Belonging

 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. (I Corinthians 12:12-14)

For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. (Ephesians 5:23)

How cooperative is your body? I know people who have Parkinson’s, whose hands shake. Other folks have had knees or hips replaced. I had to have a toe reattached. Somehow, the joint that was supposed to keep toe and foot together was damaged, and the ligaments and tendons stretched, so that said toe crossed over the toe next to it. It seems to me to be a universal truth that when some part of your body isn’t doing what it’s supposed to in the way it’s supposed to do so, life can be a royal pain.

Scripture describes the Church as the body of Christ.  I wrote about this not long ago, but I’m reading a book  about the church, so it’s appropriate to revisit the subject as I process what I’m hearing and thinking.

The first passage tells us that it doesn’t matter what our social status is. It doesn’t matter what culture we come from. It doesn’t matter what color our skin is, or any of those other things listed in yesterday’s post. Christians are all part of the body. Rejecting someone based on anything other than their salvation is like having vital body part removed. The vital part and the body from which it was taken are both likely to die. The same reality works in the other direction. If we excise ourselves from the body, we definitely die, and the body will suffer.

The second passage tells tell us that while we are part of the body, we’re not the head. Christ is. That means we don’t get to dictate to the body. Sometimes, the body’s cells decide to do something they shouldn’t – and cancer is the result. That means that, whether we like it or not, we need to associate with the body, and we need to act in that association.

What that means is that we are not free to live as we want within the Church. This is difficult for a lot of us, because if we don’t like doing what they say in church 1, we can move on to church 2, 614, or 999999. But that’s not the way it should work. The Church can only function properly if all the parts are doing what those parts are supposed to do. The Head of the Church, who is Christ, is the one calling the shots.

As I noted yesterday, I’m also reading White Fragility, and the most recent segment talks about feeling like we belong. She notes that as a White person, we tend to feel as if we racially belong most of the time. I had to chuckle about that because when I am in a church setting, I feel that sense of belonging, and a decided sense of not belonging, all the time. I can and do feel a sense of belonging no matter what the members of the congregation look like, even if they play music too loud, or dance, or speak in tongues.

At the same time, I feel a sense of not belonging that is partly the result of being a split year resident. I attend one church for 6 months, and another for the other 6 months. Just about the time I start feeling “at home” I switch. I like the switch for some reasons, but it interferes with my sense of belonging. I also feel a lack of belonging because I perceive myself as different and unacceptable and tend to project that rejection on others. I am the unacceptable one, therefore, I must protect myself by not accepting you.

In order to be the Church, we all have to find ways to become more and more part of the Church – which means dying to ourselves. It means paying a price of some sort. There’s a lot of work to do. Our feeling that we don’t belong is not something someone else can change for us. It’s something we have to figure out how to do for ourselves.