1 Corinthians 12:12-14 — For as the body is one, and hath many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.

This devotion comes from two conversations at today’s Bible and Life Group (Sunday School class for those of you who don’t attend FBCN).
The first conversation was with a couple who were a mainstay of the group, but have moved away. They are back in town for a few weeks as “visitors”. The connection when they walked into class today was instant — direct and loving, as though they had never been away.
The second conversation was with a lady who is part of one of our “snowbird” couples. She told me of a chance meeting she and her husband had had with someone they had never met, with whom — it proved — her husband had a lot of common background. It’s a familiar experience — so often we meet people in the church with whom we have unexpected connections.
These two unrelated conversations reminded me of the network of “family relationships” that exist in the church. That thought, in turn, reminded me off this passage in Corinthians.
We are all different in the Church, all differently gifted, but all connected so that we can work together to do the churches work. The comparison Paul is making is with the workings, and the interconnections, of the parts of the human body. It seems a prosaic and obvious sort of connection — the hand and the foot, the eye and the ear, all working together — but it’s really extraordinarily beautiful. Right now, Jesus isn’t here in the body, but we are …
The sixteenth century Spanish mystic, the Carmelite nun Saint Theresa of Avila wrote a beautiful poem — Christ Has No Body:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Have I wandered a long way from those conversations — maybe, but I’m not always in charge of the path these pieces take. I’ve just followed the thought and enjoyed the journey …