In St Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians this Sunday, we hear his teaching on the Body of Christ. This is my bulletin reflection on that reading. It is the companion piece to my initial article on the Glorification of the Self, albeit, far shorter.
In 1998, newsman, Tom Brokaw, wrote a book entitled, “The Greatest Generation”. These were young people who grew up in the deprivation of the Great Depression, fought World War II, and helped build up the United States into a nation known not only for its prosperity, benefiting workers with a livable wage, but shared that prosperity with nations shattered by war and poverty. This was a generation who believed and lived the words expressed by President John F Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” The greater good of the nation was far more important than the good of the individual. Everybody prospers as long as the common good prospers. As Jim Hightower has said, “Everyone does better when everyone does better.”
This is not a new teaching. It is Divine revelation. Today, St. Paul exhorts the Corinthian community to be the Body of Christ. Jesus is the head of the Body. The Christian community makes up the rest of the Body, each contributing their gifts to build up the greater good of the Body. The good of the whole Body, Paul writes, is more important than the individual parts of the Body. “God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.” With the exception of Christ, the head, all parts of the Body are equally good and necessary.
When people wonder why our society is floundering so badly today, it is because we have lost sight of this Divine revelation of the Body of Christ. Since the 1980’s, we have lived in a world that glorifies the individual at the expense of the greater good of all, and our society suffers because of it. If we wish America to be “great again,” the glorification of the individual must be abandoned. All people must place the common good of all people first again. When we live this Divine Revelation of the Body of Christ, captives will be set free, the blind will see, the oppressed will go free, and God will bestow favor upon our world.
