Continuing, “If the whole body were an eye, what part would do the hearing? If the whole were an ear, what part would exercise the sense of smell? But as a matter of fact, God has placed each of the members in the body just as He decided. If they were all the same member, where would the body be? So now there are many members, but one body” (12:17-20). If we are correct in our suppositions, one can only envision the dramatic pause that may very well have taken place after this portion of the reading. It does not take much effort to imagine the reader of this letter, whoever it was, being instructed by Paul to read these words and then stop, scanning the room and meeting the eyes of each and every person in an effort to make a point concerning the “oneness” of the body of Christ.
Having done that, the reader, also knowing full well the divisions and separations that are at work in this church, whether socially constructed or based upon constructs rooted in opinions concerning a hierarchy of spiritual gifts, continues with “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you,’ not in turn can the head say to the foot, ‘I do not need you.’ On the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential, and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our un-presentable members are clothed with dignity, but our presentable members do not need this” (12:21-24a). With this, we have to agree that the honor and shame notions here presented are completely inescapable, practically clinching our argument.
Then, with the honor and shame constructs in mind, and with a profound reflection upon the Jesus tradition as he well understood it, Paul adds, “Instead, God has blended together the body” (12:24b), as we note the flattening out and removal of kingdom-of-God-obstructing divisions and go on to read “giving greater honor to the lesser member” (12:24c), which would certainly call to mind the portion of the shared Jesus tradition that would eventually be well-communicated by Luke, who reports Jesus as having said, in conjunction with the parable of the great banquet, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (14:11). There, we reflect on the fact that Luke’s precise construction has Jesus saying such things in the wake of His insistence concerning the kingdom of God (in the context of Jesus’ talk of the messianic banquet) that “some are last who will be first, and some who are first will be last” (13:30). All of this, for Paul, is “so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another” (12:25), adding “If one member suffers, everyone suffers with it. If a member is honored, all rejoice with it” (12:26).
Capping off his dissertation concerning the body that simply must be carefully regarded along with the eating and drinking, Paul goes on to write “Now you are Christ’s body, and each of you is a member of it” (12:27). He has made clear his point that the distinctions being set forth by the church in Corinth, and which were so unfortunately on display when they gathered together for the meal that they called the Lord’s Supper, were all artificial and counter to what Jesus intended. As has been said, this was a source of some distress for Paul, as it served to undermine the unifying, gathering message of the Gospel, as amply pronounced through Jesus’ life and words.
However, Paul does go on to point out that there are going to be some types of divisions in the church, writing that “God has placed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, helps, gifts of leadership, different kinds of tongues” (12:28). While he does this, he does it while having already told them that “It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as He decides to each person” (12:11a), while also having made it very clear what he thinks about putting divisions and hierarchies on display at their corporate meals. So the last thing that he would expect them to do is to take this list of what “God has placed in the church,” and use it to create a spiritual hierarchy that will then be reflected in their table fellowship. This will only create a competition for status based on a new set of honor securing instruments---spiritual gifts---that will be used to create the same types of divisions of which the church of Christ is to have no part.
If read properly, keeping in mind the sense of narrative and structure that Paul has labored hard to develop, these questions will be heard in light of Paul’s insistence that all of the members of the body (as he speaks to this particular stratifying and dividing church) are equally valuable, with a reminder that “those members that seem to be weaker are essential, and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our un-presentable members are clothed with dignity” (12:22-23). We also hear the questions in the light of the statement that “God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another” (12:24b-25).
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