As I look back on my growing up years, I always cringe when I think about my time in middle school. I’m not 100% certain, but I would guess that the vast majority of people wouldn’t want to go back to middle school for anything. No amount of money, or promises, or even the prospect of fewer aching joints and more energy would be temptation enough for us to want to go back to those times. Why do you think that might be?

I can’t give an answer for every person, but I will say that I would never want to go back to middle school because in middle school I was simultaneously aware of every little thing about myself that made me different from everyone else, and because everyone around me was suddenly aware of their differences (and mine), too. In elementary school, teachers reminded us that everyone in our class were our friends, or at the very least our classmates, and we were somehow all on the same team trying to learn together. But by middle school, cliques and divisions began to form. If you followed the rules and were respectful, you were a goody two-shoes or a nerd. If you were athletic, you were a “jock.” If you wore the latest style, you were in the popular crowd, or you might be referred to as a “preppy.” 

I remember feeling disoriented in middle school because kids who used to be friends with each other split up and went into different groups. Kids who once loved learning were afraid to appear smart in the classroom because they wanted to fit in with a certain bunch of kids. And kids who didn’t have the means to wear the latest styles were jeered at or mocked by kids who used to not notice brands or styles at all.

 Middle school was a time of division and hyper-focusing on what makes us different from each other. And, if someone was the “wrong” kind of different, we would say to each other, “I have no need of you.”

If you’re in middle school right now, hang in there! It does get better. And for those of us who are beyond our middle school years – whether by a little or a lot – we know that while it does get a lot better, there’s still that temptation to focus on what makes others different from us. There’s still that temptation to exclude or judge or say to someone, “You aren’t like me, so you aren’t part of me.” 

When Paul wrote his letter to the church at Corinth, he was writing to a church in turmoil. There were disagreements and divisions, controversies, and power struggles. They argued over which person they should follow: Paul, Apollos, or another. They disagreed about whether or not people should get married and have romantic relationships, or whether they should stay single. There was division about whether or not it was appropriate to eat food sacrificed to idols. And those who were wealthy made a practice of getting together before the poor had shown up, and by the time the poor arrived, there was nothing left for them to eat. 

It is to this church that Paul writes 1 Corinthians 12 about the importance of each part of the body. Quite often, we are tempted to focus on all of the different parts of the body, and we wonder, “Am I an eye? Or, maybe I’m an ear.” We want to know what our place is, and that’s not wrong in itself. Our differences and our diversity are to be celebrated, as Pastor Jeff shared last week. We need those differences in order for our body to function as it should. But, we must be careful that we do not focus on what makes us different in order to group ourselves with people who are just like us and to exclude those who are different. Rather, the key to this whole passage about the body is verse 13: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

Our differences, our diversity, is not something meant to divide us up into cliques or groups, or to give us a reason to exclude others. Instead, our differences are meant to be a gift to the body. When we are all working together, we can do so much more than when we are divided. The Holy Spirit is the great unifier of the body. In the Spirit we were baptized into one body, and as part of the body we must depend on the Spirit to fill us and to bring us together–over and over again as we participate in this messy and beautiful thing called church.

So, why would Paul spend an entire chapter talking about this metaphor of the body? Why would he take so much time and write so many words about how each of us are different yet we are all part of the same body? I think it’s because the church at Corinth was focusing on their differences in order to divide themselves up into groups. They were dividing over so many things, and the Holy Spirit through Paul needed to remind them that while their differences were important and good and necessary, they were never intended to separate us from each other. In verse 25 it says that this is so in order “that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” We are eyes, or ears, or hands, or feet, not so that we can say, “Thank goodness I’m not a different part of the body,” but so that we can make sure each of us are cared for so that the whole body is healthy.

Let’s take verse 25 apart and look at what Paul tells the Corinthian church is not the goal of their differences, and then what Paul tells them is the end goal. 

