Spiritual Gifts in the Body of Christ

Robert Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

January 21, 2007

Text: First Corinthians 12.12-31a

FIRST CHURCH CORINTH

We saw last week that the local church in Corinth was in an uproar. Though they were blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, there were apparently some members who believed that their gifts were superior to other’s gifts. Those whose gifts involved ecstasy  (unknown tongues) or amazing performances (healing or miracles) are singled out for criticism. So Paul hammers home to them, insisting that gifts are precisely that, gifts, and should not be the source for one-upmanship.

Living in Christ is the difference. The Holy Spirit brings Christ to us. And Christ was among us as one who serves; thus if we follow Jesus, we will use our differing gifts to serve the common good within the church. There is one source, differing gifts. Drinking from the same life-giving water binds us together in Christ.

Note that Paul does not reject tongues or miracles or healing. In another place, Paul admits to ecstatic experiences himself. It is important for us to know this because we mainstreamers tend to be suspicious and critical of our Pentecostal or charismatic brothers and sisters. About the only place we find ecstatic utterances acceptable is at sporting events.

For sure, unknown tongues is not one of my gifts. In those moments when I experience the closeness of God’s Spirit, I am more likely to get very quiet and still than talkative. As I have shared before, it is in listening to music, especially hymns, that I am drawn into something like a state of ecstasy.

In any event, we ought to be tolerant of those fellow Christians who emphasize the gifts; no one church or brand of church has the complete Christian truth. We all stand under the advice of Paul to honor one another’s gifts.

BODY TALK

In verse 12, Paul continues with his explanation of life in one Spirit. My attention was drawn to this verse:

      “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.”

“So it is with Christ?” But I thought we were talking about the church? Why does he use the word “Christ?” I can understand being baptized into one church, but baptized into one body, which is Christ? What can this mean?

As audacious as it sounds, Paul is identifying the body of Christ with the organization we call church.

I remember visiting with a young man who told me that he had been baptized but that he was not a member of any church. I tried to explain to him that there was no such thing as a baptized Christian who was not a member of the Church. His explanation was that he did not want to be a member of anyone’s church, and that he could be a Christian on his own.

I can understand the feeling. There is something of a purist in each of us. Denominations are usually formed by those who want to finally restore the church’s purity: correct spiritually, morally and theologically. (Fifty years later or so, some leave that church and go off to try again.) It would be nice to be a part of a mystical fellowship which was not as “physical” as a church! The church is populated with people and people are not always Christ-like. But there you are: Paul is saying that, when you are baptized into Christ, you are in the same body. Membership is not an add-on. It is not an option. It is a gift of belonging. I had to say to the young man, “I’m sorry, but God has already made you a member of the body of Christ when you received baptism. You can refuse to participate, but you can’t not be a member.”

The Holy Spirit does not hover above real human life but abides within and among us. As the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so the treasure that is the Good Word resides in clay pots----us! We are stewards of God’s mysteries. Jesus and Paul keep the tension between the divine and the human.

Therefore, Paul goes to great lengths to push the analogy of the body with many parts: hands, ears, eyes, noses, feet, and other body parts. (Paul did have a sense of humor after all!) Imagine someone who is all nose, or all ears, or all feet! How would they function? Not well, of course. Alone, they are each incomplete, really helpless. Each part of the body of Christ, the church, needs the other parts. We complement each other.

CHURCH AS SACRAMENT

And this is how it is with the body of Christ----really, the person or self of Christ that we call church. We really are the sacrament of Christ. The fellowship we share, the work we do together are the embodiment of Jesus Christ in the world. God certainly may raise up witnesses to his love among other people. But we are the “called out” ones, with the ministry of reconciliation in our hands and in our hearts.

We may say that this too “high” a view of the church. The church is too human to be the carrier of the divine. Yes, we know of the church’s frailty and of our weaknesses. And yet, Jesus called the disciples to follow him----frail as they were. And God has continued through the centuries to touch the lives of regular people and receive them into the waters of baptism and new life. Whether we like it or not, God in Jesus wants our company and our gifts so that the Good News may be proclaimed and the wounded world healed.

KOINONIA

So what shall we do? Paul challenges us to share life together (koinonia) and affirm one another in our different gifts. He doesn’t want us to throw aside our own particular gifts because they are not like others’ gifts, but he wants us to claim our gifts and contribute to the life and health of the whole body.

And we will “have the same care for one another” as we would have for our poor tired feet at the end of a long day. “If one member suffers, all suffer; if one member is honored, all rejoice together….” Do you notice how, when your feet hurt, your head may hurt too? We are one connected body of Christ, with Christ as the head. It takes empathy to be a member of a church; to takes suffering as well as rejoicing. When we come together, we share in the suffering of members; and we rejoice when they are honored.

It sounds simple to say so, but we really need each other. To reject the fellowship of other Christians is like trying to be a whole person when all you are is an ear. We hunger for redemptive community.

This is what John and Charles Wesley and their friends found at Oxford. Oxford was a profane place at the time, a real “party school.” They saw that, to keep their faith in Christ, they must gather bodily and share their struggles and their blessings; and they must engage in an organized (from organ) way in works of mercy and justice.

So much has changed since the time of Paul and Jesus, and the Wesleys. Today we may experience more isolation from others than ever before. We are a “screen stupefied” society. So much of our “fellowship” is “on line,” not actual togetherness in the flesh. Even worship in some circles has devolved into watching singers enjoy a spiritual high---and congregational participation is minimal. Perhaps simulated community is the wave of the future, but I believe we will still long for human closeness. God has placed in us a spirit which seeks the Holy Spirit. And where the Holy Spirit is present, there is Christ Jesus and his friends, a renewing fellowship. The church as the body of Christ will have to be intentional in its ministry of shared community life.

 In our day, we gather for worship in large groups like this, and here we share our hopes and sorrows. And we find strength for the living of these days in the Sunday School classes, the youth fellowships, the reunion groups and Bible studies and work projects and sports teams.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together wrote that we have a responsibility to be in ministry to one another with the body of Christ. We practice the ministry of listening to each other, contrary to a world full of instant and continuous messaging. We practice the ministry of helpfulness in little, external matters. We bear with each other or endure one another’s weaknesses and oddities. And we proclaim the words to each other, bearing witness in words of kindness, consolation and even hard truth.

For nine years I met with 6 men who gathered at 6 AM every Thursday. I would stumble in half-awake to share with them a common agenda of moments closest to Christ and calls to ministry in the previous week. We would pray together and share life together over breakfast tacos. By all appearances, our little fellowship was just guys eating tacos and drinking coffee. But, seen with the eyes of faith, we were a little koinonia of the body of Christ, connected by the Holy Spirit. We were a very human circle of men, earthen vessels in which the treasure of the Word of God abided.

Look closely enough and you will see that these little and big circles of faith are signs of the One who dwells among us and in whom we live----the Triune God whose nature is love.

(Next week: Chapter 13, the Love Hymn)