Unity in Diversity: Many Parts, One Body
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” (1 Corinthians 12:12).
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
According to the Roman historian, Livy, the orator
Menenius Agrippa told the quarreling Roman citizens this parable. The other
members of the body were upset with the stomach and charged it with being lazy,
doing nothing but simply allowing itself to be nourished. So, the hands refused
to raise food to the mouth. The mouth declined to accept the food. The teeth
would not chew. They all went on strike to get the stomach in line. It was only
when the whole body had nearly starved to death that the other members realized
their mistake.
It is quite possible that St. Paul borrowed from this
fable for the thoughts of our text because he was trained in Stoic philosophy;
but if he did, he shows an insight into the body and its relation to its
different members to which no pagan mind ever attained. No matter how many
times we may have heard it, or how many ways it can be used as an image in
ministry, the way Paul extends the conceptual metaphor of the body and its
members is simply brilliant.[i] We
are all individual parts who form one body. There is unity in diversity. This is
all part of God’s plan.
People are generally most comfortable with those
like themselves. Paul is asking the Corinthians (and us!) to see the benefits
of diversity. Just as the human body consists of unique and diverse members all
forming one body, so it is with Christ! The Body of Christ consists of unique
and diverse individuals. It includes Jews and Greeks, people of diverse ethnic
and family backgrounds. It includes slaves and free, people of diverse
political and socioeconomic backgrounds. There are many parts but one Body. Unity
in diversity.
Paul begins with a radical declaration of equality.
Each member of the Body finds their value, worth, and identity from the same
inexhaustible source: Holy Baptism. We have all been made one through our Baptism.
This is a gift of God and not our own
doing, and the fact that any of us have any role to play at all in the Body of
Christ is an amazing grace. So, any self-awareness that we may have of our own
gifts in life and ministry begins (and ends) in gratefulness.[ii]
This is the other side of the first temptation Paul
sees in the Church. It is the worst enemy of gratitude, namely envy (when we look
at others) and its self-deprecating cousin, shame (when we look in the mirror).
Paul explores this temptation by artfully personifying the metaphor with an
imaginary conversation:
If the foot should 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. And if
the ear should 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 (1 Corinthians 12:15-16).
The
spokesmen are the parts of the body who may be inclined to compare themselves with
other parts that seem more important. So, the foot, depressed by its
comparatively lowly status and the drudgery of its work in supporting the whole
body, compares itself to the more versatile and skillful hand; the ear becomes
discontent with its simple and less-prominent function and compares itself to
the more attractive eye.
Disillusioned
and jealous, the foot and ear are tempted to quit, discontinuing their service
to the body. But Paul insists they cannot opt out. Their only proper place is
within the body. God has set each individual part in the body “just as He
wished” (1 Corinthians 12:18). Their distinctive functions are part of His
perfect plan for the whole, a plan which the individual believer should accept
humbly, without envying what another has been given. As one commentary
explains:
Every member cannot have the same function, and therefore
there must be higher and lower gifts. But pride and discontent are quite out of
place, for they are not only the outcome of selfishness, but also rebellion
against God’s will. This has two points; it was not our fellow-men who placed
us in an inferior position, but God; and He did it, not to please us or our
fellows, but in accordance with His will, which must be right. Who is so
disloyal as to gainsay what God willed to arrange?[iii]
Envy would seek to
steal someone else’s gift for its own. Even more tragically, shame would steal
from itself by depreciating its own gifts and its value to the community.
Paul’s metaphor cuts through both. The Body simply cannot work unless everyone
is involved. And we cannot all be involved unless we acknowledge our mutual
dependence on each other. If any single one is missing, the whole thing breaks
down. Thus, it is significant how Paul appeals to the eye and ear in verse 17.
From classical sources to the present, sight, closely followed by hearing, have
usually been regarded as the body’s chief senses. Yet, “If the whole body were
an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear,
where would be the sense of smell?” (1 Corinthians 12:17).
Applied to the
situation in a Christian congregation, Paul’s observation means that members with
lesser spiritual gifts may feel dissatisfied with their less prominent gifts
and may feel unneeded. The humbler members may feel their lack of spectacular
gifts may well put them out of the Body.
What if everyone could
select his or her own spiritual gift? Would most Christians not choose the
popular or prominent gifts and ignore the less spectacular ones? The Church
would be poorly served under those circumstances as the human body would be if
each part of the body chose to be the eye or the ear. The body would become a
monstrosity. Fortunately, God has given the parts of the Body of Christ their
separate functions, so that the Body and all its members are well served. It is
good that the Spirit has also distributed His gifts to His people, so that the
Church has all the gifts it needs to function well.
