Body Parts

       Three survivors of a shipwreck are adrift on the ocean in a lifeboat for many days.  One day, a bottle floats by.  When they grab it and uncork it, a genie appears.  “You have liberated me,” says the genie.  “For that, I will give each of you one wish.”  One man says, “I wish I was back home with my sweetheart in New York ” – and he is gone.  The second man says, “I wish I could return to my family in Los Angeles .”  With that he is gone.  The third man says, “Oh, I’m so lonely.  I wish my friends were back again.”

       We need to be very careful what we wish for for one another.  What we want for each other and what we want from each other makes a difference, because we are connected to one another.

       In Colossians 3:13-14, Paul talks about the garments of grace that we are to put on – compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  These are the things that make is possible for us to live together in Christian community.  The most important, Paul says in verse 14, is love.  For it is love that is the perfect bond of unity.

       Finally, in verse 15, we come to the reason all of this is absolutely indispensable.    Here Paul reminds us that our life together is not a matter of choice.  It is not an optional extra.   Our life together is not a mistake or the result of a chance encounter.  We have actually been called together by God Himself to form something very special – the body of Jesus Christ.

       The scriptures say that the church is not an organization.  We are an organism.  We live and breathe and grow together.  In fact, we are the body of Jesus Christ.  And this has a profound impact on the way we live.

        Now here in Colossians Paul does not go into detail about this body.  He mentions it kind of  in passing – as a given.  But in Ephesians 4:15-16 and 1 Corinthians 12, Paul fleshes out what he treats in shorthand here in Colossians 3.

       From these scriptures we see that for us to be part of  the body of Christ means that we need each other.  We cannot go it alone.  It’s hard to be a hand without an arm.  It’s pointless to be a foot without a leg.  Each part is needed.

       Paul drives home this principle of interdependence in 1 Corinthians 12.   He first encourages those who don’t think they are needed in the church: “If the foot should say ‘because I am not a hand I don’t belong to the body,’ does that alter the fact that the foot is a part of the body?  If the body were all one eye, where would be the sense of hearing?  If it were all one ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But God has arranged all the parts in one body according to His design.”

       Howard Hendricks writes in Say it with Love: “Do you know which bones are the smallest in the human body?  There are three of them, and they are located in your middle ear.  The average medical student finds them only with difficulty: the malleus, incus, and the stapes.  You hear through these three bones only when they are in proper functioning order.”

       Hendricks writes:  “One of the most exciting surgeries I have ever witnessed is what is called a stapedectomy.  It’s an operation performed on the third smallest of these bones.  I watched a man operated on who had not heard anything for 26 years.  The patient was under partial anesthesia, and as the surgeon was about to join the bones, he said, “Howie, keep talking as I join the bones, and keep your eyes glued to his eyes.”  The instant the surgeon joined those bones, the man’s eyes got like saucers.  He said, “W-w-hat’s that?  Who’s talking?  Why …that’s me!  That’s my voice I hear?”  Tears streamed down the man’s face, and a nurse wiped them away with some gauze.

         That staphes is certainly a crucial little piece of bone.

         In the same way, size does not determine the significance of the members in the body of Christ.  A Christian may belittle herself because he’s not an “arm.”  But she may be as a “stapes” for clearly transmitting communications. She is an essential part of the body.

        In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul also humbles those who are overly proud of their particular place.  He writes that there are many parts but there is still only one body.  So that the eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”   Paul explains that those parts of the body that have no obvious function to the casual observer are essential to health.  Other parts which look beautiful may not be at all essential to life -- like hair.  Some of us are starting to discover that we can get along without it. 

       In the body what happens in one part affects other parts. 

       Last winter I injured this tendon in my hand while pruning roses.  I have tough roses in my yard.  Whenever it started to throb, my whole body got the message.  A tiny hole in your tooth affects the way your whole body feels.  In the same way, a glass of cold lemonade entering your stomach affects the way your whole body feels on a hot, sticky day. 

