1 Corinthians 14:26: Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
Paul portrays the church as a body. That captures the unity and diversity of the church. The church is a single body, but it is made up of many organs and members.
But Paul’s image of the body is more specific. Eyes don’t just look out for themselves. Eyes see to protect the shins from painful encounters with furniture. And shins don’t move around just for themselves; they move so that eyes can see and ears can hear different places. Stomachs digest food for the whole body, and hearts pump life-giving oxygenated blood from head to toe. Each of you is a prophet, and so each of you has words for all of us. Each member of the body contributes to the good of the whole.
But even that does not exhaust what Paul means when he says that the church is a body. If the church is a body, then all members bear the burdens of each. If I have a detached retina, my whole body suffers; a heart attack can kill the whole body, not just the heart. Because we are a body, we share in each other’s sorrows, burdens, sicknesses.
That’s the reality that is depicted at the Lord’s table. Here at Trinity, we pass the bread and wine to one another; we serve one another food and drink, and no ordinary food and drink but the body and blood of the Lord. As we do that, we say “The body of the Lord” and “the blood of Christ.” Here at the Lord’s table, we ritually depict the life that we have together, the shared life that we have when each member shares his gifts with one another. It also means that we share one another’s pains, cares, aches, and stings.
But rituals by themselves are not enough. Rituals set patterns, but we have to replicate these patterns, extend these rituals, into daily life. Don’t stop serving Christ to one another when we disperse. Continue to serve Christ to one another, continue to speak, sing, feed Christ to one another. Do what you’ve done here throughout the coming week, fulfilling the law of Christ by bearing one another’s burdens.