This leads Paul to
extend the metaphor further, from how we regard our own role in the body to how
we regard the roles of others. But the principle is not simply that we all just
tell each other how great we are and get along. Nor is it that those who have
the “greater” gifts should condescend in sympathy to the others. Paul’s vision
is even more radical, and it comes in a strikingly perceptive insight into how
the body itself works. “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
parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12:22).
What Paul is doing here
is upending our whole scale for considering what is greater or weak,
indispensable or disposable. And he is replacing it with God’s own perspective:
“But God has so composed the Body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked
it, that there may be no division in the Body” (1 Corinthians 12:24).
In the Church, those
who seem to have greater spiritual gifts may feel they can get along simply
fine without those who have lesser gifts. But they would be very mistaken! Those
who seem to have very modest spiritual gifts might well be making valuable and
even vital contributions to the congregation.
I couldn’t help to think about the phrase we heard
so often at the beginning of the pandemic: “essential workers.” It was
interesting, but not surprising to many of us, who was determined to be the
“essential workers.” It wasn’t the movie and television stars, the professional
athletes, or musical performers that catch most of the attention in “normal
times” who were deemed as “essential.” It was those who work in health care,
law enforcement, public safety, food and agriculture, critical manufacturing, transportation,
education, childcare, grocery stores, and supply stores that were deemed
essential. The contributions of many of these vocations are so easily taken for
granted that we may not even realize just how important they are until we find
the grocery shelves and freezers almost bare, when we’re not able to get an
immediate appointment at the doctor’s office, or when we must wait weeks, even
months for parts or major appliances.
Those in the Body of Christ that appear “weaker,”
“less honorable,” and “unpresentable” are often quietly using their
Spirit-given wisdom, faith, and love in inconspicuous ways that make them great
blessings to their congregations.
If we feel that our spiritual gifts are so plain and
ordinary that they will not be recognized or appreciated, God assures us that
He has composed the Church as He has composed the human body, “giving greater
honor to the part that lacked it” (1 Corinthians 12:24). God makes up for lack
of strength, honor, and respect of such parts of the body with His own
recognition of their crucial functions.
God assures us that He has combined the membership
of the Body of Christ in the same way. He supplies the recognition and honor
the less prominent members of the congregation appear to lack. What they do in
their homes and neighborhoods may not seem like much compared with what the
prominent people in the congregation are doing. God views things differently;
we should, too.
This is the same
paradox by which Jesus of Nazareth, beginning with His appearance in the
synagogue in today’s Gospel, preaches the greatest to be least, the first to be
last, and vice versa. This also becomes the basis for our genuine empathy and
fellowship within the Body of Christ. We are sincerely concerned for one
another. When one suffers, we all suffer, and when one rejoices, we all
rejoice.
We are the Church, the
Body of Christ. Here, you find unity in diversity. Though each unique, we are all
united by Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23). We are all the blessed recipients of Christ’s
love and mercy. We are all “the poor,” “the captives,” “the blind,” and the
“oppressed” to whom Jesus came to preach His Good News and proclaim His message
of liberty and healing (Luke 4:18-19).
Jesus’ life, death, and
resurrection bestow new life and identity by grace through faith. His Word and
Sacraments unite individuals into the communion of saints (Galatians 3:26-18). In
Holy Baptism, He baptizes us into Himself, His death and resurrection (Romans
6:3). In Confession and Holy Absolution, we individually and corporately
confess our sins and receive Christ’s Word of forgiveness. In Holy Communion,
we who are many, are one Body, for we all partake of the same Christ. In, with,
and under the bread and the wine, we all receive the very Body and Blood for
the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith.
We all rejoice in this Lord who has saved us
and appointed us to serve (1 Peter 2:9). In gratitude, we willingly die to ourselves,
thus serving Christ, glorifying God, and winning souls who will subsequently
bless and serve the Body of Christ (Matthew 16:24-25).
Go in the peace of the
Lord and serve your neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for all your sins.
In the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are
from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
[i] Epistle: 1
Corinthians 12:12-31a (Epiphany 3: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/epistle-1-corinthians-1212-31a-epiphany-3-series-c.
[ii] Epistle: 1 Corinthians
12:12-31a (Epiphany 3: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/epistle-1-corinthians-1212-31a-epiphany-3-series-c.
[iii] A. Robertson and A.
Plummer, The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 274, citing
Rom. 9:20.
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