“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are
indispensable.” –1 Corinthians 12:22
Indispensable – Absolutely necessary. Not subject to being set aside or neglected. Essential. Vital. Fundamental.
I’ve read 1 Corinthians many times over the years, and maybe you have, too. The longer I serve in disability ministry, the more I am realizing just how much the word “indispensable” should change the way we think about people with disabilities in the church.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that the church is a body, not one part, but many. Every part is different, and every part is placed by God exactly where he wants it. And then Paul addresses two very different problems within the body, or rather, the church.
First, the foot looks inward at itself and says, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body.” In other words: you don’t need me. Saying that does not make it true. Then, a few verses later, Paul flips it. The eye looks at the hand and says, “I don’t need you.” Paul says we can’t do that either.
There isn’t a part of the body that gets to look at another part and say, “We’d be fine without you.”
And then comes verse 22: “On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”
On the contrary, I love that because it’s a simple statement of what Jesus does again and again. In a world under Christ, there is this concept of an “upside-down kingdom” where He comes along and repeatedly reverses the way we expect things to work.
The Bible has example after example:
You want to be first? Be last.
You want to be great? Serve.
You want to enter the kingdom? Become like a child.
You want to save your life? Lose it.
You have enemies? Love them.
You expect the King of Kings to arrive in power in a great palace? He comes as a baby in a manger.
You want a Savior that conquers his enemies? Not this one. This one lays down His life for them.
And you think you know which parts of His body matter most? On the contrary.
“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” That’s the upside-down kingdom of God.
When we first started Shine more than twelve years ago, our intentions were to create a place where teens and adults with disabilities would be cared for and loved well.
And hear me: caring for and loving people is a great and honorable place to start. For many churches, that may be exactly what needs to happen first. Just start.
But God wasn’t going to let us stay there.
Eventually, He began to call us to change, to focus on aligning our Shine ministry with Trinity New Life Church as a whole. To filter through all that we were doing and make sure every bit of it, from the music, to lesson, to small group time and even fun fellowship nights followed our church-wide mission: make disciples who change their world.
And now we are – together – all calling each other to more: more service, more understanding, more forgiveness, more fruit of the Spirit, more obedience, more discipleship.
More of a whole, complete body.
It is the gospel in action, and we get the benefit and privilege of watching God’s upside-down kingdom reveal itself week after week. Instead of asking how can we simply care for and love on this community – we’re now realizing ALL that they are adding to the body of Christ.
That changes things. There is a big difference between believing someone should be included in the body and believing that person is actually indispensable to it. I learned that lesson personally in a way I never expected.
This past November, my dad passed away very unexpectedly.
The Sunday after his funeral, I was serving in the Shine classroom, and it was our first week meeting in a new room. One of our regular Sunday morning Shine friends came back, and right away I noticed that he was pretty overstimulated. I was trying my best to help him regulate when his mom asked him if there was something he wanted to tell me.
One of the ways he communicates is by spelling, which is essentially pointing to the letters of what he wants to say on what is known as a letter board.
I watched as he spelled out, “I’m sorry”.
I quickly reassured him, thinking he was apologizing for his behavior in this new, unfamiliar space, behavior that was really not a big deal. But he shook his head…no…no…and went back to the letter board.
This time spelling “I’m sorry for your loss.”
It stopped me in my tracks. The tears I had held in that morning fell. My aching heart eased just a little.
He went on to spell and tell me that maybe his Grandpa, who had also recently passed, had met my dad in heaven and he thought they were sharing chai and a meal together.
It was such a sweet picture. I told him that my dad loved meeting new people, that everyone was instant family to him. And gosh, that man loved to eat. After he communicated all that to me, he calmed right down, sort of waved goodbye, and was ready to go home. It was almost as though he had come to church that morning just to see me and tell me something I didn’t know I needed to hear.
I had spent weeks trying to protect my Shine friends from my grief, like we often do with our children. I thought I always needed to be okay or strong in their eyes. I thought I was the one who was supposed to care for them. And then that upside-down kingdom came along again, and I found myself
experiencing it firsthand.
In one of the hardest seasons of my own life, in just one sentence, God used one of the very friends I thought I needed to protect to bring me just a little more healing. It was such an unexpected gift.
I often wonder how many people would look at that same friend and immediately notice all the ways he needs other people.
And in some ways, he does. But so do I and so do you.
Remember – God’s kingdom has always done things differently. The people the world is quickest to overlook are sometimes the very people God uses to show us what His upside-down kingdom looks like.
That Sunday morning, God reminded me of verse 18 from the same chapter in Corinthians: “But in fact, God has placed the parts of the body, every one of
them, just as he wanted them to be.”
Every one of them. Indispensable.
When our friends with disabilities are missing from the life of the church, the church is missing something too.
Disability ministry cannot only be about what we as pastors, leaders and volunteers have to offer. That is not how a body works. The parts work together.
They depend on one another. And in a body or a world under Christ, they become something no individual part could ever be on its own.
I have more than twelve years of lessons like this that I’ve learned through Shine, and I imagine I’ll spend the rest of my life continuing to learn from these friends.
Learning just what Paul was trying to get the Corinthians to understand all along and what Jesus is still trying to get us to understand:
We need each other. Because Jesus has made us one body.
And the body needs the body.
