1 Corinthians 12:12-19
Some years ago my sister gave me a gift of a beautiful hand-made clay pot. It has gingko leaves decorating the surface of it. I loved it immediately. But I didn’t know, immediately, what to do with it. So I set it on the kitchen counter. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I looked at it many times every day. I moved it around as needed while I worked. I wrote my sister a note to thank her for the gift. In the note I told her I was waiting for it to show me how it wants to be used.
And eventually it did. It makes a wonderful napkin holder. To this day it remains in the kitchen (having lived in several kitchens by now), on a shelf, holding the napkins. It is beautiful. I get to look at it every day. And it has a purpose.
What more could you ask for?
The book that I have been reading, called Drawn In, says that everything is created with a purpose. Nothing is created simply for itself. Now this doesn’t mean that everything must be utilitarian, that nothing can be valued just for its beauty. Because, of course, beauty is in itself a purpose. We admire beauty, and find joy from being in its midst. But even beauty wants to be useful, engaged with – that is how beauty becomes a part of our lives.
When we talk about these things – how a creation is used, how it is valued, it is a question of economy. That might seem like an odd word to use, but economy is essentially about how we manage our stuff. And there are many ways of doing that.
I read something interesting about Native American economy. Before the Europeans came to America, the Native American tribes practiced a kind of gift economy. They gifted pipes to one another. The pipes served as a symbol of how they had interacted with one another, of the generosity they had experienced from one another. For example, the Lakota tribe would give a pipe to the Cherokee tribe. Later when the Apaches met the Cherokees the pipe would be passed to them, and they would give one of their pipes to the Cherokees.
When the Europeans arrived and began to establish friendships with the Native American tribes, the tribes gave them pipes too. But the Europeans were not familiar with this form of gift economy. They would accept the pipe and put it in a trophy case, because it was so cool. They would see the pipe as an acquisition. Much to the dismay of the Natives, their pipes were taken out of circulation. The tribesmen learned in this way that the European men did not see the world and all that is in it the same way they did.
This idea of gifting and sharing freely the stuff of creation has somehow managed to come up in multiple ways for me recently. Last week several of us got together to have a conversation about the first of our Summer Reads – The Girl Who Smiled Beads. It is a true story about a girl, Clementine, who escaped the Rwandan genocide when she was six years old. She and her older sister then made their way through one refugee camp after another for about six years. Eventually they came to the United States.
Clementine shares a saying that she first learned from her mother, which was repeated by her older sister: Nothing is yours; everything is yours. This is the notion that everything in this world is created by God, created for the use of all God’s people. Everything is yours. But nothing is yours. It is a gift from God and is meant for sharing.
Nothing is yours; everything is yours. This, of course, runs up hard against some sayings we have in our country: like, to the victor goes the spoils. Or, he who dies with the most toys wins.
The morning after our book discussion, I was listening to a podcast that was titled, Why Do We Work So Much? A few decades ago, economists believed that by the time we reached the 21st century, Americans would only need to work about 15 hours a week to meet our needs, that we would be full to overflowing with free time. But what they didn’t anticipate is that our “needs” would continually outrun our ever-increasing abundance. We have more than we have ever had before. But we “need” more than we ever have before.
On this podcast I listened to an anthropologist describe his experience living amongst a tribe in southern Africa, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer societies. He explains some of the systems this tribe has worked out to prevent any member from acquiring too much more than others – too much stuff, too much success, too much admiration. They understand that the survival of their society depends on being able to maintain a basic equality.
And so if one man has a good combination of skill and luck and manages to hunt down a giraffe, when he brings it home to the tribe, this is what he gets: he is mocked; he is criticized. And he puts up with it. You see, he knows that he has done a great thing, and he knows that the others are aware of it. But he also knows that he doesn’t survive solely by his own skills. He is a part of a society in which they are all dependent on one another for survival. He is willing to tolerate the ribbing for the sake of the whole body.
To know that the whole body is vital – this is key.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. These are the words Paul writes to the Corinthian church, words they evidently needed to hear for the sake of their own survival.
The church in Corinth was suffering from an inequality problem. Some of the members of the new church brought some old values in with them and these old values were threatening to destroy the church that had been created. Some of the people were wealthy. And others were poor. Some lived lives of leisure and others were slaves. They brought this hierarchical way of being and seeing into the church.
For example, it seems that there was a great inequality when it came to food. The church would gather for a meal. And the upper-class members, those who didn’t work, came early to the feast. They helped themselves to all they wanted. But the members who were slaves couldn’t get there early. They were late to arrive, and when they got there they might find that the food was already gone. Outrageous. What kind of a system was this, where the ones with the most would have first pick of the bounty? And the ones who had the least would be the last?
What kind of system was this? It may have been the norm in the Roman Empire. And it may be the norm in the United States of America. But it is not the norm in the kingdom of God. For we know what Jesus said – that the last shall be first and the first shall go to the back of the line. In God’s realm, there is enough for everyone. Everything is yours; nothing is yours.
Paul is concerned about getting this Corinthian church back on track with the gospel, and he begins to teach them with this useful metaphor: that the church is a body – the body of Christ – and every member of the body has value. Every member has a purpose. No member of the body can go it alone.
The members of the southern African tribe have a way of recognizing this truth and putting it to work. When the hunter comes home with the giraffe, and after he is duly mocked, it comes time to distribute the meat. But who gets to do that? Is it the privilege of the hunter to give out the meat? In fact, no. The tribe has determined that whoever made the arrow that killed the giraffe is the owner of the meat. Whoever made the arrow has the privilege and responsibility of giving out the meat. And there is a very important reason why.
It takes a great deal of physical fitness to be a successful hunter. But arrow-making is different, someone who is old can make an arrow. Someone who is lame or sickly or slow can make an arrow. In fact, they might make the best arrows.
This is what it is to live in community. The first shall be last and the last shall be first, Jesus said. The members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members that we think are less honorable we clothe with greater honor, Paul said.
Everything God created has a purpose, has a place. Do we really think we know better? Can we not accept the value God places on everything and everyone God creates?
When we fulfill our role as co-creators with God, we will have to face the questions about what purpose the new thing has, where does the new thing go? How does it fit into the existing creation? And to do this we must be able to see things in a new way – whether it is a new pot or a new relationship or a new recognition of value where we did not recognize value before. We must be able to let go of the things of the past that block the way now, while holding onto the things from the past that will carry us into the future. Always sorting. Always discerning, always adapting.
We cannot insist that the old way is the right way and the new way is wrong. Neither can we insist that the new way is always right and what is old is wrong. Neither of these is true. What is true is this: God has made us for one another. We are co-creators in this work of community. We are the body of Christ stumbling around on this path toward making God’s dream a reality.
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