A New Story
Donald Miller, the American writer tells the story of a middle aged man, whose life was in crisis.
He was going nowhere in his job
His marriage was in trouble
And his teenage daughter, a constant source of worry, was going out with a guy who was wholly unsuitable.
His way of addressing this was quite radical.
He had discovered that it was possible, with exchange rates being what they were, for an American to build and orphanage in Mexico for only $45,000. This was the kind of money that he and his family could begin to think getting their hands on.
So one day he called the family together
He, his wife and his daughter sat down and he dropped upon them this bomb shell
“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go to Mexico and build an orphanage for $45,000”
You can imagine what the first response to this, was total shock.
But after about two days the second response kicked in.
The wife kissed her husband for the first time in months, and their relationship began to rediscover some of its old affection.
And the daughter what did she do?
She began to use Facebook to contact all her friends and raise money for building this orphanage.
And after some weeks she broke off the relationship with the boyfriend.
Miller suggested that the reason for this was that the daughter had a new story.
It was the “build an orphanage for abandoned children” story
It was a story in which she was the heroine
And heroines don’t go out with losers – their term not mine,
And so she ended the relationship with the boyfriend.
Do you ever see someone you really care about
You really value and cherish
Perhaps your own daughter, in a relationship with someone who is wholly inappropriate
And you are thinking “What are you doing with that guy? You could do so much better than him?”
But part of the problem is that she has not realised what she is
How precious she is
And does not think that she is worth any more than his
Promises that never come to much
His derogatory names for her
His refusal to offer him any sort of a firm commitment
And she begins to think that that is what she is worth.
That is the pain that Paul is in with the Church in Corinth
The Corinthian Church, like all his Churches, is like a daughter to him
It is like a child
And the child is in pain.
The child is in pain, because it is tearing itself apart into different factions
It is in pain because some of the factions are suing each other in court
It is in pain because some of the factions come to communion and eat all the bread and drink all the wine – the wealthy factions versus the slaves who have to finish work
It is in pain because some of the parts of the Church look down on other parts, for being less religious than them
And yet when they do have a part of the Church that is behaving way out of whack, that is causing genuine harm, they do nothing.
And so what does Paul do with the child that is in pain
He gives them another story
In fact he gives them two stories.
The second story is that the Church is going to be redeemed and become part of God’s everlasting creation
That’s the story that we will be thinking about over the next few weeks
But the other story that the Church is given is
“You are the body of Christ”
You are messed up
And you are sinning
And you are failing to live the kinds of lives that you are called to
But you remain the body of Christ
That is your story.
In the passage straight before this one
Is the one about some of the Corinthians feeling superior to others, because some of them can speak in tongues, and others cannot.
And the one before that is about the communion services where the rich are fed and the poor go away hungry.
And Paul says “You are one body”
One Body, Many Parts
The first thing that Paul says about the body is that bodies have many parts
You cannot get a body that is of one part
Nor can you get many parts that not part of a body, unless they are dying I guess.
You have to deal with the fact that Christ works on this principle of the many being one.
Sometimes, people say “I prefer to talk to God by myself”, “you don’t need to go to Church to be a Christian”
And those things are right
But,
You are going to handicap your Christian growth so much,
Because you violate the principle that Christ’s body is many parts
It is not just you
And for all the pain of their being many parts
Of different parts having to be co-ordinated
Of different visions
Christ says “No, it is the many parts approach that we are going for.”
“many parts being one”
This great miracle that something which is many, can have something about it which is unified, one.
That is the story
Many, but most truly one.
Paul, from verse 12 through to 14, says three times, “many” – “one”
And he notes that we have all been baptised
And we have all been made to drink of the Spirit.
We have different backgrounds
We are middle class and working class
We are employed and unemployed
We are male and we are female
We are young and we are old
We have been coming to Church all our lives, we have been coming for a matter of weeks
We can remember who Mr Sillars was, and Mr. Currie was, and some of you have only known me.
