How much do you know about the human body?
How many cells do you think make up your body?
The body is composed of about 100,000 billion cells. That’s 100 million million cells!
There are about 100,000 miles of blood vessels in an adult’s body. That means they would circle the equator four times.
You breathe enough air throughout your lifetime to fill 10 million balloons
I am going to go a bit gross now –
The body’s bacteria could fill a soup tin.
Your ears never stop growing!
The tongue is covered in about 8,000 taste-buds, each containing up to 100 cells helping you taste your food!
The average nose produces about a cupful of nasal mucus every day!
Our bodies are an amazing work of God’s Creation – the way different parts from tiny cells or blood vessels to – well think of our hearts – a muscle that keeps us going.
Every time you raise a finger or take a step, an infinite number of cells and nerves interact to produce that seemingly simple movement.
So you can see why Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, used this as a metaphor, something to help people think differently about themselves and others. Because there was rather a competitive spirit amongst those in the church. Gifts that were given for the good of the whole community were being used to compete for honour whilst saying to others – we do not need you, or your gifts are not as good, or important.
Come on, says Paul. Let us think in a new way. You don’t need to be the most important. This competition is not healthy. This dismissing of others – this is not healthy. Why not think of yourselves as one body, whose health and life and flourishing depends upon co-operation and connection with others.
It turns out that you can be extremely gifted and fabulous – that is clear from Paul’s letters, but as human beings, as the Corinthians demonstrated, you can be infantile in their ability to live together in love (Jane Williams).
We are all connected together, by baptism – sharing the same water, the same promise, the same Spirit and so are all equally part of the same body. Different, but equally part of the same body – and as we begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity it is important to hold that in our hearts, looking out to others, even those who seem so different from us.
We need each other to grow and learn of God.
Each one of us are important and valuable to the health of the church, to the health of the community. Let us celebrate each other.
Today we celebrate Allen’s relicensing in his ministry of Reader. This does not mean he has not been used by God in many good ways over the last 4 years, but today is a good day to give thanks that the skills he has are being used in the Church in a specific role. I hope seeing Allenn living out his calling will encourage you to celebrate your gifts and each others.
I wonder, if I put a giant drawing of a body in the church and asked you where you are in the body – I wonder where you would put yourself and why? And lets get away from any idea of the top job being the head, whilst the hands and feet do all the slog!! Maybe you would be a brain, but brains still need those veins taking important supplies of oxygen. Would you be a hand gently lifting up and helping others whilst also needing the comforting hand of another, feet taking the Good News out to others or walking alongside. Maybe you would be a big toe, essential for balance. Maybe you are the mouth, encouraging others, or speaking out for justice. It is an image to help you think of your gifts that are so valuable no matter how small you think they are, and also an image to help us value each other in all our differences.
As Christians, as we look at the Bible, we cannot escape the fact that community is basic to any attempt to understand God. There is only so far we can get with a personal, private knowledge of God. Look at God – the Trinity. We are made for relationship with God and with each other – everything is interconnected
Isn’t it true, as Richard Rohr says, that Jesus never operated as an independent “I” but only as a “thou” in relationship to his Father and the Holy Spirit. God is love, which means relationship itself.
—Richard Rohr
That is our calling too. The Christian body that Paul is urging for will be shown in how it acts and reacts with others. Not to reinforce a hierarchy, but rather the importance of deep unity of the whole body, with each part cared for by the others.
So whether you are a blood vessel, a tongue, a poseable thumb as the body of Christ together we will do as he did – mirroring and sharing that love – if we long to be the Body of Christ, we can do no other. Amen.