Out of Many, One – August 20, 2023

Psalm 96, I Corinthians 12:12-31
August 20, 2023

Does anyone recognize the sermon title for today?  “Out of Many, One.”  Right!  It’s the Motto of The United States!  We’re more familiar with it in Latin.  “E Pluribus Unum.”  How many remembered what that meant?  “Out of Many, One.”

I believe the Apostle Paul would have loved that motto.  Maybe he would even have made it the motto of the Church.  (I don’t know, does the Church even have a motto?  Well, this would be a good one.)  Because Paul was all about the unity of the Church.  Here, in our reading from I Corinthians 12, he said it this way.

“For just as the body is one, and has many members, and all the many members of the body are one body, so it is with Christ.”  That’s “E Pluribus Unum” right there!  Isn’t it?  “Out of Many, One.”  And ever since that time, the Church has been seen as “the body of Christ here on earth.”

Paul was all about unity.  And, if you read this letter, you’ll find that he was disturbed by the disunity in this Church in Corinth.  There were “factions” that had grown within it.  He saw that as such a crucial issue, he addressed that right away – right in chapter one.  And I wonder if that was the whole reason for writing this letter in the first place!

In chapter one, he wrote, “It has been reported to me that there is quarreling among you.  Some say they belong to Paul, some to Apollos, some to Peter.”  Like I said last week, the early days of the church were not this wonderful, perfect time, when there were no problems and people all got along very well. No, they were just figuring all of this out, they messed a lot of things up, and they needed the guidance of the apostles in solving the various problems they faced.  And Paul saw disunity as one of the biggest problems in the Church.  Maybe he remembered the words of Jesus, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

That makes me wonder.  Did Paul see that same kind of disunity in the Jewish world, back when he was a Pharisee, and a member of the council?  Certainly he saw the division in the council!  Remember, they were divided over this controversial rabbi named Jesus.  But did he also see disunity among the congregations of Israel?  Were there people in different factions that believed and stood for different things?  I’m betting he did.

In fact, we know some of them.  The biggest example was the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  We run into them a lot in the Gospels.  They were leaders who had different beliefs, and they each had their followings.  So maybe Paul was sensitive to those kinds of divisions.  And here he found them in the Corinthian Church.  But of course, they weren’t the only ones.  “For wherever two or three are gathered together… there’s bound to be differences!

This is why I love being Presbyterian!  As you’ve heard me quote many times, we Presbyterians believe, that “people of good conscience can differ.”  (Maybe that’s our motto!)  We recognize that people can have different opinions.  And we also say that “God alone is Lord of the conscience.”  God alone is the one who judges and guides our consciences.

It’s not my job to stand up here and tell all of you exactly what to believe about everything.  My job is to get you to recognize our obligation to listen to and respect other people’s thinking, whether we agree with them or not.  That’s what we Presbyterians believe.  And I sure wish that would catch on with the rest of the country!

With Paul, it was more than that!  He doesn’t just say here that everybody is “one in Christ,” that we’re all part of the same body.  He’s not just saying “Out of Many, One.”  (“E Pluribus Unum.”)  He’s not just saying that all of us make up the body of Christ.  He’s taking that further, and he’s saying that all of us are important in the body of Christ!  I sure wish that would catch on in our country!  Whenever we say the opinions of this group or that group are not valid or not important, we go down a bad road!  And this country is on that road!

Well, Paul takes that thought even further.  And I love how he gets into this!  He gets the body parts talking!  “A foot cannot say, ‘Because I’m not a hand, I’m not part of the Body.’”  “An ear can’t say, ‘Because I’m not an eye, I’m not part of the body.’”  Paul says, “Nonsense!  The body doesn’t work that way!”  “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?  If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?”  All the parts are important in their own way!

Then he turns around this bizarre conversation between body parts.  He gets them talking to each other.  He says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’”  “And the head can’t say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’”  So, we can’t say we’re not important in the kingdom of God.  And we cannot tell someone else they are not important!  There are both of those things being said here!

So, you cannot think you are unimportant in the kingdom of God.  Well you can think that, but it’s not true!  And, you cannot think someone else is not important, or that their opinion is not valid.  That’s certainly not Presbyterian.  And as Paul is saying, it’s not Christian.  But it happens all the time!  In fact, that’s one of those natural human tendencies, that we have to fight within ourselves all the time.  Especially if someone treats us that way!  Especially if someone treats us as unimportant.  We think that gives us the right to do it to them!

Paul says no.  All of the parts of the body are important, and no one can say they’re not.  Then he takes this analogy one step further.  He says, “Look how the parts of the body that seem weaker are indispensable.”  There’s that whole “last shall be first, and the greatest shall be servant” thing.  Like Jesus, he turns on its ear the world’s concept of who’s important and who isn’t!

Then he makes one more observation.  He points out to them that all the members of the body are interconnected, and they all take care of each other.  Then he says, “So, if one member suffers, all suffer together.  But!  If one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

And isn’t that a great observation!  That’s something we’re often reminded of because our own bodies are great examples of that – especially as we get older!  If you have a foot problem, it won’t be long before you feel it in your knees and your hips and your back!  Am I right?  So in the church, when one suffers, all suffer together.  When one is honored, all rejoice together.

Paul has made the perfect analogy for the Church here!  He’s shown the Corinthians, and us, that we are all part of the Body of Christ, and we are all important in the body of Christ.  We can’t say we aren’t.  And we can’t say someone else isn’t.  And he’s shown us God’s design, that the magnitude of importance is not as the world sees it.  In his kingdom, the least shall be the greatest.  And he’s shown us that we all work together.  Either we all suffer together, or we all rejoice together!

We are truly “Out of Many, One.”  And hopefully we in the Church are the greatest example of that!  And hopefully we strive – all of us – to show that to the world.  And hopefully we will remember Paul’s great conclusion to all of this.  For he concludes here with an introduction to the next chapter – one of the greatest chapters in the Bible.  He says, “Do all this, and I will show you a still more excellent way.”  And then begins chapter 13.  “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…”

Yes, we are all different.  But in God’s kingdom, we are all needed, we are all important, and we are all interconnected, in this wonderful thing called the Body of Christ!

Prayer

Eternal God, help us to know all that it means to be one in you.  Help us to uphold, encourage, and edify all of your people in this your Body here on earth.  Help us to live our faith in a way that your Spirit would be able to move freely within us and among us.  We pray this in Jesus’ name, and for the glory of your kingdom, Amen.