Day of the Church Year: 3rd Sunday after Epiphany
Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
You are the body of Christ, the Apostle Paul writes, and individually members of it. In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word “you” here is plural, not singular. The Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, who established Christian churches throughout the known world of the first century, who more than any other person is responsible for the flourishing of the Christian faith, writes that we-collectively-are the body of Christ. Paul writes to the Christian church in Corinth that, even two thousand years ago, was pulled apart by a spirit of individualism.
As just one example among several in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, some of the Corinthian Christians want to eat meat sacrificed to idols. Now, these Christians know that the idols are false, that the sacrifice is meaningless, that the meat is simply food to satiate hunger. Paul affirms: “We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” However, other members of the Corinthian church struggle to understand this. Corinth is a cosmopolitan city in Greece, and many who join the Christian community there had engaged, like nearly everyone else, in sacrifices to what they now consider idols. In seeking to follow Jesus, eating meat sacrificed to idols causes them to stumble for they are still growing in faith, still finding the way of Jesus. And so, a controversy arises in the Corinthian church. The Christians who wish to eat meat without any risk to their faith believe it is their individual right to do so, but according to the Apostle Paul, individual rights or personal freedoms are secondary to the good of the whole. Paul strongly advises them, therefore, to refrain from eating meat sacrificed to idols—not because eating such meat is profane but because eating the meat disregards the needs of others.
You-plural-are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
A wild imagination is not required to see how Paul’s writing might be relevant to us today. Just because something doesn’t personally, directly impact us doesn’t mean it’s not important. As Paul writes in today’s reading, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” For us, the freedom to eat meat sacrificed to idols no longer tops the list of individual rights we may assert. But we well know the individual freedoms we assert on a daily basis, and we can also easily bring to mind accommodations we make for others that are not relevant to our own lives. We may not need handicap parking spaces or sturdy railings alongside stairs, but we certainly know others who do. We may be healthy, free from chronic illness, and have access to high-quality medical care, all of which may lead us to a sense of freedom with Covid-19 restrictions, but we know this is not true for everyone. We are privileged to live in virtually the only place in the United States that does not annually experience life-threatening weather events exacerbated by climate change, with the exception of extreme heat, but how we steward the land on which we live still impacts watersheds and animals, other people right now and fairly soon in the future we ourselves. We may not be a teacher or have a student in the local school system, but how we support our young people—or not—in their education impacts us and all those we love because those children will one day be the scientists, doctors, business owners, artists, and leaders we need for a healthy society. We may believe we are too busy to nurture community whether at church or in our neighborhood, too busy to show up for our friends, too busy to serve others which nurtures a compassionate society, too busy to concern ourselves with public policy and voting, and we are free to do that. But that also means community, whether church, neighborhood, and even nation, disintegrates for us all.
In our individualistic culture, I think the common good gets a bad rap—as if caring deeply about the world beyond ourselves and the ones we intimately love were an altruistic endeavor filled with sacrifice, pain, and deprivation. Friends, nothing could be further from the truth, at least in my experience! Why do I love Grace? Love this nation? Love my neighborhood? Seeking the common good with the gifts the Holy Spirit has poured out on us brings us into relationship with so many people and all creation. We learn, and we grow. We lift up others and are lifted up. When we fall, many reach out to catch us. When we rejoice, many rejoice with us and increase our joy. When we use our time to serve, to help out another, we gain perhaps more than the person we assisted. When we live in community with one another instead of isolating ourselves, we end up being blessed by connection—and so do others.
This is the way God created us—to live in community. And according to Paul, this is why God gave us gifts at all—to seek the common good. We are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Thanks be to God! Amen.