The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”

  Paul, in this quotation from 1st Corinthians 12:21, is expanding on the teaching that the church is the body of Christ. So just as the body has different parts, and different functions, so we too are different from each other. But the point that Paul is making, is that we need each other.

There is this almost universal tendency to put up walls against people who are different. The “irreconcilable differences” excuse is very common in the break of marriages. Differences on the other hand, when we let them, enhance a relationship, and bring us into a depth that would not otherwise be there. The scriptural analogy is that of iron sharpening iron.

There are two sides to Paul’s analogy. I cannot say that I don’t need you, and you cannot say that you don’t need me. Many of us have suffered from deep rejection even in the church. At the time of my conversion, to be divorced in the church in my province, was equivalent to having leprosy. I actually came to Christ through a broken marriage, deeply feeling the rejection of that, then finding further rejections in the church. Without saying anything about what is permissible and what is more permissible terms of marriage and divorce, rejecting the rejected is surely wrong!

We are all broken people, and because of this church can be messy. But one of the things that church is intended to be, is a hospital for the sin sick. It took me a long time to get over my rejection by the church. But God has used these things to draw me close to Him, the source of all healing. And now if I am rejected, I don’t take it personally, I don’t let it undermine me, because I know deep in my heart, that what He thinks of me is more important than what anyone else thinks of me.

Father, for anyone reading this who has also softened deep rejection, I ask you to meet them in their hurt and pain. As the God of all comfort, comfort and strengthen them, and bring them into a deeper healing relationship with you in Jesus name amen