Christ's Body and Its Members

T. PAUL

church

speaks of the as the body of Christ. He had his own body in his incarnation. Now his body is the whole great company of his people, all who love him, trust him, and are faithfully following him. Every believer is a member of this body and has some function to fill in it. St. Paul uses the human body and its members in a very effective way in illustration of important spiritual truth. “As the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.” “Ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.” “The body is not one member, but many.” All that any Christian can be is one of the members of Christ’s body. He is not everything. The hand is not the body. The [ 195 ] for tle I3ejst Clingjcj

eye is not the body. The lungs are not the body. The most that any believer can be is a hand, a foot, an eye, an ear. Imagine the hand getting the thought that it is the whole body, ignoring all the other members, setting up for itself, and trying to get on independently. What could the hand do without the brain, without the lungs, without the heart? Or think of the brain asserting its independence, or claiming to be the body. Suppose that it really is the fountain of thought, and that in a way it directs all the movements of the body. Still, what can the brain do without the hand to carry out its plans, or the tongue, to speak the thoughts that are born in its mysterious folds? The same is true of each member of the body — it is nothing by itself; it is dependent on the other members; it can fulfill its functions only by accepting its place and trying to do its own little part. Alone, it is nothing, and can do nothing. “You have seen a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying apart from the rest of the body. That [196] is what the man becomes when he separates himself from others, or does anything to make himself unsocial.” He is of use only in his own place. The same is true in the church. We are only individual members of the body of Christ, and we can fill our place only by doing what belongs to us as individual members. If we try to cut ourselves off from the body, and live independently, our life will be a failure.

Again, the whole work of the body can be done only by a diversity of gifts in the members. “If they were all one member, where were the body?” Suppose there was only an eye — no ear, no tongue, no hand, no foot; could the body exist? Every member of the body has its particular function, and no member is unnecessary. The health of the body can be preserved only by every member doing its own part. This is plain enough so far as the physical body is concerned. The same is true also of the body of Christ, the church. There are many members. There is need for wide diversity of gifts, else much of the work [197] for tit 15m CiittSJJ

that the church is set to do would not be done. The foot is a useful member of the body, but the foot could not fulfill all the bodily functions. It cannot think, it cannot smell, it cannot see, it cannot hear. It is good to have eyes. Blindness is the sorest of all physical losses. But deafness is also a grievous affliction, and if you had good eyes and no ears, your life would be very incomplete. Your eye could not hear for you. Every member of the body has some use that no other member can supply.

So it is in the church. No one person can do everything that needs to be done. The fullest life is only a fragment, elesus Christ had in his life all virtues and graces. He was a perfect man, not sinless only, but complete. The only other perfect and complete life is found in the other body of Christ, the church. That is, if it were possible to gather from all earth’s redeemed lives, through the ages, the fragments of spiritual beauty and good in each, and combine them all in one life, that too would be found to be full and [ 198 ] perfect. No one Christian can do everything that the church is required to do. One has one gift of usefulness and another another. There are a thousand different kinds of usefulness needed, and there must be a life for each.

Here we see the wisdom of variety and diversity in human gifts and capacities. It is said that no two human faces in the world are identical in every feature. So no two human lives are just the same, with the same ability, the same talents, the same power of usefulness. This almost infinite diversity in capacity is not accidental. The world has a like variety of needs, and hence the necessity for so many kinds of gifts. There must be a hand for every task, or not all the tasks could be performed, not all human needs could be met. Some things would have to remain untouched, some needs unmet. The Master tells us that to each one is given his own particular work. It is no fancy to say that God has a plan for every life. He made you for something all your own. He [ 199 ] for tle Q5ej8t Ciing

thought about jou before he made you, and had in his mind a particular place in his great plan which he made you specially to fill, and a piece of work in the vast world’s scheme which he made you to do. That place no one but you can fill, for every other person has likewise his own place and work in the great divine plan. No one can do the work of any other. If you fail to do your particular duty, there will be a blank in the world’s work, where there ought to have been something beautiful, something well done. “To each one his work.” It may be only a little thing, but the completeness of the universe will be marred if it is not done, however small.

