Sermon for January 27, 2019 
Read Psalm 19 and 1 Corinthians12:12-31 Have you ever stopped to consider how amazing the human body is?
The human body is a remarkable creation, with 60 million cells. Our heart beats 36 million times every year. We produce 300 billion red cells every day. A multitude of complex processes are carried out by our bodies every minute without our even having to think about it. We don't have to tell our heart to beat, or our eyes to blink, or our lungs to fill with air. It just does it on our own. Humans are really remarkable creations.
And we are a particularly apt metaphor for Christ at work in the world today.
For, just as the human mind cannot really fathom the complexity of its own body, so it is with the body of Christ. Our minds cannot comprehend the entire complexity of the body of Christ.
Paul teaches us that Christ is a living body, composed of billions of parts, miraculously complex, with billions of members, located in millions of different settings, with thousands of different languages, with thousands of unique cultures and billions of expressions of the true faith, throughout centuries of recorded time.
We as the church constitute the means by which Christ functions within the world. It is a body with many members, and yet it is only one body. It is not many bodies, many denominations. They are all tied together by sharing the same life, and they are tied together in Christ so that they function as his means of expressing his life in this world.
And yet, we are a flawed illustration, because we are not always as well functioning or in unison as we could be. Paul writes this letter to a church that is going through troubles. Some of its members feel that they aren't as important as others. And other members think that their gifts are way better than other people's gifts. We haven't changed much in the two thousand years since this letter was written, have we?
Some of us end up wanting another role in the Body, thinking that the place we have isn't as exciting or important. We are longing to be a foot when we are a knee. Or we think that our role as the elbow isn’t as important as being a hand. We see people going out to be missionaries in far flung corners of the world and think "Now, they are really making a difference." Or we hear people speaking passionately about Christ to huge groups of people and think that they are the ones really doing God's work.
But just as we need hands and feet for Christ, going out and doing, we also need the elbows and knees that allow the hands and feet to do their work. We need the spine that connects everyone together. We need the lungs that bring in fresh air to the body. We need the ears that hear concerns and the big toes that stabilize everything else.
We tend to measure our worth up against what others think or say about us. And it is in those moments that we need to hear God's gospel word in these words from Paul. God has called us to be who we are, not someone else. We have our own gifts that matter.
On the other side of the passage is the danger of thinking that the work that we do is somehow more important than the work anyone else does. No part of the body can function on it's own, so we are all dependent on each other. And in those moments of pride, we also need to hear these words from Paul. We cannot function on our own, but only as part of the whole.
Each and every one of us has a role in the body of Christ, and none of them are greater or somehow more worthy than another.
In this congregation alone, we have people of different ages and different backgrounds. We have people from the opposite sides of the political spectrum and people that fall somewhere in the middle. We have people of all levels of income and stability. We have people who are married, single, divorced and widowed. We have different interests outside of the church, from golf to cards, from volunteering to sports, from cooking to gardening to reading. We are all very different people.
And yet we all come together for one reason. For Christ. Under Christ we are united as one. And yes, we have different strengths and different callings, but because we are united as one those strengths and callings work towards the same purpose.
If we all were hands, there would be a lot of cooking and cleaning that would get done in a church, but no one would be able to teach others about Christ. If we were all mouths, we would spend hours talking theology and praising God, but the building would fall down around our ears. If we all were feet we would head out in the world share the gospel, but no one would stay at home to make sure the gospel was lived out in our own backyards.
We need to be different! We actually can do more if all of us are different than if we were all the same. When we fight because not everyone agrees with us, we take away the rich diversity of this body God created. We diminish our strengths and scopes when we all try to look the same. We don't have to all think the same, because what unites us is Christ.
We are all part of the body of Christ! Without all of us in all of our differences, something is missing. The body is only complete in our glorious diversity.
As part of one body, that means that the health and well-being of the other members of the body matter to our own well being. When we sprain an ankle, it isn't only the ankle that suffers. It is our whole self. And our whole self works together to help out that ankle. We use crutches, allowing our arms to take some of the weight off the injured part. We elevate the foot, helping it to heal.
And we should do the same with the members of our Christian body. When one of our members is hurting, it affects us all. We all must reach out to help the ones who are suffering. Sometimes that means going and sitting with a member who is grieving, or visiting someone in the hospital. Sometimes it is offering a ride for someone who can't get around by themselves. Other times it is offering a helping hand to someone who is having trouble staying on their feet, or a gift to help cover a disaster.
When one suffers, we all suffer, and when we heal, we all heal together. Paul is saying that we need one another. He is not saying merely that the poor need the rich, the sick need the healthy, and the weak need the strong to protect or rescue them; he's saying that we all need one another. There is no one to whom the Spirit has not given gifts that needed by all of us.
Are we always going to work together perfectly? No, but we can work towards that. We can get better at accepting differences. We can become a more united body for Christ.
I saw a shirt at a conference once. One of the younger people there was wearing it and causing a stir in the people who saw him. The front of the T-shirt, the side people read as they approach, said, "I don’t go to church." On the back, the side you read when you turn around after passing that provocative message, it said, "I am the church." Church is not a place to go. It is the people united together.. Church is what we are. I am part of the Body of Christ.
And so are you.
