January 21, 2007

Try Doing It with No Hands
 

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Story about the Burkini – Swimsuits that cover enough of the body to allow Muslim women to enjoy the beach and serve as lifeguards.

Story operates on two levels. One, it’s a story about not excluding Muslim women from working as lifeguards or enjoying the beach for religious reasons. Muslim women are able to rescue drowning swimmers just as well as white women. Riots in December 2005 over this very question.

Second, Muslim women cover parts of their body which they believe are unpresentable in order to honor those parts. This is relevant to us as we look at the passage for today because Paul talks about that very idea. Which parts do we expose to the world, and which do we cover? Are the parts we expose more important than the ones we cover, or do we cover certain parts of our bodies because they deserve more honor?

I know, it sounds like an odd question, and some of you may be thinking, “Who cares? During the month of January I’m going to cover every part of my body for fear of frostbite.” As you’ll see in a minute, Paul is really asking these kinds of questions because they are an analogy to other issues.

Specifically he thinks those questions about which body parts we cover and which ones we expose are a lot like the questions a church has to answer for itself when the congregation thinks about which person will play which role in the church.

I know, this is sounding really confusing for the moment, but I’ll try and clear this all up for you. IF you were here last Sunday, you’ll remember that I preached on the passage that leads up to this one. I told you that Paul wrote this letter to the church on Corinth in order to settle some questions and help them resolve some problems they were experiencing.

The problem Paul wants to address at this point, in chapter 12-14, is that people had experienced certain heightened abilities to do things they were not normally able to do. They believed they were given to the power to do those things by the Holy Spirit. The problem is that some people thought their gifts were better than the gifts of others, even though everyone received those gifts from the same Holy Spirit.

Apparently, people who were enabled by the Holy Spirit to speak in other languages were somehow able to convince everyone else that speaking on other tongues was the most important gift. Some people even said that you couldn’t be a Christian unless you spoke in tongues.

As you might imagine, when people came to that conclusion, everyone started trying to speak in tongues, even if they weren’t empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so. The worship became a disorderly mess with people speaking out of turn and making all kinds of distracting noises that they claimed were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Paul explains to them that those who speak in tongues should not be considered as greater than others, and those who do not speak in tongues should not consider themselves inferior. He reminds them that in the church, all of the distinctions they normally had to recognize between different people were no longer relevant.

People could not say that Jews were better than Greeks in the church. They couldn’t say that free people were better than slaves. They couldn’t say that men were better than women. Those distinctions didn’t hold water in the church.

And if that is so, then certainly they couldn’t say, “Well, I speak in tongues, so the role I play in the church is more important than yours because you don’t speak in tongues.” Since they received those gifts from the same source, the Holy Spirit, no one could say his or her gift was greater than the next person’s gift.

Now if that wasn’t clear enough, Paul tries to illustrate the absurdity of his point by using the analogy of a human body. He asks the congregation to imagine themselves as a human body. Each person in the congregation is a particular body part, but every person is connected to the same body.

Paul goes on to say that someone who feels inferior or left out because they don’t speak in tongues would be like a person’s foot saying, “Since I’m not a hand, I’m really not a part of this body.” That’s ridiculous. It would be like an ear saying, “Since I’m not an eye, I’m not a part of this body.” Again, that’s nonsense, and none of us would think of our body parts in that way.

If the only body parts we had were eyes, we wouldn’t be able to hear anything. That wouldn’t be very good. And if the only body parts we had were ears, we wouldn’t be able to smell anything, and that’s no good either. In fact, we have all these body parts, and the different parts were designed by God to work together and depend on one another.

Paul also looks at this analogy from the other side as a way of challenging those folks who thought speaking in tongues was the only way to prove you were a Christian. He says an eye can’t say to a hand, “You’re not an eye. I don’t need you.” Our heads cannot say to our feet, “Because you’re not a head, I don’t need you.”

I know, it sounds ridiculous to me too. But when someone in a church says to another person in a church, “Because you’re not like me, you don’t belong here”, in effect he or she is doing the exact same thing.

Here’s where we get to the part about the burkinis. Paul mentions the fact that there are some body parts which we expose to the world. Depending on your culture, you probably expose your hands, your face, in the summer you may expose your legs and your arms.

There are other body parts you don’t expose. Instead, we clothe those parts because they are private. Paul says even those choices are God’s design. We give more honor to our private parts by clothing them. And the parts we expose to the public do not need that kind of honor. Except in January in Wisconsin where you are afraid to even expose your face to the outside sometimes.

Paul says the same thing holds true for a church. Some people have gifts which are highly visible. When someone in the Corinthian church spoke in tongues, it became a big spectacle and everyone knew it. Other people exercised their gifts and no one knew about it.

Does that mean speaking in tongues in more important because everyone sees it? Of course not. Paul will tell you that people who work behind the scenes in this case are just as important even though no one sees them.

To further illustrate his point, Paul says that when one body part is damaged or sick, the rest of the body suffers with it. Just imagine how much agony someone suffers when something as small as your little toe is broken or infected. How much pain do you suffer when something as small as a tooth is hurts. Your whole body is in agony, not just the tooth.

On the other hand, when one part of your body feels good, the rest of your body feels better. Let’s say you call your friendly neighborhood massage therapist and ask for a massage. The therapist may just work on a kink in your back, but once it’s been worked out, the rest of your body feels better also. I know that sounds like a commercial, but it’s really not.

Paul says the same thing applies to a church. When one person in a church suffers, the rest of the church suffers with them. When one person experiences success or joy, the rest of the church benefits and celebrates with them. Or at least, that’s how Paul said it ought to be in a church.

He ends this very important chapter by saying that just like the body, God has created the church with various parts that work together and depend on one another. There are a variety of roles played by a variety of people in the church.

