“The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.“
I Corinthians 12 MSG
My mom just turned 95 this week (April 24). She is remarkable in so many ways, not the least of which is how she still lives by herself, in her own apartment, over in the Sandhills. Until just a few years ago, she played piano on Sunday mornings in worship. But her constant and persistent contribution to this world in recent years has been visible in caps that she makes and gives away. Recently 80 of them were delivered to The MERCI Center for an upcoming trip to Armenia.
I asked her how long it takes her to make a cap. She thought and said, “Oh, about 2-3 hours.” Later, as I loaded two boxes full of caps into the back of my car, I thought about how her quiet act of giving represented, at a minimum, at least 160 hours of love. That’s four work weeks for the average person. Mom’s fingers don’t move quite as adeptly as they once did, thanks to a touch of arthritis. Her eyesight is fading from the effects of macular degeneration. Her feet are always numb with neuropathy. But her desire to make a difference – to “do her part” – is as strong now as ever.
Paul’s friends in Corinth were enamored with the human body. In his first letter – just before he describes God’s kind of love (see Chpt 13) he reminds these folk preoccupied with the human body that maybe, just maybe, God fashioned our bodies in such a way as to teach us something about ourselves, and about LIFE in a real community. Each part of the body is just as important as any of the others and has no need to be anything other than what it is created to be.
An old friend who is a songwriter and recording artist once penned these words:
Jesus was one man. What did he do?
He did his part, like you and I can do.
Don Davis tells the story of a couple he met many years ago who played music at square dances outside Cherokee, N.C. – Otto and Margarite Wood. He played the fiddle, and she the piano. Once at a square dance, he commented to Margarite how difficult it must be to play an old piano, like the one she was stuck with that evening. It was one of those instruments where some of the keys were stuck and so out of tune that the average person playing it sounded like a cat had been set loose atop the strings inside. “Margarite just smiled,” he said. And then she looked at him, saying: “That’s the way it is in life. Some people tune… and some people play.”
Right now, many of us may feel as if we’re stuck with an out-of-tune instrument. The good news is how God is using us – ALL OF US – to create and play the most beautiful symphony this world has ever heard. Play!!!!
In Christ,
Jon (the Methodist)