Romans 12:4,5 “Patterns”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..

One last thing I want to note. As I’ve studied through the Bible, one thing I’ve often noted is the fractals. The Bible is literally full of them, and, in fact, life itself is predominantly fractal. A fractal is basically a repeating pattern. The pattern can repeat itself a hundred million times and on a hundred million scales, but it is always the same pattern. I’ve always thought a tree is the best example. The way they grow and branch is itself a repeating pattern, a fractal. A trunk branches out into limbs and the limbs themselves branch and branch and branch. Same pattern right down to the smallest twigs. No two branches look exactly the same, but yet it’s the same pattern.

The same is true of families. A man marries a woman, they have children, and what do you see? The children “look like” their parents – not exactly the same, yet you see a pattern. How often have you seen families where that “look” has been passed down literally for generations? Also, say a man and a woman have four children -- what do those children do? Each finds a spouse, marries, and has children – generation after generation. And what do we call that? A family tree. And why? Because it is a repeating pattern – again, a fractal.

What does that have to do with this passage?

The Body of Christ is a fractal. On earth, Jesus had a body. His head was the head and guided that body. Here I am today and all my Christian life I’ve understood that He is the Lord, the Boss. We often encourage each other with the thought that we believers are the hands and feet of Jesus. Based on passages like this one in Romans, we can expand our perspective to say that is true, but it is more than that. Each of us individually is in fact the Body of Christ. He is my own personal Head and, as a believer, perfection for me (and you) is what? To be like Jesus. To let Him be my thoughts, my desires, to be the One who guides my eyes, my mouth, my hands, my feet. He is the Head and I am His Body.

Yet, “where two or three are gathered,” what can we say? We are the Body of Christ. We. We become not three bodies of Christ. Together we are the Body of Christ, singular. We are His Church. We may not be organized into what someone would call a “church,” but we are The Church. At work, we few believers, the Jesus-lovers, are together His Body there in that office or factory. Love for Him binds us together in love for each other. We see admonitions in the Bible like, “Do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith” (Eph. 6:10). Fellow believers are special to us. One reason why is precisely because we together are the Body of Christ. We become together literally the Body of Christ, His Church there in our workplace – and as we say, perhaps we (together) may be the only Jesus some of those people will ever know.

Yet that pattern doesn’t stop there. When we organize ourselves into a church, what are we? The Body of Christ. Are we now a different Body of Christ? No. We simply are the Body of Christ. Same fractal logic. Here again, I myself am the Body of Christ in this world. Even gathering with only a couple other believers, we are the Body of Christ. Organized together into a church, the entire group (of believers) is the Body of Christ.

I inserted the “(of believers)” because this whole study clarifies something super important in my mind. I’ll try to explain. One thing that has from the beginning been a painful observation to me was to see people in my “church” who certainly gave no evidence of genuine salvation. I came into salvation imagining that “going to church” would mean worshiping with other people who love Jesus – that everyone in my “church” would be a Christian. Wow was that hopelessly naïve! Instead, I fear the vast majority were, as we say, just “playing church.” Real believers have always been like the proverbial “rare as hen’s teeth.” You’d think Jesus might have said something like, “The gate is small and way is narrow, and few are they that find it!”

Where this Body business really helps me then is in realizing that even in a church, The Church is still only the true believers. As Jesus also said, “Let the tares grow with the wheat until the Harvest.” There will always be tares among the wheat. I don’t need to let that bother me anymore, just knowing that my church isn’t necessarily The Church. And it’s The Church that is my treasure. For now, it actually feels good to allow myself to see the others as “seekers.” There may be, in my church, people who are not really saved (and don’t act like it), but they are certainly in the right place! I can love those people and try to always show them the love of Jesus in hopes He may open their eyes.

And, of course, I’m not the Judge anyway. There are those people who seem to clearly be Jesus-people, then those people who seem not to be, and a whole spectrum in between. The truth is, I can’t say 100% where anyone fits in. Only the Lord searches the hearts. Really, no matter who it is, Jesus just wants me to love them all every way I can, then let Him do His grace work in their hearts. I find that distinction – between “my church” and “The Church” – very helpful and encouraging. I go to my church to gather together with His Church and within His Church together be the Body of Christ.

What’s crazy though is realizing that the fractal, the pattern, doesn’t stop there. Our pastor recently used the phrase “the Church of Ottawa.” All my life, I would have resisted that phrase, thinking, “Not all the churches in Ottawa are real churches!” That may be the case, but all of the believers – in whatever church they attend – are His Church, His Body in the City of Ottawa. Once again, I don’t necessarily have to worry about which are which, just know they’re there and together we do form one single Body – all of us believers in the same community. Then we can go on and speak of His Church, His Body in northern Illinois, or in America, or in the world. Then there are those who have already gone to heaven. ALL of us form together His Body.

We see the fractal as it repeats itself from beginning to end. At no point are we ever “bodies” of Christ. We are members of The Body, singular, starting with Jesus Himself and running right out into eternity!  And then, of course, we note: What is that pattern? What is this fractal, this pattern that repeats itself in so many ways? The pattern is Jesus Himself!

“From Him and through Him and to Him are all things!”  

Hmmm. I suppose, if we had the eyes to see, we’d probably realize that everywhere we look, everything we see, everything that is…is Jesus! We’d see His face, His pattern, in everything.

Well, until I “…buy from Jesus” His salve for my blind eyes (Rev. 3:18), I’ll  have to be content to learn to “see” His Body, His Church in this world. A church is not The Church – we believers are The Church, wherever and in whatever numbers He chooses to place us together!

That is cool.

 

Romans 12:4,5 “What’s Next?”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..

