How Does This Serve the Interests of All?

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

I have some exciting news—Chris and I had an offer accepted on a house! We’ll be able to stay in Hartland, moving across town, and we are so excited to really put roots down and become even more a part of this community. But here’s the thing— the only reason we were able to buy a house, is that we had a good deal of financial help from our parents. I’ve been trying to be very transparent about this fact because I want to make it clear that we haven’t been able to just pull ourselves up from our bootstraps—we’ve worked hard in our respective fields, but they’re just not fields that have a lot of monetary value in this country, especially right now. I want to make it clear that the American dream is harder to achieve than ever right now, for your average citizen. Truth be told, were it not for the financial help we had, we’d be out of luck. We are incredibly privileged to have this help, and for that I’m eternally grateful. But I’m also kind of angry! Everyone should be able to afford a house. Housing should be a right, not a privilege. We shouldn’t need parental help to be able to achieve the goal of homeownership.

I’m sure you’ve heard and read plenty about the housing crisis in Vermont. It’s really bad! Vermont has the second highest rate of seasonal homes in the country, and it’s only gotten worse since the pandemic. In an article from VPR focusing on the ski-friendly area of the Deerfield Valley, it’s written that since before the pandemic, since 2016, short-term rentals have increased by 500%. Vermont isn’t the only state where this is an issue. This is happening at tourist destinations and ski towns across the country. In addition to these housing crises, we’re also being bombarded constantly with the rhetoric of “the great resignation,” pictures of “help wanted” signs everywhere, or diatribes about how “no one wants to work these days.”

The truth is, though, is that people would love to work and live in these beautiful places. But they can’t. When the only housing that’s being built are million dollar second homes, when the only places available to rent are prohibitively expensive Airbnbs, when the demand far outpaces the supply, regular lower and lower-middle-class, and middle class folks can’t afford to live in these places. And when regular folks can’t afford to live in these places, they’re not able to work the regular jobs that make these places function. From that VPR article, economist Gretchen Havreluk says, “while short term rentals like Airbnb bring in tourists, the local economy can’t thrive if there’s no one around to teach in the schools, serve in the restaurants or cut the lawns.”

This is what Paul was warning the people of Corinth about. Corinth was a place that had gone through a lot of turmoil, but was, in Paul’s time, a thriving city of wealth and culture. But because of that, the people of Corinth were a little snooty! They looked down upon people they thought to be lower than them, less-than. They were acting exclusionary, making up hierarchies within this new and growing Jesus movement, which was against everything Jesus taught. So Paul came to warn them, this will fall apart if you don’t let everyone in, and let everyone be their true selves. This will all be for nothing if you try to segregate those who may be perceived as “weak” from the “strong.” The church won’t be able to function if it’s divided, if it’s made to mirror the hierarchal, unjust systems that already exist in the world, the very systems that we as Jesus-followers are trying to subvert, to overturn.

For the next few weeks, as we work our way to the Transfiguration and Lent, I decided I’d take on Paul. I admit, I’m happy my little sermon series on 1 Corinthians starts with one of the nicer passages. One of the reasons that this long metaphor comparing the human body to the fledgling Christian church works so well, is that Paul is taking a cue from Jesus. Jesus had a habit of turning the norms of the day on their heads, of subverting power structures. Paul is doing that here—because he didn’t come up with this extended bodily metaphor. This was actually a pretty common metaphor that the powerful Romans used in their day. But the Romans used it for the exact opposite reason that Paul did. They tried to say that the less “important” parts of the body were simply present to lift up the “stronger” “more important” parts.

The thing I love about this is that Paul is kind of making fun of the Romans here. He’s really leaning into the absurdity of the Romans’ use of this metaphor. “If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” It is indeed absurd to think about our body parts getting in fights and revolting against the one another, claiming to be more important or better. It’s a useful and funny metaphor, but it also seems a little obvious. Of course we need to work together to function properly. Of course we can’t have people of the same body going completely against the interests of other people and pushing them away. But, looking at today’s housing crisis, and the impending economic destruction of ski towns, it doesn’t seem to be quite as obvious as we would have hoped.

We’re seeing this play out in our world, as service workers who wash dishes, who serve food, who teach skiing lessons, who provide daycare for children are priced out these beautiful mountain towns. These towns and these communities are becoming less and less functional, because you don’t have workers there who are mistakenly and insultingly thought of as less-than, or below those who live in million dollar homes for a few weeks a year. It’s all falling apart. We’re seeing first-hand that those service workers are not, in fact, less-than, that they are not dispensable—that when they are excluded from being a part of a community because of a lack of affordable housing, the shaky foundation on which these communities stand begins to crumble.

