Daily Devotion April 3, 2014 1st Corinthians 12:26 “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” I’ve been thinking about this for some time, I just didn’t realize it until today. This thing about honor and suffering goes with Paul talking about how important each part of the body is and relating that human body to the Body of Christ. Each body has parts that, on the surface, seem to be less useful than some others but of course that is just not the case. What I have really been thinking about is the Body of Christ assembled or not assembled or less assembled as the case may be. The assembly of the faithful, just like the physical body, cannot operate if parts of it are missing. I know, people lose parts of their bodies all of the time and through the miracle of modern medicine they receive some artificial something or other that allows them to continue a healthy productive, yet somewhat altered, life. The assembly of the faithful, the church, can’t do that, there is nothing artificial to replace the part of the body that has decided to go missing. I’ve been “going to church” for a very long time. I have been a member of a big downtown church and I have been involved in a mission congregation that worshiped in a storefront. The common denominator in all of my experiences of church has been the people, the Body of Christ. People leave churches for a variety of reasons that to them seem legitimate. You hear things like, “I don’t like the pastor.” and “I don’t like the way that the, pastor, music director, youth leader, lay board does_______”, you can fill in the blank. In fact we are very inventive in coming up with reasons not to go to church. In can be as simple as the pastor is on vacation this week so I’ll just skip. Paul said that when one is honored or one suffers are all impacted. The same is true when we decide to absent ourselves, for whatever reason, from the faith community in which we have been nurtured and loved and accepted. I don’t think that I have any answers really. It occurs to me that God called the broken, unfinished, and wounded to leadership in the Body of Christ because that is who makes up the Body of Christ. It takes all of us, coming together in worship and praise each week to keep the body “whole” so that the work of Jesus might be accomplished. In today’s gospel reading from Mark Jesus says that if we are to follow him that we take up our cross and deny ourselves not sit at home on our collective whatever. We all need a break now and then, away from our daily lives. But the call of Jesus is the call to community, a community of the broken, unfinished, and wounded who are led by the same. That is the assembly we are called to be a part of. That is the assembly that waits for us to come and worship the living God together, not apart and never alone. Peace, Fr. Reid
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 14:59:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015