The Body of Christ : Caring Is Essential: 1 Corinthians 12:12-26, especially vs. 25: "that there should be no schism in the body, but...the members should have the same care for one another."
The organic life of the Church as a single, unified community was absolutely essential in St. Paul's experience and concern. While addressing the interdependence of membership in the Church earlier in the Epistle (1 Cor. 11:31-12:8), he did not use the term, "the Body of Christ." In this present passage, as he reaches the heart of his exhortation - concerned care for one another - he turns directly to the reality of the Body of Christ to make his point very clear.
To awaken us to the importance of mutual care and respect, the Apostle uses an analogy based on the human body, "...the body is one," yet it "has many members" (vs. 12). To give his point its true depth, he immediately shifts to the Christian community, "so also is Christ" (vs. 12). Because St. Paul is reasoning on the basis of analogy, one might naturally expect him to say, "so also is the Church," but rather, from the very beginning of his appeal, he directly refers to the Church as the Body of Christ.
This sort of language was possible for St. Paul, because he was not speaking from mere example, analogy, or illustration. Rather, he was teaching from an experienced reality of membership in Christ. Metropolitan John Zizioulas follows the same thought when he says, "...it is possible to envisage a type of Christology in which Christ...cannot be conceived in Himself as an individual. When we make the assertion that He is the truth...we mean His relationship with His body, the Church, ourselves.... we mean a Person and not an individual; we mean a relational reality....Here the Holy Spirit is not One Who aids us in bridging the distance between Christ and ourselves, but He is the Person of the Trinity Who actually realizes in history that which we call Christ...Christ does not exist first as truth and then as communion; He is both at once." What we say about Christ and what we say about the Church vanishes for us in the Holy Spirit.
The experience of the Lord in this way, as a living, literal Communion in the Person of Christ Jesus, is no longer known sequentially in time, first as One Who exists and then as many members, but He is known as One and many at the same time. From this experience, which was well known to St. Paul, comes his assertion that "...in fact the body is not one member but many" (vs. 14). The Apostle makes no distinction whatsoever between a physical human body and the Body of Christ. Notice that the saying applies equally to either one. Therefore, as he continues to speak about "the foot" or "the hand" or "the eye," the Christian knows perfectly well he is speaking about different members of the Church and not merely parts of an illustrative human body. The point is very clear. All members are vitally important - "vitally" in the sense of life-bearing. When we start to think of and to treat persons who are members of the Church as individuals, apart from the "relational reality" of the Body of Christ, we dismember the Body and kill life in the Church. This is what St. Paul is asserting so strongly in today's reading.
Mutual caring is critical, necessary (vs. 22), and needful (vs. 21), and every member of the Body, when seen in this light, deserves honor (vs. 23), no matter how "un-presentable" they may strike the limited, corrupted, tribunal of human opinion (vs. 23). Such is God's view of the matter (vs. 24); and there had better not be any schism in Christ's Body, which the Holy Spirit has composed! Of course all "the members should have the same care for one another," otherwise "where would the body be" (vs. 19)? Suffering or honor – every issue for one affects all (vs. 26).
O Holy Spirit Who hath been poured out on all flesh, beginning with the Apostles, extend the grace of Thy Communion to us believers that we may share in the mysteries they proclaimed.