Look Cute

If you have been around church any length of time you have likely been introduced to the image of a body as a facsimile of the church. The metaphor of a human body works nicely as a way of seeing the importance of all the different parts coming together out of necessity to achieve what part of the whole could not attain independently of the rest.

Further, if you have heard biblical teaching on the subject, you have also likely had posited the question, “What role have you been given in this body?” So far we are on familiar ground for most seasoned Christians.

We know from the scriptures that we each have a unique and important function to fulfill as members of the Body of Christ. Recently I pondered why so many seem convinced their role is to look cute. It is as if they thought their high and holy calling was to serve as the belly button.

Please! How many belly buttons can one body have and still look cute? As I look at the church where I have the most immediate contact and intimate awareness of how the body is doing, I am satisfied that our greater needs are for more arm muscles and leg bones; people who lift the load and give strength for the job. We need more heart and brain matter; persons with passion and insight for our demanding tasks.

There really isn’t a great deal of need for dreamy eyelashes, adorable dimples, and shapely belly buttons. Maybe your exclusive function is to make the body look attractive. But perhaps you could consider how attractive a body is when it is vigorously, forcefully, engaged in significant, consequential action.

A church body which is doing what it was made to do is really quite striking. Could you review your place with an eye for the value you are here to add to His Kingdom? And if you really are here to do cute, do it exceptionally well! The rest of us cherish your aptitude for things we cannot carry out ourselves.

Tim Gramly
Education Pastor
SHBC
May 19, 2009