(Note: English Preacher in an American Church!!)
Peanuts by Charles Schultz:
Lucy demanded that Linus change the channel on the TV, threatening him with her fist if he didn’t comply. “What makes you think you can walk in here and take over?” asks Linus.
“These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they’re nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold”.
“Which channel would you like?” asks Linus. Turning away he looks at his fingers and says, “Why can’t you guys get organised like that?”
1 Cor 12:12 says “The body is a unit made up of many parts; and though it’s parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”
Paul writes to the Corinthian church, addressing many of their problems, one of those being that of pride. He reminds them that each one who has made a commitment to Christ is a valuable member of the body of Christ.
These Corinthians were getting all puffed up as one person could do one thing and someone else couldn’t. They were putting themselves above others because they saw that their gifting made them more important than someone else.
Yet Paul tells them that the body is made up of many individual, different, unique, diverse parts and that each one is important.
Look at the person sat next to you.
That person is not the same as you. They don’t look the same, they don’t talk the same, they don’t smell the same and they don’t do all the same things as you. They are not the same as you. They are themselves.
Even so called identical twins are not completely the same, they are individuals.
Each one of us is unique.
We’re unique in our appearance, unique in our character, unique in our gifts, unique in our maturity, unique in our abilities and unique in so many other ways.
And you know what? You are the best person to be You! There’s no-one else who could be you any better than you. In the words of Carly Simon’s James Bond theme, Nobody does it better, nobody does it half as good as you, baby you’re the best!
And what’s even better is that God wants you to be you. He doesn’t want anyone else to be you. He chose you to be you, no-one else.
Psalm 139 tells us God knitted us together in our mother’s womb.
We’re all members of the body of Christ as individuals.
Not because we belong to a local church, or are part of the PBA, the AOB, the CBF, the BGAV or any other organisation, but because we individually make a decision to follow Christ.
Now for most Christians the outworking of their being in the body of Christ is seen in the local church. And we’re not talking about a building.
In your bulletin you may have read the quote from Earnest Southcott that says, “We don’t go to church, we are the church”.
The body of Christ is made up of individuals, you and me. And each of us has a different role to play in the body of Christ, and for most of us that will be in our local congregation.
R. Y. K. Fung writes that “having a multiplicity of members and functions is necessary for the body as a whole and for the members individually, all of whom are involved in a solidarity of experience or unity of destiny. So resentment born of a feeling of inferiority or arrogance arising from a sense of superiority are both out of place”.
Our roles are different, yet equally important.
And that’s why I like the model that this congregation follows of laity involvement. Each person doing a job in this church is just as important as the next person.
Joe Phillips said it in last weeks business meeting: if we don’t do it folks, it doesn’t get done!
Read 1 Cor 12: 15-19
Don’t think of yourself as inferior to someone else in this congregation because you only do this job, or that job, and they do a more important job.
If the mayor of a city goes AWOL for three weeks, life would still continue and others would pick up the pieces and carry on. There probably wouldn’t be too much of a disturbance.
But if the refuse collectors went AWOL for three weeks, the city would be in a real mess and it would cause all kinds of problems.
Don’t think you’re any less important than someone else in the body of Christ. What you do does not define who you are.
And also, don’t think you’re any more important than everyone else in the body of Christ.
Read 1 Cor 12: 21-25
People do different jobs and you might be better at something than another person, but that person might be better at something else that you’re useless at!
(Americans good at space exploration – two mars landers in a month and the British one crash landed. But then the Brits are better at doing things on this planet!)
It’s Superbowl Sunday and tonight the Carolina Panthers and the New England Patriots battle it out on the football field. Not many people in the UK follow American Football and most find it funny that you call it football!
But I do like to keep up with it and I’m so glad I’m going to get to see it here in the States. So I’ll be round at Jim’s tonight with the rest of the youth group watching the game.
But it’s not going to be an individual that wins the trophy tonight, it’ll be a team. And while I can’t figure out all the positions and roles played by team members, I do know that every single one of them is important, and not one is more important than another.
The quarter back can’t do his job if his centre doesn’t hike the ball to him properly or if the offensive line don’t block properly. And the wide receivers can’t do their job if the quarterback doesn’t throw it properly.
They’re all reliant on each other and just as important as each other.
And they don’t kid themselves that they can do it all. Could you imagine the mess there would be if the kicker came into the offensive line?
The same can be said of Soccer, (now that really is football). The goal keeper needs his defence who need help from the midfield who need help from the strikers who, when attacking, in turn need the service from the midfield who need the service from the defence.
Each member of the team is just as important as the others.
Each piece of the Jigsaw is important for the big picture.
And when a member of the body hurts, the rest of the body feels it too.
Read 1 Cor 12: 26
When a part of our body is hurting, it affects the rest of us. If I have a headache, I can’t do anything! It paralyses me and all I’m fit for is lying down.
When we know of a member of the body of Christ that is suffering, we should be suffering along with them. We should be feeling their pain. We should want to do something about it.
Again for most of us, that is lived and worked out in our local congregation.
Conclusion
However different we are. However unique we may be. However diverse our characters, gifts and abilities may be, we are united under one banner with one cause and one head of the body, and that is Christ.
It is Christ Jesus who is the head of the body and it is to him and him alone that we all bow down and worship. It is under the cross of Christ that we all find our forgiveness and salvation. It is He that unites believers world-wide.
While God wants us to celebrate our differences and diversities, (and by the way that’s why there’s so many different denominations – because we’re all different and we all choose to express ourselves and our worship in different ways – and God loves that!), He also wants us to remember what it is that unites us as one body – and that is Christ Jesus.
Too often we focus on our differences and forget what it is that unites us!
The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery says it is “the believer’s unity with Christ which creates the fellowship, not the fellowship which creates the unity with Christ. Both in the local church and the church universal, unity and service are the properly spontaneous expression of being the body of Christ”.
So when you start feeling inferior to someone else, or when you start getting a little above your station and begin to feel a little superior to someone else, remember what it is that unites you. Remember that it’s your relationship with Christ that defines who you are and unites you to other believers. And remember that your relationship with Christ is no less important or no more important than their relationship with Christ.
Christ is the head of the body and it is Christ who unites his body.
I’ll leave you with a question:
Do you remember putting your face above a headless frame painted to represent a muscle man, or a clown, or an old woman in a red spotted bathing suite? Do you remember how ridiculous the picture looked because the head just didn’t fit the rest of the body?
If we could picture Christ as the head and us, first individually and then as a local congregation, and then as the church worldwide, as the body, would the world laugh at the misfit? Or would they stand in awe of a human body so closely related to a divine head?
