Of all the creatures in the world – lions, sharks, monkeys – the ones I admire most are ants. These little guys are not particularly nice to look at, they eat rubbish, dead things and somehow build colonies in the most unexpected and irritating places, like your car!
There are some interesting facts about ants: they can lift up to 50 times their weight, a soldier ant can use his head to plug up the entrance to the nest for protection, and the total mass of ants in the world is equivalent to the total mass of humans! What I admire the most about an ant is that everything they do is for the benefit of their colony.
Based on the title of this blog you’re probably wondering, “what on earth is the connection between ants and the body of Christ?” I recently preached on 1 Corinthians 12:12-20 looking at the ‘Unity Yet Diversity in the Body’. This was one of the tasks I was given as part of the BST mission exposure week, a week where our lecturers get to throw us in the deep end and our only hope of survival is to pray and put our ministry skills into practice (or sink!). My group was assigned to work with St James Anglican Church where I preached.
As I was thinking about examples to share in my sermon, I was inspired by some green ants. I saw these tiny beings crawling around looking for people to bite, I wondered, what if Christians acted more like ants, who are selfless, instead of behaving like apes who need to establish a pecking order to become the alpha male, and more importantly, how much more constructive that would be for God’s kingdom!
In 1 Corinthians 12:12-20 Paul is writing to a group of new Christians in a new church who have been taking the “ape approach”. The Corinthians were prone to arguing (1 Cor 3:3) about who was better, who had better gifts, who was more spiritual, and who had better public speaking skills. Instead of complementing each other as a church, they all desired to be greater than the next guy. It’s like everyone wanting to take the Senior Pastor/Minister’s job. But what is Paul really saying?
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are on body, so it is with Christ. For in the Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free [musicians or cleaners, offering collector or choir lady] – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (verse 12-13).
I once taught five to seven year olds at Sunday School and then I started getting grey hair! When we read Bible stories together and divided the parts for each child to recite they would end up arguing: “I want to be Jesus! You were Jesus last week!” and I would tell them, “No! There’s only one Jesus! You can be Jesus next week.” They would often throw a tantrum, and sometimes I think that adults can act like that.
What Paul is saying to the Corinthians is that despite the fact that they are many people with various gifts, they need to work together as one. Just like the human body has many parts, so the body of Christ, the Church, has many parts. God in His infinite wisdom gave us one head, two eyes, thankflly only one mouth – all parts that complement each other. As the passage later points out, it’s impractical for us to all be eyes (verse 17). So we can’t all be musicians, nor can we all be pastors, ministers or reverends. Each part of the body has its purpose and function.
But what happens when one part is not working properly? I recently joined the BST touch football team and I’m still getting my head around what to do when the ball is not around – it really is confusing! In my last game there was an incident where I was running with the ball and an opponent clipped my ankle with their foot. I tripped and kicked myself on the backside, landing heavily on the ground on my left side. The left part of my backside was bruised for days and I struggled to walk on my left leg, so my right leg had to compensate and carry the extra load which in turn made my right leg sore!
In the same way, when one part isn’t doing their job in the church, others have to pick up the slack to keep the church going. There are many roles in the church – some more obvious than others, but they are all part of the body. There are different gifts, training and skills because each has a part to play. Not only do we have various roles, but we also have a responsibility to support other parts of the body. We need to encourage and pray for them and help out when they struggle.
It can be frustrating when there are people who simply turn up to church on a Sunday, take up the pastor’s time asking questions and don’t offer any help or bother to serve in the church; they complain about what’s wrong with the church but never actually do anything to help! Then there are those who love to gossip and cause division, adding extra work for the pastor to counsel members when things go wrong.
So perhaps we need to be a bit more like ants. Not to bite people, but to be selfless. You never see ants stopping to read a magazine under a tree, they are constantly looking for work to do. When an intruder comes, they put themselves on the line. They’re always working for the colony. And that’s an attitude we need. It’s not the pastor’s job to do everything. As Christians we have a responsibility to do our part to help build up the Church, the body of Christ, for His glory.
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