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 baptised 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. And so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14 NIVUK
There is a famous satirical comedy sketch that can still be seen on YouTube. It’s from a comedy series called ‘Not the Nine O’Clock News’ and featured several giants of British comedy – John Cleese, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones, Durley Moore, Eric Idle, Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis, Ronnie Barker – and, of course, the rather diminutive ‘giant’, Ronnie Corbett.
Their most famous sketch involves a selection of British workers, representing different levels of class in the British system and how each should ‘know their place’.
As with most satire, it’s not funny because it’s silly – it’s funny because it’s painfully true.
Church is not a place where class or income of cultural or geographical or even gender differences should be apparent.
That’s not to say that we should conceal our differences. That is absolutely not the case.
We read this in the Bible:
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26-28 NIVUK
That is not to say that we surrender our background, our gender, our history and our identity and come to church in formless gunnysacks with holes cut in them for eyes. Of course not. That would be utterly absurd.
No, the more we read in Scripture, the more we realise that the Bible teaches us to revel in who God has created us to be and bring this identity into the church.
We’ll see more of that later on in 1 Corinthians, but we also see this teaching here:
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5:21-28 NIVUK
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honour your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism with him.
Ephesians 6:1-9
There are foolish men who twist these words to their eternal shame to make political capital out of them. Paul is not condoning slavery here. No, he is saying that a Christian slave ought to be the best slave there is, just as a Christian husband ought to be the best husband, a Christian child ought to be the best child and a Christian master ought to be the best master.
Paul is simply highlighting two things: firstly, we are all in a distinct place in our society; secondly, as much as we might want to change it if it isn't in our favour, our primary purpose is to use it for the glory of God.
Part of accepting where God has places us is also accepting where God has placed other people.
In the middle of a passage about judging the conscience of our fellow believer, Paul chides the Roman church with this verse:
Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
Romans 14:4 NIVUK
Elsewhere we see this from James:
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ you are doing right. But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law-breakers.
James 2:1-9 NIVUK
And again:
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you – who are you to judge your neighbour?
James 4:10-12 NIVUK
These are targeted at well-to-do Jewish people and their tendency to judge others from a different background and situation, but the principle stands.
Our task as the church begins with unconditionally accepting those who name Christ as Lord, regardless of their status and position in life; regardless of what they have or do not have, wear or do not wear, say or do not say, do or do not do.
Not accepting those from a different background or culture or upbringing to us has a serious consequence for the church. Different people bring different strengths and weaknesses and sensibilities into the church. The difference does not weaken the church; it makes it stronger. It does not blunt the ministry of the church; it makes it sharper. It does not restrict our area of influence; it increases it.
Let me give you an example. A few years ago, our church planned a church day out. They hired a bus to take people who didn't want to go by car. We had a lot of connections with the local Filipino community at the time. The outing was going to a place they hadn't been to before. Filipinos are natural born tourists. So guess what happened: Tagalog and Cebuano were heard in that bus just as much (if not more – Filipinos are not a quiet people!) than English!
What an opportunity!
Having a Filipina in the church opened the church to opportunities to reach the Filipino community.
Of course, that wasn’t as easy as it seemed. The Filipinos weren't there to play rounders or football or have a treasure hunt. They were there to visit the place and explore. Of course, they arrived at the barbecue quickly enough. But their different values caused a bit of friction with the organisers, who wanted everyone to do what they wanted to do and had a hard time accepting the difference.
This is exactly what I mean.
We should relish and delight in the people who come to our churches from different backgrounds. We should not force them to do things our way just because ‘It’s our country’ (is it, really?), or ‘It’s our church’ (is it, really?), or ‘It’s our programme’ (is it, really?).
Bridging the Jewish-Gentile gap was not something that was solved in five minutes, or even the Acts 15 Conference of Jerusalem. Read Galatians 2:11-21. Read Galatians 3:28. Read Romans 2 and 14 and 15:1-2. Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-14.
It took multiple interventions from Paul and many others to bridge the gap. It wasn’t easy.
Their example is for us. There are many Jew-Gentile, Us-Them barriers in our lives. Some are very, very petty. Others are deep-seated in centuries of suspicion and hatred.
And those roots of suspicion might be buried deep in our culture.
But here’s the thing: the church is not meant to replicate the fractures in our culture. No, it’s meant to heal them. I love The Message’s paraphrase of Romans 12:2:
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:2 MSG
And what does God want from us?
For the church – our church – to be an agent of change in a deeply broken and wounded society.
For the church – our church – to be a means of reconciliation between both sides of our polarised world (2 Corinthians 5:15-20).
For the church – our church – to lose its immature reckoning of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ and accept people as who they are; as individuals, not as members of a different group.
The church in Bosnia Hercegovina understands this. Before the war in Ukraine, no country in Europe was as brutally divided along ethnic, religious and political fault lines. The nation seemed like it was permanently teetering on the edge.
Yet what is the one body – literally the only body – where people from Bosniak, Serb and Croatian backgrounds meet as one?
The Evangelical Church.
A church too much in the minority to bother with petty divisions.
This is the mindset we should all have.
After all, we are part of the same body, whether we like it or not.
Questions
Are there people, or groups of people, in the church whom you struggle to accept? Why? Is this the way things should be?
What opportunities could your church use to share the Gospel with different groups of people? Is it utilising these to the full? Why?
How can you do your part to ensure the different people in your church feel like they are part of the Body of Christ?
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