Faith Works 11-15-24

Faith Works 11-15-24
Jeff Gill

Paul said it to the church in Corinth, and to us
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Last week I opened "To be clear: this column was written before Election Day."

To be clear, this one was written after the results were well and truly known. And I've had the unedifying spectacle of Christians on my social media interact over the outcome.

Generally, as this column is intended for a widely general audience of "faith-interested" people, and not simply Protestants (whom I know best, to be fair) or even just Christians. However, in Licking County and even more widely, if I'm going to speak as an ordained minister, I'm going to have to quote some Scripture. So stand back!

In the twelfth chapter of Paul's first letter to the fellowship in Corinth, he says at the twenty-first verse: "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'"

Does this sound relevant to anyone else?

Just before that, Paul was setting up his overarching point: "For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body."

With me and Paul so far? The foot may be stinky, but it's a necessary part of the whole. The ear may have a higher place and smell of cologne, but it can't get within hearing distance of anything worth listening to unless the feets don't fail us now. You gotta get along, feet and toes and eyes and tear ducts…

Paul continues, just to beat the point into the dust of the marketplace: "If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body… As it is, there are many parts, yet one body." (vss. 14-20)

It's a vivid metaphor, one of many in the Bible (which is worth reading, you know?) and a very useful one for our current cultural moment. You could sum it up with "We need each other, even or possibly because of our differences," but human nature (note the need for a discussion of sin sometime here) means we may need something more startling, more intense to help us get the point.

As Flannery O'Connor said on this subject: "To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures." She was talking about writing on the subject of faith and life, and she knew her Paul, too.

We need each other, progressives and conservatives, yes, but also the old and the young, the praise music folk and the pipe organ fans; the sensitive and caring sorts and the more objective and mathematical people as a both/and, not an either/or. You generally don't want the English majors doing your books, and as a Purdue grad I hope the engineers out there won't mind if I say they aren't as a rule the obvious choice for Hospitality Committee chair.

I have contacts and engagements all across a wide swath of my own religious tradition, and a few adjoining us, so I'm not talking just to my village or county or region. But I am talking to you, dear friends. We need each other, and to say after a bruising electoral campaign that we can't have anything to do with "those people" is just the foot having a fit over the ear's high and mighty place.

We need each other. And we all probably need to read I Corinthians 12 in full, maybe twice.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's possibly more of an appendix, or maybe a spleen. Tell him where you fit in at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.