And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it;
If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
– 1 Corinthians 12:26
He stood at the front of the church, his hands stretched toward God as he prayed.
Someone walked by and told him, “You look stupid in those shorts.” That someone became one of the youth leaders.
A young disabled man’s family was chastised because his coming to Easter service caused the church to have to open up extra seating—which “ruined” the lighting for the presentation.
Two young women in Gothic dress showed up in a church service. They were openly mocked by church members for the way they looked, and they never returned.
A couple nervously entered a church for the first time and chose a place at random in the pew. A church member was annoyed they had taken her usual place and let them know it.
God help us.
The Body of Christ derives pleasure from self-mutilation. It’s perverse because we are, after all, one body. Some of us are toes. Some of us are hearts. Some of us are sweat glands.
All of us are necessary.
Regardless of our church affiliation, Christians agree that Jesus, as the Head, is glorious. But from there down, the rest of the Body gets a little strange. The way some of us treat each other, we look more like a Frankenstein’s monster than the body of a King.
The world sees Christ’s followers as a whole, and when we wound another part of the Body, it doesn’t make us look better, it makes the whole Person of Christ look dysfunctional. The Body shames the Head.
The damage we inflict on others can only hurt us. When our toe is injured, our whole walk is affected. The natural reaction is to favor the wounded toe, get help for it, and rejoice when it’s healed.
Wouldn’t it be amazing we if took that kind of care for each other?
Jesus loved His Body so much He sacrificed everything for it.
He remains so well-connected to us that He feels every pain, as well as every joy. He is not a long-distance God. He grieves over the injuries we inflict on ourselves and each other in His name.
Let’s quit killing ourselves. The Lord deserves better than this. So do the people He loves. If we shielded each other instead of throwing darts, if we treated each other with gentleness and common courtesy, others could look at us and see Christ’s Body as the fully living creature it was meant to be.
His Majesty would receive the honor He deserves if we acted more like the royalty we are, not in self-righteousness, but in dignity and kindness and loyalty.
Be kind to yourself today, church.
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