help the poor. When you’re a Christian helping others is our only option. We share a body after all and it is a mandate we have from Jesus.
But then the bishop added something really important. He said, they both want to help the poor, they just don’t agree on the best way to do it.
I will always remember that, and I always try to think of that when I look at a fellow member of the body of Christ with whom I don’t agree. I remind myself that we want the same thing. We want people to flourish. To have equal rights. To have enough to eat and to be safe in the world.
Of course we are full of sin and this isn’t always true, but I’m going to START by assuming the best about my neighbors, because as Paul continues: when one member suffers, we all suffer. When one is honored, we all are honored.
It’s not a matter of agreeing with each other, it is a matter of loving each other. And it is absolutely vital. You are the body of Christ. So varied and so different, but one body—and like it or not, we are all in this together!
