If One Member Suffers. . .

In 1 Corinthians Paul is teaching the church what it means to live together, redefining what community will look like in this new thing called the body of Christ.  It’s in the middle of his description of what that means the drops a challenge:

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it;

if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

1 Corinthians 12:26 NRSV

We read over this too quickly.  This wasn’t their reality, far from it; read the rest of the letter.  The church in the bustling metropolis of Corinth was anything but unified, caring, but it was the life they were invited in to.  It was the life shaped by the one they were seeking to follow.  The challenge for them was that they needed to realize it wasn’t okay for anyone to be left behind.  So, if you are suffering, you won’t be alone in your suffering.  We will not forget you.  We will be with you in the good and not-so-good.

It was challenging who they were, and just as it was a challenge for them, we are given the same challenge.  Whether someone is suffering or honored, we are invited into their suffering and rejoicing.  It’s what community is, how it is defined.  It’s what it means to be our brother’s keeper.  It’s the call to love others as Christ has loved us. 

When God gets ahold of your heart, you can’t help but care.  When you begin to care, you begin to realize how similar we all are.  When you realize how similar we are, you begin to suffer with those who suffer, and rejoice with those who are honored; because when they are suffering, so are we, and when they are rejoicing, we are doing that too.  Our theme for this semester is Cultivate, but we almost named it Give a Care, thinking maybe the greatest challenge for us is whether we choose to care.

It’s not just an issue of whether you care about creation, water, hunger, or trafficking.  It’s an issue of love, and whether you care about your neighbor.  Our world is broken and will never be fully restored until God makes all things new.  But it is our ethic, our Christian ethic defined and shaped by love that compels to love in ways that cause us to care about creation, water, hunger, and trafficking.  Because when we care about these, we are caring about each other.  And that is at the heart of our creator, and why Paul wrote:  “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.”