The neck bone's connected to the....

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

(entering shaking as many hands as possible)....

There are 206 bones, 639 muscles, 6 pounds of skin, and a whole bunch of tendons, ligaments, veins, arteries, and  other stuff in the human body.  Day in and day out, we don’t give a single one of them even a cursory thought.  But think, for just a moment, how truly amazing the human body is.  Think about how powerful it is.  Think of what it took for me to walk down here and come speak to some of y’all.  It started in my head; I had to think “I’m going to walk down here and I’m going to greet a few people”.  Then my brain sent signals to my feet and legs to start moving, taking steps forward and down; my feet and legs moved in such a way that kept me balanced, upright, and propelled forward.  Then the muscles in my neck turned my head and I smiled as my lungs forced air over my vocal cords to make sound and my arm extended my hand which them grasped your hand and squeezed.  And that’s the simple version of it!  But all of these things have to work together, seamlessly, parts in a whole working together for the common good. 

But it always isn’t as easy, pleasant, or graceful as it happened for me this morning.  There were so many opportunities for problems:  I could have tripped over my own two feet, I could have fumbled my words, I could have made the handshake awkward, the speed or volume of my speech may not have been what I wanted it to be.  That ever happened to you? 

Well, what if one day all your muscles, tendons, bones, nerves, and stuff decide they’re tired of taking orders from that bossy old brain.  There it sits…high up on that mountain, not doing a thing except barking out orders to us and not just barking these orders, but nit-picking and micro-managing how we do them!  ENOUGH! 

Rebellion is at hand….or afoot.  They couldn’t decide.

So the brain says stand up, and the legs say no.  The brain says speak, the mouth says no.  And we’re at a standstill.

Then, all these parts that are rebelling against the brain start getting a little self-assure.  Cocky…if you will.  They stop appreciating each other.  The mouth starts to realize that all this time the stomach has acted so haughty…but without the mouth, the stomach doesn’t get the food it needs to do its job.  The neck feels worthless because it’s only job is to hold up and turn the head and starts to covet the feet, who move the whole body.  The feet decide it’s not fair that the other set of appendages, the hands, get to greet everybody and they start sticking themselves out when other people are encountered.  Before you know it, this once unified and cohesive body now resembles Ace Ventura…pet detective (as portrayed by Jim Carrey in the 90’s).  A big, ridiculous mess. 

And as they fight amongst themselves, they start to realize how good it was when they were together.  Because, you see, the brain actually did more than just tell them what to do.  The brain was a cheer leader, an encourager, a motivator, directing this massive orchestra of traffic and movement into one seamless, graceful body.  One by one, they came to realize that what they did mattered.  There was joy to be found in each of their gifts.  They were interconnected, and dependent on each other, and not only is that a good thing, but it’s a thing filled with its own blessings.    

These, apparently, were a people at strife.  They just couldn’t get it together it seemed.  Who knows why.  Maybe they were all kin; it’s not at all uncommon to have communities in the south that are comprised of primarily one central family.  Like Lynchburg…or Chapel Hill.  Maybe they were people who had congregated together out of similarity…sometimes that can work against people.    Maybe the church was so poorly organized that there was a “power vacuum” and everyone was vying for that “top spot”.  Maybe there was too much jealousy over talents, and gifts, and roles or positions within the church. 

I think, maybe, it was all of these things. 

We each are given gifts from the Spirit; the catch is, we don’t get to make requests.  These gifts come from the Spirit as the Spirit sees fit.  Sometimes it’s what you want…sometimes it isn’t what you want…and sometimes, it’s something you don’t want at all…and because of that, you deny it and suppress it. 

I’ve always wanted to sing.  We have some really talented folks in this church that can really make some beautiful music with their voices.  I’ve never been able to do that.  It’s not by mistake that I back up, then back up some more away from the pulpit mic during the song service…and you’ve probably noticed my OCD kick in when I double and triple check the wireless mic just to make sure it’s not on.  As much as I’ve always wanted, singing was never given to me as a gift.  Instead, the Spiritual Gifts inventory told me I had gifts in teaching, and speaking, and administration, and shepherding, and suffering (who wants suffering as a spiritual gift?!?). 

So when you deny your gifts, either because you’d prefer something else or these gifts scare you, what happens?  A lot of things.  You were given these gifts for a purpose, and when you deny these gifts, that purpose goes unfulfilled.  When that purpose goes unfulfilled, it’s like a rock thrown in a pond.  The ripple can travel for miles…and the absence of your gifts, these special things given to you by the Spirit of God, are felt throughout the entire Kingdom of believers. 

Not only do our gifts give us purpose, they make us belong.  They knit and weave us together into one unified…well, body.  These gifts bring us together in a way that your gifts of administration overlap with your gifts of teaching, which impact your gifts of service and exhortation, and the chain reaction keeps going, and going….

So our gifts give us purpose, they make us belong; and those two things lead to what you and I are responsible for:  participation.  It’s one thing to receive and accept your gifts, but a totally different thing to use those gifts within the Body of Christ in communion with a community of other believers.  Lots of things keep us from living into our connection with the body:  intimidation, bashfulness, feeling like there’s not a place for me…and sometimes we who are involved in this community of believers get so caught up in our jobs and our tasks and our own gifts that we don’t realize just how much we depend on each other and when new people come in, we don’t see the harm we may be doing by not encouraging and including and maybe even realizing their potential more than they do and pushing them a little when necessary.  Just as the feet give us foundation and the legs propel us forward and the backbone keeps up standing upright and the hands and arms move about us fulfilling their jobs…we each have our purpose as an individual and as members, together, in the Body of Christ.

When parts of our body stop working together and start working against each other, we recognize the problem and we go to the doctor.  We need our bodies to work, and work at the top of their game.  We don’t need our liver working against our kidneys, working against our heart.  So, then, why do we allow it to happen in the body of Christ?  Even worse, why are we guilty of orchestrating this chaos and dysfunction?  Why do we continue to, like the Corinthians, cause our own strife and discord?  Why do we value others higher and devalue others and for whatever reason fail to love our neighbor even as we are loved?

We need to stop seeing individuals, and start seeing the body of Christ.  People connected through the waters of baptism as siblings.  And we need to treat this body – this collection of people – with the same respect we treat our own bodies.

I want to leave you with a thought:  When you think of the word “church”, what context do you think of it in?  Are you a “go to church” kind of person, or are you a “we are the church” kind of person?

I bring you this message in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.