The Body of Christ

Loosely based on 1 Corinthians 12:12-18

Look.
Look at yourself.
Look at your body,
at its wonderful connections,
one part to another.
Each part -- your eyes, your ears,
your heart, your toes, your stomach --
each part has a function.
Each one is nothing on its own,
separated from the body,
and yet together,
they are A Body.
Wonderful, mysterious,
You.

Look
Look at the church.
Look at the Body of Christ.
It is very much the same.
One body, one spirit, one God.
We have left behind our piecemeal lives
to become something more.
Wonderful, mysterious,
The Body of Christ.

We stand at the altar
and are flooded by the water.
Flooded by grace
as God claims us as his own,
and makes us part of something more.
We are recreated, claimed, unified.
We each are part of a resurrection.
No longer dead, but alive in God.
Our thirst is quenched by One Spirit.
His Spirit.

We shed what we once were.
Transformed.
Changed.
The old labels are no longer truth.
No longer who we are.
No longer what defines us.
God defines us.
Black
White
Conservative
Liberal
Rich
Poor
Male
Female
None of these is big enough.
None of them is useful.
We leave them behind
to be the Body of Christ.

God has crafted us,
equipped us,
so that each of us is necessary.
Indispensable.
Integrated.
Perfectly designed by God
as part of something larger than ourselves.
None is less.
None is more.
All a part.
All dependent on each other.
Each one of us placed by God.
Lovingly incorporated into the
Body of Christ.
Wonderful, mysterious,
One.