The (No)Body of Christ

For the body does not consist of one member but of many...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? 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 it is there are many parts but one body. (1 Corinthians 12)

I have observed that there is a tendency in groups toward conformity. This dynamic makes a lot of sense for a variety of reasons. For a like-minded collection of people it's simply more comfortable to be uniform. And in the industrial world uniformity is more efficient. As social creatures we are hardwired toward this efficiency. For the sake of the group and its common goals, we are willing to sacrifice our individuality lest it upset progress.

But the Church is just the opposite. The Body of Christ, that amalgamation of Believers in Jesus, is diverse because human beings are diverse. The Church thrives when it is diverse - when it is intentionally and consistently diverse. Which is why the analogy of the human body is so critical to understand. Of course a human body can't function if it's just a mouth, or just an ear. It's absurd. In the same way, it's absurd to think that the Christian Body can function without its members functioning uniquely and fully.

However, that tendency I have observed in groups applies almost without fail to the churches I have attended. Like any like-minded social collective, churches have an interest in efficiency. This is not stated of course, nor is it likely consciously pursued. But it happens. Churches are a fantastic place to witness the opposite development of what Paul admonishes the church in Corinth to pursue.

Most of the time the conformity is focused in the person and personality of the Pastor. Since most churches are formed around the charisma of a single individual, or of a limited group of leaders, that person or group will become the ideal for the church. Their spiritual direction will be the North Star for the congregants. In this way a dominant or charismatic church leadership will invariably work to mold every congregant into whatever body part that leader is. Typically that is a mouth.

I'm not trying to be funny. In churches where the pastor is a great speaker or where speech is valued - where being a mouth is important - the churchgoers will all work to become mouths, and their leaders will lead them there. Imagine being an ear in such a church; you would go nuts, until and unless you were willing to (pretend to) become a mouth. Or imagine being a foot in such a place. No one would have any use for you.

Take any body part and substitute it in the scenario, the outcome is the same. Whatever the church values, that will become the focal point. And we haven't even considered body parts that are broken or sick or severely impaired. An ear with a busted eardrum is a poor performer as an ear; imagine if he tries to be a mouth instead.

This is why Paul implored his friends in Corinth to pursue a diverse body. If everyone is always speaking, no one is listening. A body that is just an ear has no arms to proffer hugs, no shoulders to cry on. A church with a functioning body but no heart? Talk about a waste.

The call for diversity in the church is not a call for diversity in our sense. You can't get all the right ratios of blacks, hispanics, asians and whites in a room and call it "diverse." Without a focus on Jesus and what it means to be his Body, no multicultural group will be able to get there any better than if it were homogenous. Just like a life lived for Jesus is not one of outward appearances, so a Church longing to serve him is not a showcase for our feigned inclusiveness.

Which is not to say that our churches shouldn't be multicultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic. Of course they should, if only for the simple fact that human beings are all of those things. The Church is multi-everything, full of doubters and believers, the powerful and weak, black and white and every shade between, the rich and poor, gay and straight, failing and winning, ready and unready. And every little local body of believers should reflect the diversity of ability and personality that God has created. It should be a Noah's Ark of human spirituality, a place where the lion lies with the lamb and the introvert and the extrovert can still be friends - and where they can encourage and improve one another through the power of Jesus's presence.

Don't settle for uniformity in the church. Don't dismiss Paul's call to diversity as a good idea whose day might come. Don't conform when it's easy, but embrace the awkward for the sake of the better thing that God can do through you and for you.

The Greatest Commandment

I have a hard time with love. I'm not talking about what we might think love is. I'm not saying that I have a hard time with marriage, or with my kids. I'm not saying that I don't have friends, or that those friends can't tell whether I care about them. I don't have difficulty loving people, because truly I do. But in the same breath I can honestly say that I'm not really sure how to love.

I have a hard time with loving the way that Jesus said to love. My guess is I'm not unique in this. In fact, I'm fairly certain that this is an inherent human experience. We are selfish, we are self-centered. This doesn't mean that we really love ourselves, it just means that we are focused on ourselves. When you're focused on yourself, you have not focus left for God. When you don't have time for God, you don't have time for anyone else.

When Jesus was asked by a skeptic to name the greatest commandment, he gave two answers. "The Greatest Commandment," he said, "is to love God with all that you feel, all that you think, and all that you physically are." This was his first answer, and to the skeptical lawyers and religious leaders who were drilling him, this was probably acceptable. However, he immediately added a second commandment:

"'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commandments are pegs; everything in God's Laws and the Prophets hang on them." (The Message)

The first and greatest commandment is taken from one of the central religious texts of Israel, specifically from Deuteronomy 6:5. There is no doubt that the Pharisee who asked this questions agreed with the answer to an extent, but possibly not in principle. He may have had a different opinion in fact, such as circumcision or sacrifice. Maybe he agreed but wouldn't admit it for fear of his peers. Maybe he would have thought any answer Jesus gave was wrong. Whatever he thought, he probably wasn't expecting the second commandment.

This is, to me, the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom Among Us in a nutshell: love God with all that you are and love everyone else, too. And I love it. I love how stripped down and simple it is. I love that this command draws us to God, but also draws us to each other. I love that it also points us to ourselves and reminds us that we are worth loving and that we should love ourselves. If you have ever needed an explanation of who God is, everything you need is contained in this (these) Greatest Commandment(s).

Just as much as I love this command, I shrink from it. Like most everything that I do in my life, I don't understand why I shrink from it, but I do. I think that I shrink because I don't want to screw up. For example, I don't believe that I really do love God with all that I am. There are times when I don't love Him with much of what I am at all. More than that, the times when I don't love people around me seem to outnumber the times when I ignore God. I'm much more inclined to forget my neighbor than God, especially if I'm scared that God will get mad at me for forgetting him.

And therein lies the power, beauty and heart-rending truth of Jesus's Greatest Commandment. It's not enough to love God with everything I have and forget my neighbor. They are mutual expressions. I cannot love God without loving my neighbor. These two expressions are the foundation of faith, of life with God. You can't be a people-hater and please God. You can't be a people-lover if you hate yourself. Following this equation through mathematically we find that:

Loving God < Loving God + Loving Others ONLY IF Loving Others = Loving Yourself

It's not that loving God isn't primary, because it is. Jesus said so. What Jesus is expressing, what he is establishing as truth, what he is forcing the Religious to accept since they ignore it, is that we can't love God unless we love others AND ourselves. How could we be capable of showing God love if we don't show love to those whom He created?

This is why I have a hard time with love, because through Jesus Christ I know that love requires me to give everything I am over to it. With all my mind, heart and physicality I am called to care for anyone and everyone, including God. To put it simply, this is impossible.

Except that, with God, nothing is impossible. At least nothing that He calls us to.

God has called us to this love. Through the life and voice of Jesus His son he shows and tells that this is the way to love and the way to live. It is His Way, and it is supremely important. And it is doable because He makes us able. When you give over your heart, mind and body to loving this way, God fills in the gaps. He gives the emotional support and empathy. He provides the vision and peaceful thinking. He gives words and intelligence, urges us to give a hug when it's needed, to hold back when it's not. To pat shoulders and say "attaboy" at the perfect time. If God is love, then turning to Him is the best way to learn how to do it. Which is why turning to Him is the Greatest Commandment.

The truth is not that I have a hard time with love, but that I have a hard time with selflessness. And selfless is possibly the most important thing to be. That's what Jesus did. That's what he said. The most selfless man who lived, who said of his murderers, "Forgive them." In selflessness love resides. And God is always love.