The Body and Worship
“Does everyone in this congregation know that if he or she is not here for worship the body suffers?” (p. 175)
I began to think about this rhetorical question and decided to ask a non-rhetorical question 
. Is this true?! The whole congregation needs to be there for the body to worship? If you think about the ‘body’ it does suffer if it is missing it’s arm, leg or eye. And following this passage the writer talks about a persons spiritual gifts and how if the person is not contributing them the body suffers. However, I don’t think a body should be affected that much when it comes to worshiping and whether or not everyone is using their spiritual gifts in worship with the congregation. A physical person missing an eye, leg, or arm can still worship! Sometimes even more than people who have there eye, arm and leg. This is because of the lack of.
I’m not saying that we should not use all the spiritual gifts in a congregation when we’re worshiping, but I am saying that I think we should not let our worship be greatly effected or even dependent on these things when we’re in lack of. I guess I see it as a person who has every part of there body and they don’t think anything of it. It’s not until they are missing their thumb do they realize how much they needed it, but they still don’t stop going on with life. They adjust to the thing that is lacking.
It is important for there to be a body for the body to worship. However, I don’t think it is critical for a body to have all it’s parts to continue to worship at a certain level. Does worship even have a level? If we sit and confine worship to a certain level than worship becomes something that we’ve boxed up. And I don’t see why God would want to accept something that is boxed up. I think of giving someone flowers. When you hand flowers to someone there is an immediate reaction to the flowers for what they are. However, if you hand someone a box with flowers in it then the person is surprised to have a box and then they have to open it to see what it is that the person is actually giving. Worship shouldn’t be something that we hand to God and Him have to open up, it should just be there opened and uncovered!
this is true. something I thought of as i was reading your blog was that we all fall short of the Glory of God. So i’m sure there have been ways in which i have fallen short in the body of christ. I don’t want people depending on me to the point where i effect them spirtiually when i do fall short becasue believe me i will because i have before. I think thats probaly why the body suffers the most when someone doesn’t do their part in the body because the depended to much on them and forgot that they are human and can and most likely will fall short. Well at least that has been my expreriences.
Perhaps, the analogy/metaphor of the body breaks down at some point, but I love your idea of how much more one would miss an arm after the arm is gone as opposed to when one is whole. That may be a great way to talk about these verses in a sermon. Maybe that’s why we don’t feel the loss of our missing members, because we have never worshipped as a whole body. If you were born deaf, or without an index finger would you miss it as much as someone who had lost their hearing or finger? But it would still be missing.
You asked an astute question about whether or not all of the members being present at worship actually caused the body to suffer. Paul uses the analogy of the body to say that when one member suffers, the rest of the body suffers with it. But this is a little different than if someone is simply missing.
I do think the body misses out on something when someone is missing. We can definitely still worship, and I don’t think our worship has a critical flaw, but if you think about it, in life there is always potential for our community to be improved if only some of us would pitch in and contribute.
When you say:
” in life there is always potential for our community to be improved if only some of us would pitch in and contribute.”
Are you speaking in terms of physically contribution? Isn’t a community contributing in worship by worshiping? When a body of believers come together to worship it isn’t what they bring to contribute to the body physically, but there heart. If all of the community is worshiping wholeheartedly than I don’t know how much a community could improve in worship. This applies both individually and as a community. The only thing that a community/an individual should contribute to make worship worship to the fullest is there whole heart. To worship God not only individually with there whole heart but as one body with one heart. The heart of Jesus Christ. I believe that if everyone is doing this than physical acts of worship will come.
i don’t know if the quote actually is referring to the body becoming incapable of worship. All it says is “the body suffers”, which I would say is true. In the same way that if you lost an arm you would suffer. You wouldn’t cease in living, you would just suffer. I think all the writer is saying is that the body simply suffers when a part of it is missing, not that it ceases to worship completely.