“If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.” So says Paul in our reading from 1 Corinthians this morning. And it seems the church is quite far from hearing these words. So often congregations are torn apart with fighting and jealousy, bitterness and cruelty, passive-aggressive scheming and manipulation tactics. And so it is with the church at large. We slander people behind their backs. We burn in anger at people that we think have a higher status. We condemn others for having more growth or importance than we see to. We profane the Word and Sacraments by using them as tools to prop up our own importance, our own superiority. And so we don’t see suffering as a burden to carry with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We see suffering as a weapon to wield against other people. We don’t see the honor of one Christian as something that belongs to all of us. We see it as a finite commodity that we need to prevent other people from having in order for us to possess it.
Why do we struggle to be one in the way that Paul calls us to be? As always, the problem is sin, in particular sin in the form of self-righteousness. We don’t believe we are sinners, don’t believe we are hopeless without the mercy of Jesus Christ, don’t think we should have to endure the needs and sins and shortcomings of other people because we deserve all the glory and honor floating around the church.
So if you wish to be a faithful Christian who suffers when others suffer and rejoices when others rejoice, you must first suffer the weight of your own sins and then rejoice to know that only the hands of Jesus could remove it and have removed it. Once you were a worthless, dead thing, a withered appendage disconnected from anything living. But then Jesus Christ breathed life back into you and blessed you to become a living member of the living church. Through the Holy Spirit, He blessed you to have eternal life and blessed with gifts and talents that can be used to serve some, even if you can’t serve all.
No member of Christ’s church is of greater value than you. And no member is of lesser value. We all are connected to each other through the mercy of Jesus Christ. We all serve Christ by serving each other. With humble and thankful hearts, may we never see our fellow Christians as competition, only as our brothers and sisters, as one body, and as one in Jesus Christ.
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