“Say, ‘We’”

-Romans 12:3-4

I heard a story about a time when an organ was played by two people; one at the keyboard and another behind the organ, pumping air into the pipes. A talented musician was impressing his audience with his rendition of something by J.S. Bach. At the conclusion, he stood next to the organ and bowed deeply. The curtain came down. The musician sat back down, ready to play one more selection as an encore. Waiting for the curtain to rise, he quietly congratulated himself. “I have done a splendid job,’ he said. As the curtain rose, he placed his hands on the keyboard, expecting to hear the impressive opening chords of his final piece. He heard nothing. He emphatically repeated his opening chord, again with no result. A little voice behind him belonged to the bellows pumper. It whispered, “say ‘we’, mister.”

In Romans 12:3-8, Paul reminds us that we need to “think of ourselves with sober judgment”, remembering that we are part of a network of people who participate together in a given task. How many people make your typical day possible; from the people who keep the lights on to the workers and truckers who stock the grocery store to the men who take our garbage away to the delivery guys who bring us the mail and packages we need, to…. You get the idea.

Church runs this way too. Paul tells us we are a body with many members, each one having a different function; each one indispensable to the success of the whole. I am not the star of the Craig Show; I am a piece of the Jesus show – the big, powerful, beautiful body of Christ. I need to open my eyes and gratefully see the rest of that body. How can I express my gratitude? How can I be a support to someone else as they function in the body? How can I decrease so that Christ might increase?

.It’s learning to say “we”, not “me”.