The Body
Some things we just cannot do alone.
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. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to 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 were to 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. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 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.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. - 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
In times like these where so much needs to be done, and yet the work itself can expose us to risk, we come to understand the value of each member of the body.
When one member of the team is not available to work, for whatever reason, we ask the others to pick up t he slack, and for a while that could work. But as each member falls sick or becomes unavailable, the challenge to keep functioning becomes greater, until the job can no longer get done.
This is where we may be headed with the current pandemic.
When this is over and we come back to what we think of as a normal life, will we remember how dependent we were on each member? Will we remember the tasks we had to pick up and carry forward?
At some point, the burden is so great or the skills not present and we have to abandon the work. That is when we should realize how much we need one another, so that when the strife is over, we can appreciate every little and every major contribution.
Yes, we can do some things on our own, without help, but to do the job right, we need each other's help.
We should be thankful for one another, especially now.
More to come...