Well. These last few weeks have been so explosive, I don’t even know where to start. So, as I seem to be doing a lot lately, I’ll just blunder in and see what spills out,

Where to begin? Here is the biggee: Jesus’ church is not first and foremost an organization. It is an organism. His church has to be organized, but it is far, far more than that -- or it is not His church. We are literally His body and He is our Head. That is the infinite difference between us and the Butterfly Collector’s Club (or the Rotary Club, or the local Library’s Book Club, or any other group, business, organization, or whatever gathering of human beings who join together to share some common interest).

We, His church are an organism. We are His body and He is our Head. How we organize ourselves may be, to a large extent, our own choice(s), but, in a real church, it will and must all be done deliberately and entirely under our Head. From Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things! It’s all about Jesus. To lose our connection with Him is to become nothing but that headless body, flopping and bouncing around, but accomplishing nothing of eternal value.

This relationship with Jesus is what totally separates us from all those other “clubs.” As I’ve related before, from very early in my Christian life, I looked around at what was going on in my “church” and thought to myself, “I don’t think what’s going on here is what’s going on in the Bible.” The problem was, I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. Being a new Christian and wanting to be a part of this “Jesus” thing, I just went along.

However, that sense of emptiness and confusion never left me. Here we were having our meetings, planning all these activities, setting up committees, raising money, contributing to worthy causes. We were in some cases, VERY organized (and VERY busy). But what was the difference between us and any other club? I could see very clearly that “church” in America, at least as far as I had ever (and have ever) seen is sadly nothing more than that – just another club. It was a place where we all gathered to “play church.” It was a seemingly very honorable, admirable, and worthwhile club – after all, we talked about Jesus and the Bible and may have kept VERY busy doing seemingly spiritual things, but I could see it was nothing more than a Sunday morning religious club. To me, something was terribly (and fatally) missing.

Now it is SO clear to me. There may be a “church” on every corner, but an organization called a church may or may not be THE CHURCH. The Church is the body of Christ. It is a gathering of Jesus-people – people who love Jesus and, because of that (and specifically because of that) love and value each other. In an organization, the truth is, only performers are welcome. In an organization, people who are struggling are really just a nuisance. As the Bible says, in the body of Christ, as in any organic body, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (I Cor. 12:26). Unlike any other club, what ties together the Church is first and foremost love for Jesus and love for each other.

When a church is truly a Body of Christ (and ideally), what matters to each member of that body is what the Head thinks. The Head leads the body. When it is just an organization, it should be no surprise that everyone has their own ideas of what we should or shouldn’t do, what is or is not “success,” etc. And some alpha personalities will sooner or later be more than happy to turn it all into just one more big “church fight.” What is missing in the “church” that is only an organization? Love. The Head. The Prince of Peace. The Mighty Warrior and the Gentle Shepherd. The Lion and the Lamb. Jesus.

Now I may just ramble my jumbled thoughts, but I want to ask, what is the key here? If things aren’t right, what needs to change? The answer is me. This is heart business. I can sit in my pew and be mentally a part of an organization or I can deliberately fill my head and heart with Jesus. Last Sunday, our pastor urged the congregation to “do a 180.” “Look around you,” he urged, “These are your fellow believers.” He was so right. These other people (at least some of them) are really believers, real fellow Jesus-people, and just like at work, I treasure them just for that reason. If they love Jesus, that makes them precious to me.

My next thought personally is that I am VERY thankful for our church. When I did my 180, there are a LOT of people who are very obviously Jesus-people. There are probably more in this church than the grand total of all the Jesus-people I’ve ever attended church with. Each one is precious to me, as again and again and again, I see Jesus in them. I know they are imperfect and flawed – but they are Jesus-people. What a privilege. What a joy to gather together with Jesus-lovers and worship with them! That was probably the most pleasant Sunday morning I’ve known in all my Christian life.

But then what’s going on? It’s all about my heart. What do I choose to see? Am I looking through the eyes of Jesus or my own? He is my Head. He commanded me (among “us”) to “love one another.” For me to do less then is actually to sin. To do less is to have lost connection with my Head! That is not a problem with the church – it’s a problem with me!

This is actually a lesson I learned early in my marriage. One day I was driving down the road mad as a hornet at my poor Joanie over what was probably some trifle. As my young, impetuous self angrily fumed and muttered, the Lord reminded me clearly that He says, “Husbands, love your wives.” …Love. It occurred to me that, no matter what she may or may not have done, if I’m doing anything less than loving her, I’m sinning! I myself am not doing the very thing Jesus (my Head) told me to do. And if I’m sinning, who needs to change first?

As usual with the Lord, the entire encounter probably took about one tenth of a second. Seeing my sin and instantly receiving the grace to repent, my heart was also instantly filled again with love for her. Suddenly whatever was that trifle no longer mattered at all to me. Why should I care? I love that girl! Second only to Jesus Himself, she is the greatest treasure of my whole life!

So it is with my church. If I’m seeing it as an organization, what (or who!) needs to change first? Me. What I’m “seeing” is my own heart problem. It is sad that it has taken me nearly fifty years to figure this out, but then, my heart is content knowing “It is God who works in me to will and do according to His good purpose” (Phil. 2:13), and He actually “predestined me to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). This is one of the reasons He saved me to start with – to fix me! Whether He takes a few days or a lifetime to do His amazing grace work, who cares really? Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things! And even if I’ve been badly misled, who cares? Maybe they really “meant it for evil.” “God meant it for good!” (Gen. 50:20).

So here I sit in His presence. Our Pastor often describes God’s work as a “What’s next?” So, Lord, my Head, what’s next?

One of the first “nexts” is always to keep studying. The Lord has a LOT more to say in Romans 12, and I need to hear it all. So…off we go!