01-26-2025

“EACH PART IS IMPORTANT”

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sunday January 26th, 2025 – Epiphany 3

Trinity – Creston

 

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

 

       Our text for this 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany is from 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

 

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind that each of us is some you created and gave your life for on the cross.  Help us to use the talents and abilities you give us to serve our neighbor and understand that all vocations that are not opposed to your word have value. Amen.

 

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

 

Perhaps you’ve seen one of those spoof maps of the United States, like the New York or Texas maps. In the New York map, the cartographer is a couple of miles off the coast to the east of New York City looking west. The city fills most of the map, and everything west of the Hudson River in the distant horizon is simply labeled “uncivilized territory.”

 

In the parallel Texas map, the northern edge of the Panhandle almost reaches to the Canadian border, while El Paso is nearly to the Pacific Ocean and Texarkana is about the same distance from the Atlantic.

 

Texas is almost the whole country, while all the other states occupy the slim margins around Texas. (These spoof maps are available for all states and even some cities I’m sure.)

 

Something like this is going on in the Corinthian idea of the Body of Christ. In their divisiveness, each faction thought they could redesign the church, the Body of Christ, such that their own place in it eclipsed everyone else, but

God Knew What He Was Doing
When He Designed the Body.

I.

If, instead of a map, we could draw a picture of the Corin­thian Church, it would be all about a human body divided, maybe along the absurd lines of a surreal painting, or perhaps the exaggeration of a political cartoon.

 

 

But that’s not how our Lord designed his Body, the church. God knew what he was doing when he designed the body. Paul wrote his letter so that “there be no divisions among [them]” (1:10). Here in our Epistle for today, he says the very same thing (v 25), “that there may be no division in the body.”

 

Even when Jesus as the Lamb of God was being killed for the sins of the world, his bones were not broken and his body was not divided. Do you suppose that’s a thoughtless coincidence? Again, “that there may be no division in the body.” Do you think this is important to Paul? More importantly, do you think this is important to our Lord?

 

So why should this matter to you? It matters because we’re all predisposed to see ourselves as members of that Body in one of two distorted—and therefore divided—ways: (1) either we labor with a misplaced sense of inferiority, or (2) we labor with a misplaced sense of superiority.

 

It’s just so easy to diss those who have an elevated view of themselves, and evidently, there were lots of such people in the church of Corinth.  If you read 1 Corinthians cover to cover, you’ll see that Paul has already been giving these people a spanking. But here in chapter 12, he starts with those who are living with feelings of inferiority.

 

“Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” or “because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body” (vv 15–16). It’s a brilliant maneuver on Paul’s part because it forces those with feelings of superiority to empathize with those who suffer feelings of inferiority. It gets them off their high horse without knowing that has happened. So gracious!

 

But both groups need the stinging word of God’s Law. The person who says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” is accusing the Lord of bad design. It’s a full-on violation of the First Commandment. Beyond that, this person, by his ongoing groveling, is enabling the person whose head is exploding with his or her greatness to dive just that much deeper into his or her delusional parallel universe.

 

Just to recap: Love God! Oops, failed there. Love the neighbor! Oops, failed there too. Feelings of inferiority are not to be confused with humility. Indeed, many people control others with their disabilities or their grievances.

 

But God most certainly knew what he was doing when he designed the body. Verses 18–19: “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 hideous as surreal paintings can be, they force us to reckon with that question.

All of which brings us to the absurdity of those who have feelings of superiority. Verse 21: “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.’ ”

 

Yes, you do! Every member of the body needs every other member of the body. That’s how bodies are made. God knew what he was doing when he designed the body. If the hand does not reach for the bag of carrots, the eye will not receive the vitamin A contained in those carrots so necessary to eye health. God knew what he was doing when he designed the body.

II.

A balanced and wholesome understanding of the body and its members is heard when the psalmist says to the Lord: “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance” (Ps 139:13–16).

 

Look! We were all “baptized into one body” (v 13). We were incorporated into that one Body by means of Baptism, a Baptism that we all share. That Body happens to be the Body of Christ. Let that sink in!

 

The difference between an eyeball and a spleen pales in comparison to the difference between what we all were by nature and the grandeur and glory of what we all are now as members of that one Body of Christ.

 

So the psalmist can say, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Ps 84:10). No doubt this truth inspired Josua Wegelin to write, “For where the Head is”—that would be Jesus—“For where the Head is, there as well I know His members are to dwell When Christ will come and call them” (LSB 492:1).

 

Whatever your abilities and gifts, flashy or pedestrian, whatever your checkered past, if you are in Christ by Baptism, you are a treasured member of the most exalted Body in the entire cosmos.

 

Just as Christ has a Body, of which you are a member by Baptism, so you, too, have a body with members. You know how this works. The pancreas doesn’t say to you, “I was a good boy today. Will you please reward me by giving me two ounces of sautéed spinach?”

 

No! You give your body what it needs. If it needs water, you give it water. If it needs rest, you lie down and pull the covers over you. If it needs fresh air, you step outside. You relate to your body by providing for its needs. You relate to your body by providing gifts.

 

In that vein, Paul shows us an hors d’oeuvre buffet table just to whet the appetite for “higher gifts” (v 31), those being apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various kinds of tongues 
(v 28).

 

All of those gifts are given to ensure “that there may be no division in the body,” because they are there to get the greatest and most necessary gift of all to you, Jesus himself, so that you could be in him.

 

Sometime this afternoon, stand in front of the mirror and take a good look. Don’t let your eyes deceive you. Speak to that person: “You are a marvelous new creation because and only because you have been baptized into the one Body of Christ.”

 

Yes, God most certainly knew what he was doing when he designed the body, and you are part of that design. Amen.

 

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.