Some of us like old hymns, some of us like modern worship songs – the guitar wars
Some of you relate to me, and some of you find me odd and distant
But we all came out of that font
And we have all been made to drink of the Spirit – any of us who have believed the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation as Ephesians puts it
All “one”
And the many-ness is not the last word,
It is the one-ness
So as we look to the future, so we are “one”
Not Feeling Part Of The One
Now in the body in Corinth,
There is a problem, that some people are acting superior
Saying you have to speak in tongues
Arriving first to the communion services and eating all the food
And Paul has spoken against that thing.
But it is interesting now,
He turns to the people who have been on the wrong end of that kind of behaviour
And he anticipates their resentment
And it is this resentment that he addresses.
Because if one of the obstacles to Church membership is the complacent and arrogant behaviour of those who are sure that they belong
Another is the resentment and hurt of those who are given the message that they do not.
And it is that second group that Paul addresses here
And he has the audacity to suggest that they have modes of behaviour that they need to change.
Not a part of the body
Have a read of verses 15-16
If the foot were to say, “Because I am not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” that would not keep it from being a part of the body. 16 And if the ear were to say, “Because I am not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” that would not keep it from being a part of the body. [1]
And Paul is saying here, actually your resentment, your pain
Your sense of inadequacy doesn’t actually change your belonging to the body
It’s almost like saying “tough, too late now, no you feel rubbish, but actually, you might feel not a part of the body, and all that feeling may be very powerful, may cause you to think all kinds of divisive, neglected thoughts,
But actually, it changes nothing, you still are a part of the body.
Why you feel nothing
And then Paul begins to address, why you might not feel anything
It is because the body has assigned a rank to you
And you have believed it.
In fact, our resentment, our sense of not being needed, does not mean that we not part of the body.
It is interesting that when we are handed jobs in the Church
Or parts of the body
Some jobs are inevitably more glamorous than others
Or given a different ranking.
And Paul senses that there is a different ranking that we give to parts of the body
Hand is ranked higher than foot
Eye is ranked higher than ear, which in turn is ranked higher than nose.
Curiously, this is a ranking that actually does operate still today. The state of Connecticut in American assigns the following compensations for different body parts: The master hand is worth 168 weeks of pay, the other hand, 155 and the foot 125.
The Eye is worth 157 weeks of pay
And the nose is worth 35.
The heart is worth 416 and the pancreas 416, the liver 347 and the kidney 117.
The state of Connecticut has ranked the value of parts of the body.
But what about actual people, would we ever be so crude as to rank them
As to put a value on how much they are worth
Of course we do, it is reflected in how much we pay them.
One of the galling things about these bankers saying “I am entitled to £500,000 worth of pay” is effectively what he is saying is “I am worth 20 of you.”
And you could get angry with these guys.
You could be full of resentment.
But that would only be because you worried that this valuation actually might be true.
And so Paul gets to work on the Banker’s valuation system
And the State of Connecticut’s valuing system and he offers instead one of his own.
And Paul’s valuing system is that every part of the body is ranked the same.
And this partly goes back to the fact that we are all baptised
And all been made to drink of the Holy Spirit.
But also because all are needed.
If the body did not have you, Oh ear who is worth 130 weeks’ pay, how could it hear
If the body did not have you, Oh nose, who is worth 35 weeks pay, how could it smell.
You are thinking “Could live with that, could live without being able to smell”
But Paul won’t hear of it
A body that can’t smell is as unthinkable as a body that can’t see.
And this is something that we have to realise about our body here
There will be something vitally important
And that this body will not be able to do if you are not a part of that
And the first person who has to believe this is not me – I am the second person that has to believe it
The first person that has to learn to believe this, is you.
You are in the body, and you are worth as much as a Session Clerk
As an elder
As an organist
As a board member
As a Sunday School teacher
As a property convener
As a treasurer
As a minister
We don’t communicate that
We don’t use you enough
But that is the truth.
And how we get to the better future, is if we start to believe that.
[1]None. Good New Translation - Second Edition (electronic ed.) . ,: :
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