And this goes so far beyond the lack of service-workers. In absurdly expensive places like Northern California, teachers can’t afford to live anywhere close to the cities in which they teach. It’s already back-breaking and especially right now, emotionally taxing work being a public school teacher; now you have the mental cost of hours-long commutes. It’s at the point now where affordable teacher housing is being built in order that public schools can function. It seems we’re excluding people in this country for being poor—not even for being poor—we’re punishing people for not being rich. Just because someone can’t afford a luxury home, or exorbitant rent, should they be permanently ostracized? “On the contrary,” Paul says, “the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable, we clothe with greater honor…whereas our more respectable members do not need this.” We don’t need more unattainable mansions. We don’t need to cater to the whims and wants of millionaires or billionaires. We need to respect regular workers, we need to respect and compensate, we need to lift up those who are struggling so we can have functioning communities. We need to work together and respect everyone’s unique gifts. Because as we’re seeing so clearly now, when you punish one, you eventually punish the whole. Everyone suffers.

There’s reason in this passage the Paul mentions speaking in tongues last in two different lists. The people of Corinth were, for whatever reason, really into speaking in tongues, and they were elevating those who could speak in tongues, while disregarding healers, teachers, others with very specific and important gifts—more important, Paul would argue, than speaking in some kind of unintelligible language. See, Paul was emphasizing gifts that would lift a community as whole, gifts that would provide for the greater good, as opposed to one person’s ecstatic experience, because it is not a given that this would tangibly benefit an entire community.

Sadly, it’s really hard for us, especially in this country, to think in terms of what would benefit a community as a whole. I don’t know if any of you watch the show Succession, a show about a fictional grotesquely wealthy and dysfunctional American family but in the show, there’s a character Gerri who serves at general counsel to the large corporation at the center of the show—at one point she gives advice to, at all times, think in terms of “How does this serve my interests?” Succession may be fictional, but “how does this serve my interests” is a very real ideology, and it’s what we’re up against.

People in power just can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. As the ultra-wealthy and corporations buy up all the land and houses, those who make communities run and thrive are priced out. Because they don’t think about people they consider to be below them, people they consider to be inferior to them. Because they’re thinking “how does this serve my interests?”

There’s no reason that every single person shouldn’t have a roof of their head, shouldn’t be able to live in a place they feels like home. At the beginning of today’s passage, Paul says, “…we were all made to drink of one spirit.” It’s tempting to read this as relating to communion, but what Paul was actually saying here, is that the Spirit is abundant— so abundant, in fact, that there’s plenty to go around, and no one should ever be excluded. But we live in a very exclusionary world— a world where you have to “earn” shelter, you have to “earn” your food, you have to “earn” your comfort; and the incorrect assumption is that if you can’t earn these things you’re not worthy. Well I can tell you first hand, if that is true, then Chris and I aren’t worthy of moving into our new house. We live in this world where our worth is judged so narrowly—judged by wealth, by money, by sex, by being intelligent in only very specific ways; we live in a world that treats basic needs like healthcare shelter as something that is not abundant, as something you have to “earn.”

But when we value a very narrow group of people over everyone else; when only lift up those who don’t need lifting anymore, when we push people out who those in power think of as disposable, everything falls apart. When servers, when landscapers, when teachers can’t afford to live in the places they work and love, those places lose their function as well as their heart.

I know it sounds a little kum bai yah and a little corny to say, “we all have to work together and respect each other,” but it’s true. We have to work with everyone and work to implement policies that benefit everyone, that serve the interests of the body, not of the member.

And you know, we know it can work—because it works in this church every day. God knows not everyone in this church thinks the same way, God knows not everyone in this church even gets along, but you all know how important this small but mighty community is, and you all put your differences aside for the greater good; you all are so amazing at checking your egos at the door and being here with God and with one another for something bigger than yourselves.

And for the sake of my own well-being, I have to have faith that it’s possible for people think of something greater than themselves outside these doors as well. I have to believe that a better world is possible. I have to believe that the world as a whole can come to a place where instead of thinking “How does this serve my interests?” it thinks, as one body, “How does this serve everyone’s interests?” I have to believe that an earth as it is in heaven is possible. Amen.