For we were all baptized 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. – 1 Corinthians 12:13

Tuesday morning, right after the men’s Bible study, Rebekah and I drove over to Winston-Salem to see her brother Roy and our sister-in-law Lynda. Roy has been in assisted living for several months, recently shifting from palliative to hospice care.

Seeing Roy, who is just 74 years old, so completely dependent took me back to my recent experience of caring for both my parents. I wrote about it a lot during that time and the part that comes back to me most clearly is this constant tension between overwhelm and privilege.

I also thought about our discussion in Bible study earlier in the day, where we were talking about 1 Corinthians 12 and the way Paul describes relationships within the church.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. – 1 Corinthians 12:21-23

We talked about the Jesus imperative of lifting one another up, and of offering acceptance and respect to those who may be struggling, of a community where we take extra special care of those who are weak and who this world so often rejects.

All I could see in our visit was our calling to model the kind of self-giving love that Jesus offers us. It was as if God is saying, “If you did not quite understand the scripture passage from the men’s Bible study then check this out: Exhibit A.”

“Now you are the body of Christ,” Paul concludes in 1 Corinthians 12, “and each one of you is a part of it.” From the most prominent to the most needy. Like Jesus, Paul is talking about children, about the hungry, about the infirm, about the poor, about the powerless, about the outcast – about anyone who is vulnerable.

We returned to Lynda’s home, where I helped fix a fence and we played with her pup, Ellie. And I kept thinking about how the central message of Christ’s teaching is so clear, so powerful, so rooted in healing and reconciliation – and so antithetical to what Paul refers to as, “The spirit of this world”, which looks to divide, to dominate, to control, to exploit and to use.

So if anythings sounds like and looks like “the spirit of this world” then – even if it uses the term Christian to curry favor – it is not, it cannot, be anything to do with Jesus.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” – Matthew 25

– DEREK