January 29, 2013
Equipped for Service
Last summer about a third of our congregation went on a weekend campout
together, which put a void in the Sunday morning worship service. Not that
those of us who remained were the sick, lame and blind, but we were the crowd
that is no longer suited for sleeping in tents, going without indoor plumbing
or braving the elements. At the church it was apparent that we had some missing
body parts. Our singing lacked its normal volume and some of our older communion
servers, who only thought they had retired from serving, were called up for
duty. I love the fact that even when we are separated by distance, we are still
equipped to function as one body. “But in
fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he
wanted them to be….As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1Cor
12:18, 20 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----We make so much of mutuality we forget the importance of individuality. We weigh selfishness so heavily we impugn also autonomy. But that God put our souls inside these inescapable (while we are yet physically alive) bags of water, bone, and such bares witness to our solitary relationship with Him. We are each an independent unit with a mind for its plans, feelings for its gumption, and a sense of a self to form continuity from seeming chaos. Having had to pick up the pieces of my once dismantled life and reassemble them, I stand amazed at how many people reach a level of useful function regardless of all our complexities. I suppose if we had to seek and assemble for ourselves the attitudes and knowledge necessary for work and association we would each be either scattered basket cases or ill-fitting, Frankensteiny patchworks. Anyway, that’s what I tried. But most everyone else just enjoyed growing up while social interactions took care of the tacky assembly processes.
-----Maybe that’s why mutuality gets a public overrating. We intermingle in a collective sea of somewhat caring individuals. Yet the very boundaries of our own skin and the essential attention its contents require keep us staked tightly to individual responsibilities. In spite of this, some people carry a need to conquer others for directing services from them towards the community, not understanding that each fulfilling the demands of his own responsibilities produces benefits to others, too.
-----I was talking with a client yesterday who was bemoaning the office in which she once worked. Each person had a duty precisely choreographed with those of the others. Work was efficient and production abundant, when everyone was there. Should somebody go missing, though, their post of duty stayed vacant. Nobody knew how to do anything except his own stuff. Everyone was directed by the master-mind unto his own little cubicle. Be assured; I’m not saying Willy Nilly should roam free. But the surrender of all self-direction to the master-mind left no crossover skills shaped by the natural intermingling people do autonomously. Over-control kills skills it doesn’t even know.
-----I am sure this is why Jesus is the head of the church, not the elders, not the preacher, or the deacons, or the Pope, or whoever else have you. Christ’s direction of each heart’s autonomy within the community of believers leads to the most prolific flowering of skills. Neurotic leadership wilts them all.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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