Everyone should be happy to play the role he or she has been given by God. And no one should try and switch roles because they think one role is more important than another.

You may be nodding your head at this point and say, “Well that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” You’d think so. But sometimes we have a way of putting certain people in the church up on a pedestal while relegating other to inferior status.

We sometimes tend to believe that most of the health and success of a church revolves around the performance of the pastor, maybe the musicians, possibly the treasurer or the chair of the Deacon or Trustee board. If those folks are doing their jobs right, most of the rest of the church falls into place and functions.

We spend all kinds of time and money searching for the right pastor. We go through a lengthy process of screening and interviews. And I think all of that is very important. Churches need to go through that process.

But almost no church goes through that kind of process to select a chair of Trustees or Deacons or a Sunday School Teacher. It’s so hard to fill those kinds of positions that we don’t want to scare off potential candidates. Does that mean my job is more important than everyone else’s? Can I do my job regardless of what anyone else does or doesn’t do in the church?

I don’t think so. My role is no more important or honorable in the church than the role of the person who mops the floor or makes the coffee or visits the shut-ins or cares for the children while we worship. And I can’t do my role without being dependent on others to perform their role.

Yes, my role tends to pay better than those other roles. But that isn’t a reason for me to look down on other people or think of myself as better than them. Instead, I focus on the fact that I’m only as good as the people who surround me. Without them, I’m like a lifeless, dismembered body part.

I want to share something with you that relates to what I’m saying this morning. Most of you remember that when I was called here as a pastor, one of my main goals was to develop a contemporary worship service for this congregation.

You probably also remember that the service we started didn’t go so well. I really had no experience leading that kind of service. We really could never attract a lot of people, attendance was poor, and we finally gave up on it. Part of the reason why I think it didn’t work was because we as a congregation were saying to ourselves, “Well, this really isn’t our kind of thing. But the experts tell us we have to do this in order to keep the doors open.

We really weren’t listening to our own congregation about its readiness and its needs. We were just trying to do what other people did because they insisted it worked. Well it didn’t for us. I figured I wouldn’t waste any more time and energy with a worship service no one wants to attend.

I figured if this body of Christ ever decided they wanted a contemporary service again, they would have to be the ones pushing it, not me. And I was pretty unsupportive when people would say, “Hey, I wonder if we should start one of those services again.”

Meanwhile I continued working with the praise band and just trying to develop that ministry with no real specific goal in mind other than helping them become whoever it was they thought God wanted them to become.

Well, a couple months ago I had dinner with Hector over at Famous Dave’s, and he told me he thought we were ready to start preparing for another contemporary service. We talked about why the last one didn’t work and how we could make this one work. Despite my doubts, he convinced me to at least consider the idea.

So I went around to some of the other younger folks in the congregation and broached the idea. The response was very positive. If we had this service on a Sunday morning during Sunday School, their kids could be in Sunday School while they attended the contemporary service.

At the same time, I had heard some talk of interest in looking at church growth strategies from many different people. I knew the church retreat was coming up in January, so I asked the Deacons if they wanted to spend this retreat exploring those kinds of questions. Next Saturday we will be talking about ways to reach out to the community, including the startup of a contemporary service. Again, not my idea.

Then I sat down with the praise band and said, “This contemporary service is on the table. I’m not asking you to play every week. I’m wondering if you’re interested in playing once a month or so.” They told me not only would they do that, but they would also play special music for this service once a month too.

Wow, I thought. This is unexpected. I realized, along with others, that if this was going to work, the service was going to have to take place in the basement. So we looked at what we needed to do with the basement in order to make it attractive enough for people to want to worship there.

We needed lighting. Well, during Christmas break, Michelle’s father was here, and he’s a retired electrician. He volunteered to put up two ceiling fans with lights. The place is a lot brighter now. Justin, who is a professional carpenter, volunteered to build and extension to the stage so we would have enough room down there to have a band and lead the worship service.

I called Tami, a professional architect, to ask about an unrelated matter, and she said she wanted to help us get floor painted. She said a brighter color would reflect the lights better and everything would look a lot nicer.

We needed some lighting for the stage itself. Well, Dennis had volunteered this humungous lamp which actually can arch over the back of the stage and provide a lot of light. So I got that situated.

I looked at the mural on the wall which has been half done for two years and thought, “Jeez this really ought to get finished.” So I called Claude and asked if he was interested in finishing it. He was happy to do so, and he started working on it right away.

Keep in mind, none of this was my idea. It wasn’t my idea to extend the stage or add ceiling fans or paint the floor or even to talk about a contemporary service. This is going to happen not because I’m some great leader, which I’m not, but because we as a body are connected to each other and because we value the gifts each person brings to the community.

I can’t say to someone in the congregation, “Because you’re not a pastor, I don’t need you.” God uses the gifts of everyone in the congregation and each one of us is just as important as the other person.

That’s part of what makes being a Baptist so special. If I thought I was better than other people because I’m a pastor, I know these other people wouldn’t have been willing to put forth this kind of effort. We don’t draw that kind of line between clergy and laypeople. My function as a pastor is certainly different from yours. But I need you as much as a heart needs a brain and muscles need nerves.

We are a body. We belong together. We work well together. I’ll hurt when you hurt and vice versa. I’ll celebrate when you celebrate and vice versa. I’ll appreciate what you do for me and I know you’ll do the same. We’ll grow together, we’ll mature together, and we’ll support one another.

We’re like the whole fryer chicken rather than just chicken wings or chicken breasts. We wouldn’t be where we are today without each other. And if we’re going to move forward as a congregation and do the things God is calling us to do, we’ll have to do it by working together under the power of the same Holy Spirit.