Many Members, One Body
Every congregation has someone who arrives an hour before worship to turn on the lights or get the piano ready. Someone else quietly fills the communion plate, and another remembers which family has a sick relative, so they seek them out to check in. Most Sunday mornings, none of this is noticed. And yet, if any of it went undone, we would feel it before the first hymn was over.
That is close to what the apostle Paul was getting at when he wrote to the church in Corinth. "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" (1 Corinthians 12:12, NRSV). Paul was writing to a community tempted to rank its gifts, to decide who mattered more and who mattered less. His answer was blunt: "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (12:21).
Right now, our Nominations Committee is at work to fill our committees. But serving on a committee isn’t just about completing a list, and it isn’t the only way to serve. When we serve, we are not doing the church a favor or filling a slot on a volunteer chart. We are being the body of Christ, the hands, feet, ears, and voice of Jesus in this particular place. The person who teaches Sunday school and the person who makes noodles are doing the same holy thing. The one who sings in the choir and the one who sits with a homebound member are members of the same body.
United Methodists say something about this every time someone becomes a member. We promise to support the church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness. Service is not an extra. It is part of what it means to belong.
Paul also tells us that "if one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (12:26). Serving knits us together. When we give our time, we learn one another's stories, share one another's burdens, and celebrate together. Many of us have found that we received far more than we gave.
So here is the invitation. If you are already serving, thank you. You are the body of Christ at work, whether or not anyone has said so lately. If you have been watching from the pew and wondering where you fit, you do. The body is not complete without you. Reach out to me, and let’s find the place where your gifts and our needs meet.
"Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it" (12:27).
In Christ's service,
Pastor Kate
