But What's Our Body Language Saying?

Not long after Jesus, the apostle Paul was travelling the Mediterranean helping to establish communities of faith that tried to live The Way of Jesus. Not anything like what we’d call “church” today, I don’t think (although, I wasn’t there so I don’t know for sure), but rather trying to build community, learning and living what Jesus taught and showed in his own life.

I know that sounds like what today’s church should be all about, but I imagine in those early days there was less form and structure around it, less “this is how we do that” and more “how shall we do that” when it came to how they met as a community. There was certainly less doctrine and dogma. There was no “we’ve always done it that way” because Jesus brings a new way and part of that new way is how we create community that’s true to its members. It’s not just about being welcoming to anyone that fits in, it’s about acknowledging and affirming what each member brings and how it helps to form the community with what’s true in each individual.

Yes, they struggled with that. We still do and will. It’s a challenge that requires openness to connection, vulnerability and empathy, and we’ve learned to not always be okay with that. But then, Jesus. 

Paul, in a very Jesus way, talked about that, one that was familiar, but that he turned on its head.

Paul said it’s like the body. “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 ... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Paul didn’t come up with that. The community as a body with all its parts working together was an image that had been around for awhile. The way it was used helped to identify your “part” so that could determine your place in society. Some parts are more important than others, some aren’t even really needed and some, well, we just don’t talk about those.

But Paul says no! In order for the body to be whole, all parts of the body are important. In fact, there is an equity amongst all the parts of the body and when one part of the body hurts, the whole body suffers; when one part of the body is celebrated, all the body celebrates. In fact, the parts that are often dismissed or ignored, the parts that had been given the least honour, those are the ones that are most important for the health and wholeness of the body.

Which community are we? Are we one that sorts and stacks people according to their part, determining which are more valuable, which are more contributing, pushing out of sight the ones that we judge to be of less use to us. Or do welcome and affirm all, just as they are, treat them with equity, get to know them, build relationships with them, and embrace them as part of the whole.

In the kind of community Jesus and Paul envisioned, we’d honour all people, welcome all the gifts people bring and offer our care for those in need. Yes, that last part’s crucial. The wholeness of the body requires care of all its parts, not just demands of them.