We’ve moved more than a bit in our adult lives. Since getting married, we’ve had 10 different addresses in 3 states (none of which is the state we both grew up in) and are in the process of securing number 11 before our lease is up in August.
When you move, you get the “joy” of taking apart pieces of furniture in one location and then reassembling them in another. Whether it’s a complicated dresser/bed combo, a bookshelf or a futon, there’s a common part of that story: when we get done with the reassembly we didn’t have all the parts we thought we should or there are parts left over that we don’t know where they were supposed to go. One time we lost the entire bag of bolts and nuts and washers and couldn’t put the furniture item together until we tracked down a complete set of replacement parts.
We always hope that the furniture will continue to function properly without the missing parts, but one never knows if the product was over-engineered enough to make up for that or if it’s one bump away from a complete collapse.
Our physical bodies have “missing parts” as well that affect our ability to do everyday things that others can. Our family has a fair number of chronic illnesses that cause challenges for the daily life. I have asthma. Breathing, which most people do without even noticing, sometimes becomes difficult or impossible. I have medicines that mitigate the effects and even a “rescue” inhaler for times when lack of air hits the danger zone.
I also have no sense of smell. Gas leak? Wouldn’t know. I was career limited in hospitality because a chef or a sommelier requires a grade A sniffer. I don’t even get a D in smell ability.
We find ways to get along in life with the parts that don’t work right. We “get along” either by missing out or by supplementing. I haven’t died in a gas explosion because I don’t live alone.
Recently one of my pastors preached a sermon on the Body of Christ from 1 Corinthians 12, which is a passage I come back to in coaching quite frequently.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 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. 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? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
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, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. 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, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
We talk regularly in the current day about being “members” of an organization or team, but the word “member” used to refer to body parts. I remember reading an Edger Allen Poe story where someone dismembered a corpse and that was the first time I’d heard that phrase referring to the physical body.
During the sermon, my pastor talked about how often a person can feel like she or he “doesn’t belong here.” Being in a situation and feeling out of place happens to many of us, if not all. Sometimes we make other people feel that way, intentionally or not, by the way we structure events or conversations.
What’s sad is that in those moments people walk away and sometimes they never return.
Imagine you are reading a book. It is a good book and you are snuggled up in a chair for hours, captivated by the story. Your foot, not being used for some time, decides to take leave of you and set off on its own. When you try to stand up after the last page, you tumble to the ground because your foot is no longer a part of you. Gone. Now imagine that losing body parts was so normal, that you just carried on as if you had no preference to two footed walking over a one footed hobble. What if the best your isolated foot could hope for was finding a community of feet where they could be themselves?
That happens in the body of Christ all too often, where we focus so much on specific gifts that others feel shut out, as if they don’t belong. The really awful part is that much of the time we don’t even notice that it’s happening.
We need to notice when some body parts are completely ignored. When I put furniture items back together and there were parts left over, you know what I did? I threw extra parts in the trash. It wasn’t important to me to start over and figure it out. To do that with human beings in Christ’s would be horrifically wrong! Yet it happens often, and sometimes we even act like it’s a blessing when those “superfluous” parts leave.
Look around you in your circles of friends and in your Church. Who can you think of that isn’t plugged into friendships or ministry or community in a way that honors and celebrates who she or he is? Is there a way you can reach out with kindness and rejoice in the specialness of that person’s reflection of the image of God? Don’t wait for him or her to come to you.
When you talk to people, make a point of rejoicing in what makes that person special: how you see God differently because of the unique image displayed in the person across from you.
If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
This is what life in a body is supposed to look like. Too often we sequester suffering, and we restrict honor to those parts deemed socially acceptable to the world around us. None of us can change the body alone, but how we act individually makes the body a healthier place. How can you change your mindset and decision making to be better connected to those who are part of Christ’s body and have a different purpose than yours?