Adam J. Copeland

First Presbyterian Church

Hallock, Minn.

Jan 21, 2010

One Different Body

1 Cor 12:1-31a

A member of ours shared with a committee this week how vividly she recalls getting glasses in first grade or so. Glasses then were not as cool as glasses now (now, as you can see, they are the height of fashion). But this member had the old kind with pointy wing tips. Remember those? They were all the rage for a few years.

Well, she remembers the first day she went to school wearing her new glasses. The memory etched in her retina is that of six or seven classmates standing around her desk, staring directly at her. And for some reason she didn’t remember this fondly. That’s the sort of thing you’ll remember forever–half your elementary school class staring at you out of shock and horror of what’s on your face.

No doubt, we all have similar childhood memories of some sort–if we haven’t repressed them by now. There’s just something about children that hone in on anything different. Wear, try, think, be anything out of the ordinary, and you’re the talk of the class (and not in a good way).

We don’t know how the apostle Paul behaved in first grade, but we do know what he thought about differences in the body of Christ. Paul preached that differences are essential, that differences are God-given, that differences–ideally–bring us together to be one strong body of Christ.

14 Indeed, the body [of Christ] does not consist of one member but of many. Now remember the context here. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, or probably small churches he helped start a few years back. But he eventually left them and then he hears that folks weren’t getting along too well. They had arguments about lots of things, different points of view and different ideas on what is faithful.

That’s not much different from many churches today, actually. A pastor friend of mine says when her session meets, they usually have about twelve session members and at least fifteen opinions. So Paul tries to explain this strange concept of one body but many body parts, many members of the body. Paul writes,

15 If the foot [of the body] 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.

Many members, yet one body. You need the members to make the body–that’s the point, says Paul. Or put another way: unity in the midst of diversity.

Today’s Old Testament passage from Nehemiah [8:1-10] describes the scene in the city square when Nehemiah reads from the book of the law all morning long. A huge crowd has gathered to hear the scriptures, and the writers says, “they understood the meaning” of the text. They also bowed down and lifted up their hands in prayer shouting, “Amen, Amen.”

The scene doesn’t quite describe a formal worship service like we’d have today–and it wasn’t really like one of Nehemiah’s time either–but it had all the elements of worship we think of. Gathering. Reading from the word. Responding. But the way they respond is, well, it’s not what we do much of here. They raised up their hands and shouted “Amen, Amen.”

Presbyterians, on the whole, are not known historically for their responsive worship styles. In fact, a common phrase to describe us is: “the frozen chosen.” (In the midst of this snow storm, that takes on even another meaning.)

But, actually, many Presbyterians these days worship with their hands in the air. And they shout “Amen,” and “hallelujah” and God does not strike them down. In fact, I think God might even like it.

Sometimes, when people hear I’m a Presbyterian pastor and my wife is Lutheran they get all flustered and ask ”How in the world does that work?” I usually say that, in fact, there’s more differences within the Presbyterian denomination as a whole than between many Lutheran and Presbyterian churches. I know a Presbyterian church down south in which some confuse their worship style with an Episcopal one, and another, not too far away, feels about as baptist as you can get without a baptismal pool up front. Differences within America’s Christian denominations are quite significant at the moment. And if you were to ask Paul what he thought about that, I bet he’d say something about all the members of the body being indispensable.

Some differences among us might be easier to see in larger cities than Hallock–differences in skin color, differences in housing status, differences in one’s native language. But we’ve got plenty of differences in our own congregation too.

I know all the farmers don’t agree on what to plant when, on how much to put in where, and when to sell.

I know there’s differences in political persuasion, on one’s perspective on the health care bill and the recent supreme court ruling opening election funding to corporations.

I know, if our congregation was holding similar discussions to the Lutherans in the area, we’d have a variety of different perspectives on whether gay and lesbian candidates for pastors and elders should be able to be ordained.

And there’s less significant differences too: different perspectives on the opening hymn we sang this morning, different tastes for potluck dishes, different styles of dress, and different bets on the line of the Vikings v. Saints game.

There will always be differences among us, among any two gathered together. And let’s be honest: many differences are difficult to deal with. They make us uncomfortable. Differences make us insecure that we’re different ourselves, and they point to conflict–something this culture seeks to avoid at all costs. Differences, still today, can bring out our deep inner school kid–we don’t want to be that one who stands out. And, we might like to point out that one who does since the spotlight stays off us and gets us respect in our circle of friends.

But when we look at these differences through the wisdom of scripture, a new way comes into focus. Paul praises the necessity of the different varieties of the body, not because Paul just had a thing for diversity, but because Paul saw the differences to be unified in Christ.

Paul writes, “ 2 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.” The body Paul writes about isn’t just any melting pot of different capabilities and perspectives, the body is Christ’s body–the church. Our differences become one in Christ, Paul says, because we were baptized in the one Spirit into the one body of Christ. Paul isn’t about praising differences because they’re cool; he’s about living together as we truly are–different members of the same body of Christ.

A few years ago now, the moved Saved came out and preached exactly this sort of lesson. Dealing with a Christian high school, the plot set a cliquey group of “Christian” girls–the pretty popular ones–against the outsider group of high school misfits–a Jewish girl at a Christian school, a pregnant teenager and her gay friend, a smoker in a wheelchair. The movie, with great brilliance, shows the danger of this Christian popular crowd that thinks they are so faithful, but really is just about fitting in and not standing out. They strive to do what is right, but really they’re just imitating each other, and their similarities pull them away from Christ’s body. My favorite scene is of the leader of this popular Christian crowd who, in a spite of rage, throws a Bible at the pregnant girl she is trying to save. As the Bible flies through the air and hits the girl smack in the back she yells, “I am filled with Christ’s love!” Not so much. In the movie, it’s the different ones who show the way of Christ–a Jewish girl, a pregnant teenager and her gay friend, a guy a wheelchair.

The body of Christ has room–no, has need–of every member of the body: those who think differently than us, or look a bit different, or try our nerves; those who challenge our comfort level; those who we’d like to cut off. Together we are Christ’s body. “26 If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” May we honor our differences, and rejoice as one body of Christ. Amen.