Spiritual Cancer

August 21, 2008

This week I am preparing to preach a sermon on spiritual gifts at my church. I will be focusing on 1 Corinthians 12, and the image Paul gives us of the Body of Christ. I may or may not have time to use this illustration, but I thought it was worth posting here even if I don’t have time to mention it on Sunday. Those with a medical background can correct me if I’ve gotten something wrong:

We each have a unique and necessary gift to be shared for the common good of the body, and if we rebel against that purpose, then the whole body suffers. If we come to the body of Christ seeking only to receive and receive all the time, and never seeking to give to others out of the wealth that we have received from God, then we are rebels.

There is a condition in the human body that perfectly fits that description. It begins with a single, perfectly healthy fat cell which decides to mount a rebellion against the rest of the body. Fat cells are like the seemingly “weaker” parts of the body that Paul describes in verses 21-27. Most of us are trying desperately to get rid of them, but in reality they are indispensable. In his book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Paul Brand calls fat cells “banker cells” because in times of plenty they bulge with excess, as the body deposits more than it withdraws. But in time of lack they channel their abundance back into the bloodstream.

But sometimes a single fat cell chooses to rebel against the body, looking out for itself and not the interests of the body as a whole. It accepts deposits, but when the body is in lack, it does not let out its abundance. As that cell multiplies, daughter cells follow its lead, and a tumor grows bigger and bigger. When the cells choose to multiply without any checks on growth and spread rapidly throughout the body, they begin to choke out normal cells. White cells, which armed to attack foreign invaders and keep the body healthy, will not attack the body’s own rebellious cells. Such a malfunction is called cancer: healthy, functioning cells which are disloyal and no longer act with any regard for the rest of the body.

And this is what we become when we receive bountifully from God’s storehouse of gifts, without depositing those gifts back into the Church for the health of the body. We become spiritual cancers, seeking our own interests, but not the good of the whole. The body can’t live like that. But that is just what is happening when people choose to ignore the gifts God has given them, and come to church looking only to receive, and never to give.

Posted by Larry | Filed Under Scripture Meditation, Seeking Him