I
Corinthians 12:12-31a
Thirty years ago
this week, on an unusually cold day for Florida, the family of a woman named
Christa McAuliffe were gathered at Cape Kennedy, excited that she had been
chosen to become the first teacher to go into space as an astronaut. The cold didn’t matter to them, anyway, since
they were from New Hampshire. They watched
her board the space shuttle Challenger with six others and the countdown
started. Cameras followed their faces as
the rocket launched. Cameras were still
watching their faces when the smiles turned to shock seventy-three seconds
later, as they watched flames shoot from the booster rockets and ignite the
external fuel tank, so that the Challenger exploded, killing all on board.
NASA suspended
all flights for the next two years while the investigation went on. In the end, it was determined that two rubber
rings on the fuel tanks failed to seal properly because of the cold weather,
leading to the disaster. The tragedy was
compounded because it was also determined that an engineer at Morton Thiokol,
the design company, had warned that this could happen and the warnings had been
ignored both by Morton Thiokol and by managers at NASA.
There’s an old
proverb that is found in many forms over the centuries. Ben Franklin printed two versions of it. The one that another philosopher, Tod Rundgren,
repeated says,
“For want
of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of
a shoe, the horse was lost,
For want of
a horse, the rider was lost,
For want of
a rider, the message was lost,
For want of
a message, the battle was lost,
For want of
a battle, the war was lost,
For want of
a war, the kingdom was lost,
And all for
the want of a nail.”
Surely, you’ve heard that before.
What if we’re
talking about people instead of things?
The church that
Paul founded in Corinth had a lot of people in it who had a lot of gifts. They were very proud of that, and rightly so.
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 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.” [I Corinthians 12:27-28]
I wouldn’t be surprised if some people in the church who did not
have those particular gifts didn’t feel second-class, even if those who did have
the gifts weren’t looking down on them.
As it was, these folks got to squabbling among themselves about which of
those gifts or roles were the most important.
(That translated in effect into people saying, “I am more important than
you are.”)
Paul wrote to remind the gifted ones that they, even taking all their gifts
together, still did not make up the whole body.
“Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all
work miracles? Do all possess
gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” [I Corinthians 12:29-30]
The answer, of course, is “no”.
There are a whole lot of people whose gifts are not as public and who
may not even see them in themselves.
There are a whole lot of people whose service is not necessarily even
visible, and yet it is every bit as real and as important.
In fact, as things turn out, “the
members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable”. [I Corinthians 12:22] Don’t discount the importance of the O-rings
on the space shuttle Church. There is
nobody who does not matter.
Imagine, if you will, a church without babies. From one perspective, they don’t add anything
to the Body. They do not share the
gospel on the street corners or with their friends. What they do is make noise that distracts
some people around them and maybe drowns out part of the sermon or the Bible
readings. They aren’t out there in the
streets protesting against injustice or sending e-mails to their
representatives about important issues.
What they are doing is wiggling around in protest of a wet diaper or
poking at you to try to get your attention when you want to pray. Babies don’t tithe. They teethe.
And if you have really been wanting to get something done and you are a
parent, forget about having enough energy or getting enough sleep to do much of
anything at all for a couple of years. A
church without babies would be reverent, quiet, and focused.
But would you really want that?
Those helpless babies also bring with them a reminder that we are
pledged to the future, to seeing the kingdom of God that is coming, to living
for something beyond ourselves, and to looking for a time beyond our own. That is indispensable. Being disturbed by a little crying is a small
price to pay for a gift like that.
Somebody once said,
“Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for
it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” [Matthew 19:14]
Now, who was that? Oh,
yeah. Jesus.
Or what about
adults with mental disabilities? Are
they any less a part of the Church than the greatest theologian? Ask a theologian. Henri Nouwen was one of the most influential
Christian writers and speakers of the late-twentieth century. A Belgian priest, he came to the States and
taught first at Notre Dame, then at Yale, then at Harvard. That’s what he was doing when he unexpectedly
accepted an invitation to leave academia and move to a community for physically
and mentally challenged adults north of Toronto. In a 1994 interview, he told why it mattered
so much to his spiritual survival to do that.
He said,
"If [the handicapped
people] express love for you, then it comes from God. It's not because you
accomplished anything. These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious
people forced me to let go of my relevant self—the self that can do things,
show things, prove things, build things—and forced me to reclaim that unadorned
self in which I'm completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love
regardless of any accomplishments."[1]
That kind of gift is one that only the weaker members can give,
but it really is indispensable.
So, this is how
it is all supposed to work:
“God arranged the members in the body, each
one of them, as he chose. If all
were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet
one body. 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.’ On the contrary,
the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 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; whereas
our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the
body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within
the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer
together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” [I Corinthians 12:18-26]
That isn’t how the world works, of course. But we’re not talking about the world. We’re talking about God.
No comments:
Post a Comment