This is such a rich passage with so many life-giving truths for our age:
– Not thinking of ourselves too highly.
– Remembering that we are one body; one humanity.
– Rejoicing in our diversity.
Driving around Croydon today, I will encounter drivers who believe they are the most important people in the world, with the most urgent tasks to fulfil and a divine right to get ahead of me. I, of course, never fall into this trap of thinking of myself so highly(!?). We all know that driving under the influence is illegal, but how about driving without sober judgement?
We can be fooled into thinking that some of us are lesser than others: migrants described as ‘rats’ in a tunnel, the disabled as ‘invalid’ (and on and on). Once we’ve judged and dehumanised our brothers and sisters, it is an easy step to blaming them, to hating them, to treating them terribly. Before we know where we are, we have rejected God’s love for all. Our ‘one body’ is destroyed by ‘my’ body.
The image of the body with its many parts, is really helpful. The tiny homogeneous boxes of what society considers to be attractive, valuable and successful, are a lie. They suit the advertisers bottom-line, but they reduce us to a grey shadow of our colourful God-given selves.
God creates us as one people with unique gifts that can be used for good or ill.
As we go about our lives today, consider:
How often are we inflated by our reduction of others?
How often are we deflated by society’s raising of others?