Rev Ever­son Sie­u­nar­ine

It is al­ways a dif­fi­cult and of­ten a frus­trat­ing task to work for uni­ty, whether it is uni­ty with­in a fam­i­ly, with­in a na­tion or with­in the church. The temp­ta­tion of self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion and the en­joy­ment of hu­mil­i­at­ing oth­ers are com­mon and close to us. Paul had se­ri­ous prob­lems in Corinth, where peo­ple in­flat­ed with pride were boast­ing of their close friend­ship with cer­tain apos­tles. Some were find­ing spir­i­tu­al se­cu­ri­ty in what they con­tributed to the church's growth, some con­sid­ered them­selves more valu­able than oth­ers. When we think of the Corinthi­an church be­ing bur­dened with these prob­lems in the first cen­tu­ry AD, we can ap­pre­ci­ate how easy it has been for gen­er­a­tions up to this day to fall in­to the same traps of thought. Paul had to state sim­ply and strong­ly to the Corinthi­ans that it was Christ who was cru­ci­fied for them, it was in Christ's name they were bap­tised and "Christ is God's pow­er and wis­dom." (1 Cor 1:24)

Paul and the oth­er apos­tles were on­ly ser­vants do­ing their di­vine­ly as­signed role in one fel­low­ship or or­gan­i­sa­tion. They were not com­peti­tors for fame and ho­n­our, but co-work­ers in the field, co-builders of one struc­ture, mem­bers of One Body, drink­ing of one Spir­it. (1 Cor 12:12-19) What Paul was em­pha­sis­ing, and how much we need this re­minder to­day, was the im­por­tance of each per­son's con­tri­bu­tion to the good of the whole. If one per­son fails to be hon­est and care­ful, the qual­i­ty of any en­ter­prise will be af­fect­ed. We do not build from noth­ing, but al­ways on what oth­ers have left. Good foun­da­tions will cer­tain­ly mean en­dur­ing build­ings just as good at­ten­tion to the land, and the first signs of growth will mean abun­dant har­vest­ing.

How nec­es­sary it is for us to recog­nise and ap­pre­ci­ate one an­oth­er's tal­ents and gifts. Paul us­es the sim­ple metaphor of the hu­man body. Sup­pose parts of the body were to dis­pute over su­pe­ri­or­i­ty of func­tion and some were to re­ject oth­ers with, "I do not need you," what sense would that make? (1 Cor 12:21-24) Every com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­ly must ap­pre­ci­ate the good con­tri­bu­tion of each in­di­vid­ual to the whole. Just as Paul point­ed out to the Corinthi­an Church that all peo­ple had their spe­cial gifts to bring and their spe­cial roles to ful­fil, so we should re­spect every­one who use their skills and abil­i­ties to serve oth­ers with a sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty. At times fam­i­ly mem­bers can in­vite hurt and dis­uni­ty by ex­tolling the im­por­tance of one pro­fes­sion above all oth­ers, or by el­e­vat­ing one mem­ber above all oth­ers. Keep Paul's words in mind, "the same God is ac­tive in every­one and every­thing. A man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Spir­it is giv­en to each per­son to pro­duce what is ben­e­fi­cial." (1 Cor 12:7)