Being the Body

Last week, I was nonchalantly walking down a sidewalk at our church paying no mind to the fact that some roofers had cleaned up just a couple of days earlier from the job they'd done on our church buildings. No less than 10 kids ran up the sidewalk right in front of me on their way to our Tuesday afternoon tutoring class. But as I walked, all of a sudden, I felt a sharp, excruciating pain shoot through the bottom of my foot, right on the smooth skin beneath my 4th and 5th toes. I literally thank God that I had the presence of mind to stop mid step before my foot went all the way to the ground with the full weight of my body on top of it. Somehow, I was able to catch myself, and quickly sit down leaving about 1/8" of the nail sticking out the bottom of my shoe. I'm also thankful I was wearing a pair of Wolverine chukka boots that day and not the Crocs I often wear to the office. A couple of band-aids and a tetanus shot later I was limping home, back to my daily routine.

The amazing thing is, though, how much that small puncture wound affected the rest of my body. I found that walking on my heel was much more comfortable than putting down the front of my foot. I also found that walking on my heel was much more comfortable if I was wearing a loose-fitting shoe, so I found myself wearing the aforementioned Crocs around the house. This very small injury caused me to walk in a completely different manner and actually develop muscle soreness in some different areas of my body.

As I pondered my "gimpy" state, I thought of Paul's teachings on the body of Christ. My favorite passage on this is I Corinthians 12. In this passage he says, "parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indespensible, and parts that we think are less honorable, we should treat with special honor."

How many of our churches are deficient in many areas because the people who should be doing the minstry of a "hand" or "eye" are to busy trying to be a "foot" or an "ear." When my foot was sore, my body did not have balance and control. It was inefficient. I have a feeling that's what some of our churches look like when we don't have enough people doing certain things in the body.