Each life that fails of its true intent Mars the perfect plan that the Master meant/

The particular thing that God made us to do is always the thing we can do best, the only thing that we can do perfectly. We are not to suppose that this is always necessarily a large thing, something brilhant, something [ 200 ]

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conspicuous. It may be something very small, something obscure. Indeed, the things which seem most commonplace may be most important in their place in the great plan of God, and may prove of greatest value to the world. Helen Keller writes suggestively on this subject: “I used to think that I should be thwarted in my desire to do something useful. But I have found that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet the work open to me is endless. The gladdest laborer in the vineyard may be a cripple. Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; yet in many diligent half hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy. I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. It is my service to think how I can best fulfill the demands that each day makes upon me, and to recognize that others can do what I cannot. Green, the historian, tells us that the world is moving along, not only by the mighty shoves of its [ 201 ] heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker; and that thought alone suffices to guide me in this dark world and wide. I love the good that others do, for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not the true and the good will stand sure.” Every member of the body of Christ has something to do. Some members do great things, some only small things. Every Christian has a work all his own. It is not precisely the same as the work of any other, but it is his own, and he fills his place in the universe best when he does just that. Some one defined a gentleman as a man who has nothing to do. But that is not a true definition of God’s gentleman. There is no Christian who has nothing to do. Each one is to find what his part is and then do it. Sometimes people attempt to do things they cannot do, leaving untouched, meanwhile, things they could do beautifully. If one has not ben able to do what he has been trying to do, be is not to conclude that there is nothing [ 202 ]

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for him — there is some other work which he can do, and which is waiting somewhere for his coming.

No one should ever despise another’s work or his way of doing it. We dare not call any work lowly or insignificant. Besides, we really have nothing to do with any one’s life’s tasks but our own. “The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee; or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Some people in their confidence in their own way of doing things have no patience with the way other people do things. There is need for different methods, if we would reach the needs of people and do all kinds of necessary work. Let us judge no other man’s way and no other man’s work. St. Paul suggests also that the dull and less showy manner of some other people’s way of working may be more effective than the brilliant way we do things. “Nay, much rather, those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble are necessary; and those parts of the body, which we think to be less hon- [203] orable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor.” For example, the brain, the heart, the lungs, and other organs which work out of sight may not get so much attention as the face, the eyes, the hands, and yet they are even more necessary than these. One may lose a hand, a foot, an eye, and still live and make much of his life. But when lungs or heart are destroyed, the life is ended. There are showy Christians, active and valuable in their way, who might be lost to the church and yet their loss not be felt half so much as that of some of the lowly ones, who by their prayers and godly lives help to keep the church alive. We dare not look with contempt upon the lowliest person. We do not know who are dearest to God among all his children. It was a poor widow in the temple one day who won the highest commendation from him who looks upon the heart. There is no part of the body, however unseemly and unhonored, which is not essential, whose function, perhaps, is not of even greater importance than the showiest member. So it may be [ 204 ]

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that the plain Christians whom some people laugh at are they to whom the church is indebted for the richest spiritual blessings it receives.

We may settle it, therefore, that every one has his own place and his own part in the body of the church. Some are to preach with eloquent tongue the gospel of Christ. Some who have not the gift of eloquence are to pray beside the altar. There is a story of a monk who spoke with power, and souls were melted. But he was told from heaven that “hearts were stirred, and saints were edified, and sinners won, by his, the poor lay brother’s humble aid, who sat upon the pulpit stairs and prayed.” If we cannot preach we can pray, and there may be more power in the praying than in the most eloquent preaching we could do.

Our little part is all we have to do in the Master’s work, but we must make sure that we do that. To fail in the lowliest place is to leave a flaw in God’s great plan. All duty is summed up in one — that we love one another. [205]

We are bound up in the bundle of life in most sacred associations with our fellow-men. Whenever, through willfulness or through neglect, we fail in any duty of love, we leave some one unhelped who needed just what we could have given him.

It will be pathetic for any redeemed one to come home with no fruit of service. A guest at the Hospice of St. Bernard in the Alps tells this incident of one of the noble St. Bernard dogs that have saved so many men. This dog came struggling home one morning through the snow, exhausted and faint, till he reached the kennel. There he was wildly welcomed by the dogs. But sad and crestfallen, he held his head and tail to the floor, and crept away and lay down in a dark corner of the kennel. The monks explained that he was grieved and ashamed because he had foimd no one to rescue that morning from the storm-drifts. How shall we feel, we whom Christ has redeemed, if we come home at last, ourselves, without having brought any one with us.?

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[207]” Through love to light, O wonderful the way That leads from darkness to the perfect day!

From darkness and from sorrow of the night. To miming thai comes singing o’er the sea. ThroTigh love to light; through light, 0 God, to thee, Who art the love of love; the eternal light of light.”