Picking up at the seventh verse we find “To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all” (12:7). We note the “all.” “For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of the knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit” (12:8-9). Noting the “all” of the seventh verse, we again have our attention called to the use of “same” and “one” on offer to this factionalized and segregated church. Continuing, Paul writes “to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues” (12:10).
Calling attention to the point that the letter is designed to build on itself, Paul will elaborate on this mention of tongues at the end of this chapter, as well as in chapters thirteen and fourteen, reminding the church that the use of tongues (regardless of how we may want to interpret what “tongues” might mean) is not designed for determining spiritual superiority, but for love (13:1), and for the strengthening of the church (14:12).
This short soliloquy is capped with “It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person, who produces all these things” (12:11). Lest we be confused, the stress of the final statement, based on the movement of the entire letter, does not fall upon the “each person,” but rather, upon the “one” and “same.” With that in mind, we continue in our quest towards concreteness and illumination, having so much of our socially-identifying-meal-practice-shaped analysis reinforced as we hear “For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body---though many---are one body, so too is Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free, we were all made to drink of the one Spirit. For in fact the body is not a single member, but many. If the foot says, ‘Since I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,’ it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. And if the ear says, ‘Since I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,’ it does not lose its membership in the body because of that” (12:12-16). By noting the use of “whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free,” can we not hear the stinging criticism being leveled through these words?
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 unpresentable 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). Naturally, we do not forget 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).
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