One Body, Many Members
We turn to Paul, as our Lent reflection on unity and diversity continues. His letters show an early church that struggled with unity in diversity. A key fault line was about culture, ethnicity, and religious background: Jewish Christians vs Gentile Christians. For the church in Corinth, there was more. Corinthian Christians were also sharply divided about what gifts for ministry were the best and most important. Paul addressed this in 1st Corinthians 12:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ... The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” ... On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable... God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
Paul here made a strong argument for diversity. Unity does not mean uniformity or sameness. Cutting off from each other, denying the gift that others are, banishing them does violence to the body. It betrays the Spirit's work in baptism and communion. Whatever hierarchies of value there seem to be, God reverses them, levels them, and God calls us to do the same, with acts of concrete care for the least.
Now this is no simple call for inclusion. It's nuanced, subtle. Because Paul, again, is speaking about the diversity of gifts for ministry. He is not speaking here about ethics, or right and wrong. In other parts of this same letter, Paul made clear that there is no room in the body for unethical behavior.
Paul was also clear that valuing diversity is no excuse for elevating the individual and neglecting the whole. More than once, he encouraged those who were strident about their individual freedom in Christ to consider the relational health of the community. Even ethical behavior, Paul seems to say, can harm our brothers and sisters and the community as a whole. Be responsible for one another. Be accountable to each other.
This all puts me in mind of an essay I read recently by Iowan Nathan Beacom. Beacom worries that democracy in the United States and elsewhere is in endangered by fascism and communism. So he looks to Aurel Kolnai, a little-known Hungarian philosopher who knew both fascist and communist oppression in the 1930s and 40s.
Liberalism works best...when supported by a robust life of faith and with a rejection of moral relativism. This can be confusing. Conservatives, because they value loyalty, family, patriotism, tradition, and the common good, can be swindled and misled by the language of fascism. Liberals, because they are afraid of fascism, might be swindled into rejecting the normal, healthy, and essential place of tradition, loyalty, and religious life. But, just as communism takes the notion of equality to a murderous and anti-human extreme, so fascism takes the idea of authority, nation, and order to a violent and destructive end. Kolnai knew how to keep the balance.
I'm convinced Paul knew how to keep the balance too. When Paul closed chapter 12 with, "And I will show you a still more excellent way," he meant love, the topic of chapter 13. Love's goal is not to be one or the other—liberal or conservative—but to be both. To include both and transcend both.
Admit that you too have your confusion and vulnerabilities, like Beacom said. Value those "on the other side" and learn from their values. Commit to sticking together as one body. Do this even while standing against corruption and unethical behavior however and in whomever it manifests.
Thanks be to God.
Pastor Clark Olson-Smith