       The same is true of the body of Christ.  We affect each other.  This is why we share with each other what God is doing in our lives.  Your religious experience is deeply personal but it is not private.  I need to hear your story…to hear how God is dealing with you…for how He deals with you will influence me.

       In the same way, the sin of one member of the body will affect other members.  This is true even of a secret sin.  We can hide our sin from each other but we cannot keep it from affecting each other.  So there is really no such thing as secret sin.

       Some men were out in a rowboat.  One man became lost in thought and started carving away with his knife at the bottom of the boat.  Suddenly one of the other men saw and yelled, “Stop that!  You’re cutting a hole in the bottom of the boat!  The fellow with the knife replied, “I’m cutting this hole under my seat, so mind your own business.”

       But a hole in any part of a boat is everybody’s business.  The same is true of a body and the church as the body of Christ.  If one part of a body becomes cancerous, it doesn’t threaten just that isolated part.  It threatens the whole body and curing the illness becomes the whole body’s business.  That is how deeply interdependent our lives are in the body of Christ.

       But how is this kind of interdependence possible to express in a church community the size of ours…with some 600 members and children as regular attendees?  We had 800 people here last week for Easter. It is not possible for anyone to know that many people in a meaningful, supportive way.  That is why it is so important that each of us give ourselves to a small group, a choir, a Bible study, a church school class, a ministry team. 

       As you look at the church, think about your own body.  Does every part know every other part?  Does your elbow know your neck?  Has your foot spend quality time with your spinal cord?  My own big toe has yet to meet my left ear.  I hope they never do meet, because it would almost certainly be the result of a very serious accident.

        What is important in the church is not that you know everyone, but that you know those you are called to work and live beside very well.  My knees and my eyes don’t need to work together directly.  But my knees do need to work smoothly with the bones, muscles, and tendons which surround them.

       Paul also speaks of this in Ephesians 4.  He says there that the body is “fitted and held together.”  Now that is an interesting phrase.  The word “fitted,” the Greek word “synarmolgao”, refers to a harmonious construction…like when the parts of a building tie together into a properly proportioned whole or the instruments of an orchestra blend in a well written symphony.  The word came from the word “harmos” which was the word for the shoulder joint of the body…strong, firmly attached and allowing free movement.  We use this same word, “harmos” in our word “harmony.” 

       The second word Paul uses, “knit or held together” means to join together things that had once been separate -- just as, Paul writes in Ephesians 3, Jesus joined in his body both Jewish and Gentile believers who had formerly been divided.

       Christ is the head of the church.  From Him flows the life and truth which makes the life of the body possible.  Each of us has a place in the transfer of His power into the life of His church.  Every one of us should be at both the receiving end and the giving end of the flow.  When the head sends energy to the neck, it is not just for the neck’s benefit but also for the shoulder.  But the shoulder must not concentrate only on receiving from the neck.  It must be sure to give to the forearm, which in turn passes on what it receives to the elbow and down to the fingertips.

       There are enough joints in the body.  Paul writes that God has supplied all that we need for effective ministry.  But it is necessary that each joint do its job.  J.B. Phillip’s translation of Ephesians 4:16 reads: “The whole body as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts and so builds itself up in love.”  There are enough joints.  God has seen to that.  Now, we must do our part.  If you are the church’s knee joint and you decide not to bend, the church will stumble along. But if you bend and the muscle fibers flex and the eyes see and the other parts do their work, the church can prosper.

       Now in our passage from Colossians 3:15, Paul says something important for our body life.  He writes that, in our relationships with one another, that we are to let the peace of God rule in our hearts.

       This is a colorful picture when the literal meaning of the Greek verb is understood.  It comes from the athletic arena.  Paul is literally saying, “Let the peace of Christ be the umpire in your heart.”  Let Jesus be the guy in the blue uniform. 

