Paralysis in the Body of Christ

DAILY BYTE

When my mom was dying, she used to say that she felt like the paralytic person being carried down to Christ. That image of being carried by people to Jesus, along with the reality of the community’s embrace in her life, carried her through the most painful, long days imaginable. Now my mother was the one who was ill, but I also felt paralyzed - by fear.

Have you ever felt paralyzed in life? By a big decision you need to make, but you don’t know how? By an unexpected turn of events? A terrifying diagnosis? Or simply by plodding along in the same pattern of living?

I remember when I was caring for my mom, my favorite moment of the day would be when someone unexpected would pop in to the hospital, just to see how she was doing and offer a brief prayer. I would wander around and peek at other patients sometimes, noticing how lonely many of them were, how barren and depressing their rooms were, and how they just slept away the days. That stood in stark contrast to the way people reached out to my mom and also the way that love not only carried me – but solidified my calling as a minister.

Because, I decided to become a minister not because I knew I had gifts that were required. The catalyst came when I saw the way people in the community of faith lifted my family into Christ’s presence when we were struggling, so that we could live, even in the midst of death, and I could not imagine myself ever being apart from that kind of loving community. That was the kind of life I felt called to lead people into. No other way of living made any sense to me.

So, the story we explore this week is one that I hold very near to me. It’s the familiar - but not well-worn - tale in Mark 2:1-12 of the paralytic who is lowered through the roof to see Jesus. This story is our story, as we are both paralytics and the people carrying them. It is the story of the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31 includes a long description of the body of Christ, using the word for body - soma - which in Greek means the physical body, the body of Christ, the Church, or a corpse… It means the reality or substance of something, as opposed to a shadow. The body Paul speaks of is about what is real in life, as opposed to floating through a shadowy nonexistence. So, this week, we’ll explore what makes the story about the paralytic a story about the reality of the body of Christ. We’ll examine what makes this story about real community.

Think back to the things that are currently paralyzing you in life. How do they affect how you see yourself in relation to the community of faith? How do you currently perceive the body of Christ in your life and in the world?

FOCUS READING

1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (NRSV)

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.