One Body, No Spare Parts

Have you ever stood at the edge of a group and wondered if anyone would notice if you slipped away? Like you didn't quite fit. Like you were extra.

There were people who felt that way once. So a man named Paul wrote them a letter. He loved them. They were squabbling, and some of them felt small.

Think about your body, Paul said. Your two hands. Your two feet. Your eyes, your ears, the steady thump of your heart. So many different parts, and every single one belongs.

Imagine if your foot got sad and said, "I'm not a hand, so I don't belong to the body." Would that make it true? Of course not. The foot is still part of you. It carries you all day long.

Imagine if your ear said, "I'm not an eye, so I don't matter." Silly ear. Where would the hearing go? If the whole body were one big eye, how would you ever hear your mother singing? If it were one big ear, how would you ever see her smile?

God took all the different parts and placed each one exactly where he wanted it. He chose every spot on purpose. He looked at every piece and said, "There. Right there is where I want you."

Then Paul said something tender. The parts that seem weakest, the parts you can't see, the soft hidden places, those are the ones the body guards the most. We cover them gently. We hold them close. The body spends its greatest care on the piece nobody claps for.

That is how God's family works too. The small one, the tired one, the one at the edge who thought no one would notice, that one gets honored. That one gets held.

So when one part hurts, the whole body feels it. When you stub your toe, your whole self says "ouch." And when one part is glad, everybody is glad together. You were never extra.

There is Someone gathering very different people, people who don't look alike or talk alike or come from the same place, and he is weaving them into one. Jesus is the head, and all of them, all of us, are his body. He doesn't want a body with a piece missing. Jesus once told a story about a shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep on the hill and went looking for the one that was lost, and that is exactly how he counts. He will not come home short even one.

He took the lonely and the left-out and the ones who felt too weak, and he said, "You belong to me. Stay right here, next to me."

The gathering is happening now. Today, this very minute, he is fitting the pieces together, finding the ones who feel like they don't belong and pulling them in close. It started the day he made you his.

He is not finished. One day the family will be all the way home, every piece in its place, held together in him. Until then he keeps your spot ready and he keeps saying your name, the name he has known all along.