First, the goal of our varied parts in the body of Christ is “that there may be no dissension within the body.” The word translated here as “dissension” is the Greek word schisma. Can you hear the word “schism” in there? This word means “a split” or “a division” like when a piece of fabric is torn. This word is also found in Matthew 9:16: “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made.” Schisma. Our unique gifts and calling are not meant to be used as reasons to tear the body apart. We need every part of the body of Christ.

This flies in the face of our sensibilities. Sometimes the gifts and callings of others are uncomfortable, or not our preference. We want to turn away from them and spend our time with more like-minded, like-gifted people. We see this all around us in the world, too. People are grouped by generational names like Millennials, Boomers, and Gen Xers, and the expectation is that the people in those categories will all behave in certain ways. We might even think everyone in one town is a certain way, and everyone on the other side of the river is a different way. Surely, we wouldn’t do that, would we? It’s generally easier to have conversations with people who see things the same way we do. And it’s often more fun to spend time with people who share our interests. Some of this is just human nature. We are drawn to people who share things in common with us. But, more than that, it happens because we live in a time and in an era where we group people into categories and make generalizations about them. 

If the Apostle Paul was going to write a letter to Christians in the United States in 2022, he would say, “It should not be so among you.” Though we are many, and we are diverse, and we have different gifts and unique callings, we are also one body and we need each other.

I love the way poet laureate Amanda Gorman gets at this truth. She writes this: “Since the world is round there is no way to walk away from each other, for even then we are coming back together.” In the body of Christ, no matter how different we are, we are joined together in one body through the power of the Holy Spirit, and this is not a bad thing. We need each other. We are a body when we are together. We function our best when we are together. We can accomplish amazing things in the world as we serve Jesus, but only if we do it together.

Our differences aren’t to become dissensions. Our differences aren’t to be dividing lines and boundaries that separate us from each other. That’s not the goal of our diversity. 

Instead, as verse 25 continues, “…that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” We are diverse in our gifts and our callings, but as the church we are to be united in the same care for one another. I mentioned earlier that the word for dissension is “schisma.” I also decided to look up the word that is translated here as “have care.” What I found was surprising. The word used here in the Greek can be “to be anxious” or “to worry.” It can mean “to care about.” The word comes from a verb that may have meant “to be divided” or “to be distracted with worry or anxiety.” In the same verse in which Paul tells the church not to have divisions or dissensions among them, he tells them instead to be divided up as they care for each other.

The dissensions and divisions of the world break people apart and set them against each other. The calling of the church is to be united, and to scatter as we care for each other and as we care for those God has placed in our paths. As I imagined what this might look like, I started thinking about rivers. Rivers nourish the ground all around their banks. Trees and plants, animals and birds, situate themselves around the river because the river is a place where life is possible. The river feeds and sustains everything around it.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul tells the church at Corinth – and us – this: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” We were all made to drink of one Spirit. 

Friends, we have such a diversity of gifts. We are each planted in unique settings. Our jobs, our schools, our neighborhoods, our daily routines are not the same, but this isn’t so that we can divide ourselves up into groups of like-minded people. No. Instead, we gather here to worship, we make a discipline of prayer and Bible Study in our daily lives, so that we can all drink of the one Spirit. We return to the Spirit over and over, like wildlife to the river, to drink and be filled up, and then we are sent forth like tributaries and creeks, scattered so that we can all care for each other and for the world around us. 

Our unified calling as the church in 2022 – and always – is to be united in Christ, to drink of one Spirit, so that we can be scattered, but still united in purpose. We are uniquely situated here by the Platte River, and I wonder if we might allow that to be a daily reminder and object lesson for us. Let’s allow the river to remind us to return often to the Spirit, to drink deeply, to be refilled in worship and in study and in prayer. Notice the way the trees, and the plants, and the wildlife are nourished by the presence of the river, and remember that we need to be nourished by God in this same way. And then, let’s ask God to send us forth as tributaries all connected to the river of God, united in purpose and care for each other, as we feed the world and each other. Oh yes, to be the church, we are called to be one in the Spirit, not to erase our differences, but so that our differences might be harnessed for the common good. Amen.