I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
1 Corinthians 12:12-24, The Message
Paul challenges the believers in Corinth and us today to stop and think about what we are reading concerning the human body and hence the spiritual body. “I want you to think.” So I have used The Message to help us freshen up this common passage. Being part of a body helps prevent our heads from getting too inflated. We should not think too much of ourselves because any good result is a group effort. President Kenyatta’s national motto was “Harambee”. We have harambee centers from this Swahili word. It mean “Let’s pull together.” So if your car is stuck in the mud, everyone hops out, positions themselves around the car and then someone yells, “Harambee,” and we all push together, relax until we hear “harambee “ again. The motto carries the flavor of the communal thinking of African tribes rather than the individualism of the West. Paul is telling us that the spiritual body that the church is functions as a harambee effort. If there is any credit, it goes to God who makes the body.
Likewise perhaps a few of us are talented enough to win American Idol but that does not really compare to the harambee of many people like ourselves who put their small efforts together to make the Golden Gate Bridge or the Eiffel Tower. I cannot pat myself on the back for some project but I can be appreciate that I was part of the crew that brought the project to conclusion.
I love the comparison that just because I don’t have all the glitter of gold rings like a hand, does not mean that my job as a heart that keeps the blood moving is not important. Just because someone does not have all the glamor of face make up does not mean that their role in keeping the body is unimportant. So think again about your role in the Body of Christ. Try and list just three ways that you contribute to the functioning of the body of Christ then thank God for the privilege of playing your part. Maybe even pray for the person whom seems to outshine you or whom you consider of less importance than you and ask for God’s working in their lives this week. They need prayer too.
On the Way to Wonder 