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Today’s text
For as in one body we
have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who
are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of
another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us . .
We are many, but we are one body of Christ. This means we each
are something of Christ to each other. It also means that we need each other …
desperately,
I have never understood those who flee into isolation when
troubles come. Perhaps their emotional wiring is different from mine, but I
shake my head in sadness when I see someone retreat into aloneness--and remain
there--when they encounter loss and grief, disease or conflict.
On one hand, we have needs to be alone at times to think and
emote. But withdrawal cuts us off from Christ, who is experienced in this world
as a body, the physical bodies of those who bear his Spirit and have been given
gifts and abilities through which something his life may be experienced.
Isolation … pulling away from the body, the church, the
people who know and love him … is separation from Christ.
Yes, he can knock down our walls or walk through the closed
doors of our hearts most any time. The resurrection means at least this much.
But there is a body, a people who are connected at the heart
to Christ, the Heart of the Universe. Together, they make up his body in the
world, sharing the warm blood of his life pumped through them by that Great
Heart.
In that body, his Heart is pumps the blood of creative love
that gives us life when we feel dead, hope when hopeless. It shares our joy and
passes it along to other members joined in this one great Heart.
To be part of a body is to need the other parts … and to
know the other parts need you--who you are and what you have--even if you think
you have not much to offer.
The life of the body, its joy and purpose is diminished when
we are not united in the heart of Christ … when we withdraw and deny our
presence to the rest of the body.
We are so much more … together … so much more joy and love,
more grace and beauty … more than we are apart.
So reject the impulse to withdraw into isolation because you
hurt or are uncertain..
Reject the temptation to withdraw from the body of Christ
because you are insanely busy or because the cancer of apathy eats at you … or
because there are people there who are at least as imperfect and frustrating as
you are.
You belong to the body of Christ in which you are a member.
You need them to know the love of Christ, They need you, what is in your heart,
hands and mind.
And I need you … desperately.
Without each other the body of Christ, his presence in the
world, remains incomplete … as incomplete as the joy Christ seeks to give us …
together.
Pr. David L. Miller
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