27th January 2013 Epiphany 3
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Epiphany 3 (Year C)
27-1-13
Pastor Lester Priebbenow
Life in the Body of Christ
1 Cor. 12:12-27 [ESV Anglicised]
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 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. 16 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. 17 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? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
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." 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honourable we bestow the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honour to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Last Sunday we focussed on the verses immediately preceding this passage where Paul, the founding apostle of the Corinthian church, addressed a question about the validity of certain supernatural gifts that were evident among its members. His answer, put very simply, was that the "gift" of the Holy Spirit Himself always brings glory to Jesus, so his genuine "gifts" will do the same.
Today's passage answers a further question: How do God's gifts best bring glory to Jesus? Paul's answer is: Christ is glorified in the church when each person's gift is seen as a function of Christ's body – the Church – and when it is valued and works as part of that body. To make that point he uses the illustration of a human body with all its parts working together.
Lately some of you might have been watching a bit of tennis.