Reflections of 1 Corinthians 12:11-13
Khen Lim
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You probably know that the title came from somewhere else and you’d be right. Wikipedia links it to the definition of Synergy but it was in 1890 that the Gestalt concept surrounding this phrase was conceived by Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) who said that, “it’s the perception of a composition as a whole while each of the individual parts have meaning of their own (but) when taken together, the meaning may change. Our perception of the piece is based on our understanding of all the bits and pieces working in unison.”
Football fans will tell you that you may put together an
eleven-strong team of the world’s best and most gifted footballers but they may
not win the FIFA World Cup. In recent campaigns, the hugely talented team from
Netherlands proved this point over and again. Dutch teams in the recent decades
were known to have exceptional players but somehow they just couldn’t click
together.
Those who love a nice generous serving of chicken broth will
be able to tell if white peppercorns were used in the cooking or not because
they would sense something is amiss. Or try replacing Australian butter with a
local alternative when you next bake your cake. How about using dairy milk
instead of fresh coconut cream to create your next chicken curry? The fact is
every tiniest detail makes a huge difference.
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Toyota tells us that there are about 30,000 parts in a single
automobile, from the smallest screws to the largest part. We may be familiar with common components like the engine, fuel injection system, computer, cabin parts, body panels, windshields, wheels and tyres, lights and electrical wiring but there are also the less visible (or lesser) parts that hold everything together.
Every part is
carefully designed and manufactured, and they link up with the other parts in a
critically orchestrated and mechanically harmonic symphony. If just one part fails
to work, the car might even stall and seize up. In worse cases, there might
even be costly physical damage to the engine or the structure.
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The synergy between working parts recall the acronym
‘T.E.A.M.’ which means ‘Together, Everyone Achieves More’ first conceived in
1948 by the Public School Employees of Washington. It supports pretty much all
the examples above and more but perhaps, an even better analogy of all this is
the human body. In other words, what can a toe or a thumb or a pinkie achieve
without the rest of the body? Although our intelligence comes exclusively from
our brain, what good is it if we didn’t have the rest of the body to carry out
its commands? No amount of blood would be of any use if there isn’t a functioning
heart to keep it pumping through the body.
Same and yet different
Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:11-13 basically underlines
the indispensability of unity and diversity in a single body. He says, “It is
the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which
gift each person should have. The human body has many parts but the many parts
make up one whole body. So it is with the Body of Christ. Some of us are Jews,
some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been
baptised into One Body by One Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit” (NLT).
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Just like a human body with its many unique and different
parts all working coherently towards a single purpose, a church is the same
with its various different congregants making up the entire parish, all having
dissimilar backgrounds and all inclusively counted as one unitary body bound in
Christ. Most if not all churches throughout the world will comprise all sorts
of people brought together by God for the purpose of not only worshipping Him
but to work together for His glory.
Our differences run deep. Not only do we have different tastes
and preferences, we are also differently talented. Our skills come from
different educational backgrounds. Our experiences are based on assorted years
of working at different things in our lives. Even identical twins are nowhere
as similar as people think. Beneath that exterior of identical looks, they are
also different. They will make different decisions in their lives whether it be
tertiary education, career pursuits or even marriage partners.
In other words, no two of us throughout the world are ever
alike. God created every one of us to be unique and special in His eyes. We are
so amazingly unique that not only our fingerprints aren’t identical; so are our
retinal biometric patterns and of course, DNA, and science proves the mastery
of God’s creativity by confirming that no matter how crimes may be smartly
orchestrated seemingly without a trace, sophisticated forensics underscore the
brilliance of divine intervention and
invention.
As unbecoming as the mix might be, we are God’s choices. As
such, we may have a church that features people of all types of professions and
careers, wide range of social and economic backgrounds, different ethnicities
and certainly a very colourful gamut of personalities as well. We might even
construe that due to such diversities, we might not meld well and that possibly
at some point, such a church may face divisiveness. That might be the case if
our self-interests come between us and God but He brought us together for
compelling reasons that we would do well to understand, value and embrace.
And so while we may all be uniquely different in more ways
than we care to count, we all have royal blood coursing through our veins.
While we are inclusive as a united body in Christ, we are all part of that
exclusive membership of God’s family. We are, after all, children of the
Greatest King of kings.
Indispensable but
purposeful
No one is on this Earth without a purpose. God has a plan for
each of us although many of us could still be figuring out what that might be.
However life is not about wondering and struggling to discover what this plan
is. So long as we place our complete trust in Him, we can freely allow God to
unfold His purpose according to His will in each of us.
Similarly none of us arrived at the one same church by
accident. We have all been placed here by God’s design. We might all have our
own stories to tell about how we ended up attending the same church but without
a doubt, God plotted behind all of them. In His purpose, He has identified our
specific talents and it is He who envisions how we can contribute to the growth
of His church. Paul confirms this in Romans 12:4-6, saying, “Just as our bodies
have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s
body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.”
But in verse 6, Paul hits the nail: “In His grace, God has
given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you
the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.” In
other words, we are placed together so that we may make full use of what God
has gifted us to bring Him glory and for His purpose in love for one another. What
these gifts are may not necessarily be spiritual in nature for they may simply
be what we know best in terms of our talents, skills, experiences and know-how.
In our unity together as a Body of Christ but diverse enough
to not replicate one another, we are placed where we are to do His work until
the day when He returns. So irrespective of what we are good at doing, we do
them for His glory. We use the tools that He has given us to expand His kingdom
and to bring others to Him. And so for all the talk contemplating diversity
dividing the body, all of us should feel the honour that God has bestowed upon
us to do something not everyone is accorded the privilege.
Humble in servitude
Even as God has particularly chosen to place us together to
fulfil His purpose in accordance to His will, we must remain completely humble
in servitude to Him. There is no place for us to put on display our glory and
to think that in all that we do in church, we deserve accolades. In all truth,
even as we expend all our efforts in doing great work in church, we are so far
from being in a praiseworthy position to bask in any limelight!
Whether we serve in a small or huge church, in a big
cosmopolitan city or a tiny hamlet, with a pocket size congregation or one that
bursts at its seams, celebrity status is not for pastors who are not in service
to God to claim fame for themselves. There is no glory worth pastor to steal
from God that would not earn His wrath. The same goes with musicians who
replace humility with pride because their exceptional talent have made them
popular and highly sought after. Or any ministry leader who believes leadership
in church gives him leverage to wield authority to compel members to be
submissive before him.
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Whatever talents, skills or capabilities we have, we must
remain exceptionally humble not only before God but in the eye of the public.
In an interview with the late Mother Teresa, the writer asked her how she felt
to be used by God to be His instrument to the poor and to the world. After all,
her work by then was known throughout the world and even in the White House.
Her labour of love has become a yardstick by which everyone doing the work of
Christ would be measured against.
“But it is His work… I think God wants to show His greatness
by using my nothingness,” she replied.
When asked later if she felt she had the necessary unique
qualities to qualify to do such work, she said, “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t claim anything of the work. It is His work and I am
like a little pencil in His Hand. That is all. He does the thinking, He does
the writing. The pencil has nothing do with it. The pencil has only to be
allowed to be used.”
The reason the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the
parts is because God in His will, uses us to make the difference. Alone, we are
nothingness. Alone, even all our skills would amount to nothing. But by
allowing God to use us and be allowed to be used by Him, we can achieve that
balance between being unique and diverse at the same time.
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