       I like the story about the three umpires who are discussing their trade.  One says, “I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”  The second counters with, ‘I call them as they are.”   The third has the attitude that makes an umpire great.  He says, “Until I call them, they ain’t nothing.”

       Well until Jesus calls ‘em, they ain’t nothing.  So  Paul says, “Let Christ’s peace be the umpire.”  Let Jesus and His word tell you the truth of a situation.  Don’t let your emotions rule.  Don’t let your instincts rule.  Don’t let your pride rule.  Let Jesus rule. 

       If the peace of Jesus Christ is the umpire in any persons heart, then, when feelings clash and we are pulled in two directions at the same time, the decision of Christ will keep us in the way of love and the Church will remain the one body it is meant to be.  The way to right action is to appoint Jesus Christ as the arbiter between the conflicting emotions in our hearts; and if we accept His decisions, we cannot go wrong.  

       Now over in Ephesians Paul finally says that we know that all of the joints are doing their proper job when something is happening…when the church is building itself up in love.

       Imagine an infant who is born at a healthy eight pounds.  He is a nice, healthy, handsome baby with positive vital signs.  But what if he reaches his twenty-first birthday and still only weighs eight pounds…and still acts like a baby.  Obviously there would be a problem with his body.  In fact, he would not be alive if he had not grown.  Living bodies must grow.  Growth is one of the signs of life.  Of course human bodies reach a certain stage where they don’t grow any larger…at least not up and down.  But they are always producing new cells.  To be alive is to grow.  So it is with the church.  The church body must grow as well.

      This growth must come in three ways.  First and foremost it must be growth in love.  Cancer, too, is growth.  But it is growth which is hostile to the body.  Things in the body of Christ which are not resulting in love…not sloppy sentimentality but genuine love…are cancers.

       Second, this growth must be in maturity – it must be solid.  In Ephesians 4:15 Paul says that our goal and our measure is the “unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, to a mature person, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

       And third, our growth is to be numerical. “We are called to make disciples of all nations…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  It is God’s will that more of his creation be reconciled to its creator and, as Paul writes, we have been named agents of that reconciliation.

       Love, maturity, reconciliation.  A whole lot is expected of us if we are to be responsible functioning parts of the body of Christ.  But that’s for our benefit because of what we can become and because of what we can receive in a mature functioning congregation of believers.

       A woman wrote a few years ago in a seminary bulletin:  “Groups which ask nothing tend to give nothing.  One woman who belongs to a large, casual church faced the loss of her mother.  ‘I’ve felt simply abandoned in these hours, she wrote.  Back in Minnesota where I grew up the whole church would have simply crowded around me at this time.’  You see, if a group doesn’t make demands, it means you can’t demand.  You can expect that something is missing.”

       Those groups which ask nothing tend to give nothing.  If nothing is expected of you as a part of the body of Christ in this place, it means that you cannot expect anything of anyone else as a part of the body of Christ in this place.  If you are not strengthening those about you, it means that they may have no strength to give when it’s your turn to need it.

        So let me ask you a question -- actually three questions.  Don’t answer them aloud.  Just think about them.

       What would be the conditions on which you would break a relationship with a friend?  What would a friend have to do to cause you to say; you’re no longer my friend?

       If you were to reject someone as a Christian brother or sister, why would you do it?  What would be the conditions?

       If you were to leave this church, why would you leave?  What would have to be happening or not happening?

        The way we answer these questions is vital.  Our answers show whether Christ is the umpire in our hearts or are we following our own way.

       Lee Iacocca once asked legendary football coach Vince Lombardi what it took to make a winning team.  Lombardi said, “There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don’t win the game.  If you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another.  You’ve got to love each other.  Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and saying to himself: If I don’t block that man, Paul is going to get his legs broken.  I have to do my job well in order that he can do his.  The difference between mediocrity and greatness is the feeling these guys have for each other.”

       What is our feeling for each other?  Where does it lead us?