A Web of Mutual Flourishing

There was a television show I used to love called Undercover Boss. The premise was simple. The CEO of a large company would put on a disguise and go to work alongside the ordinary employees who actually made the company function.

And inevitably, the boss discovered that things looked very different from the bottom than they did from the top.

The CEO of Waste Management, for example, found himself sorting recyclables from a fast-moving conveyor belt and picking up windblown trash near a landfill. He couldn’t keep up. In fact, his supervisor fired him for moving too slowly. Another CEO went undercover in one of his own warehouses and discovered that he couldn’t safely load heavy boxes onto trucks at the speed expected of the workers. He got fired too.

The CEO of Checkers and Rally’s went undercover in one of his restaurants and witnessed a manager verbally abusing employees who hadn’t been properly trained. In that case, the CEO finally broke cover and shut down the restaurant until the manager could be retrained.

But one of my favorite stories involved the CEO of an amusement park who met an employee named Howard. Howard didn’t have an impressive title. He didn’t make much money. He operated a tourist boat ride.

But Howard brought such joy and care to his work with the children who came through that park that the CEO realized this supposedly low-level employee was actually carrying the reputation of the entire company.

That is one of the great illusions of our culture: the idea that the person at the top is somehow more important than the people at the bottom.

We even have a phrase for it: the “self-made man.” But there really is no such thing as a self-made person. Every one of us depends upon an enormous web of relationships that makes our life possible. We depend upon the earth that grows our food, upon people who build our homes and roads, upon teachers and farmers and sanitation workers and truck drivers, upon families and communities and institutions. None of us stands alone.

We learned something about this during COVID, when suddenly we started calling some of the lowest-paid people in our society “essential workers.” What an interesting word: essential. The people stocking grocery shelves, delivering packages, cleaning hospitals, driving trucks, caring for the elderly, and keeping basic services operating turned out to be indispensable.

When everything else shut down, we discovered who was holding up the world.

Paul understood something about this nearly two thousand years ago, in a culture that revered the wealthy and powerful. “For as in one body we have many members,” he writes, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” Not merely members of the same organization. Members of one another. Your life is bound up with mine. My flourishing is connected with yours. We live in a relational world in which nothing truly exists by itself.

And because we belong to one another, Paul tells us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. That doesn’t mean we should think badly of ourselves. It means we should see ourselves truthfully. We all have gifts, but no one has all the gifts. We need each other. The CEO has gifts Howard doesn’t have, but Howard has gifts the CEO doesn’t have. And if Howard disappears, something precious disappears with him.

Paul begins this passage with one of his most powerful images: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

In other words, put your whole self into the offering plate.

Not just your money. Not just an hour on Sunday morning. Not merely the part of yourself you label “religious.” Your body, your mind, your gifts, your work, your relationships, your compassion, your creativity, your time. Go all in with God.

And then Paul says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

Transformation begins when we learn to see differently. The undercover bosses were transformed because they saw their companies differently. They saw people they had barely noticed before. They saw injustices they hadn’t known existed. They discovered their own limitations.

And sometimes they encountered hidden saints like Howard, quietly pouring love and joy into the world.

In today’s Gospel, there is another kind of undercover boss. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They give him the answers they’ve heard: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Then Jesus makes it personal: “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter sees what others haven’t yet seen. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus tells Peter, “On this rock I will build my church.” Which is rather remarkable, because Peter himself isn’t always especially rock-like. Later, when Jesus is arrested and Peter’s courage is tested, this great confessor of faith will deny even knowing him. Three times. Yet Jesus still uses Peter.

God doesn’t wait for perfect people before building something beautiful. God works through imperfect, inconsistent, frightened human beings like Peter—and like us.

Pastor Lisa Smith suggests that this Gospel moves us from asking, “Who is God?” to “Who are we?” and finally, “Who are we as a church?” That may be the question these readings leave with us. Who are we if we really believe that we are members one of another? Who are we if every person has gifts that matter? Who are we if the person who seems least important may actually be carrying something essential for the whole?

Perhaps that is what it means to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. We offer ourselves to God by offering ourselves to one another. Worship becomes more than what happens in this room.

Worship happens whenever we recognize the dignity of another human being, whenever we stand up for someone being mistreated, whenever we use our particular gifts for the good of the whole, whenever we refuse to measure human worth by salary or status or power.

We are the body of Christ. Not because any one of us is strong enough to carry the whole thing, but precisely because none of us is.

We need the Peters who sometimes stumble. We need the Howards who quietly bring joy. We need the people whose names everyone knows and the people whose work almost nobody notices. We need the gifts each one brings.

And perhaps the renewing of our minds begins when we finally learn to see one another that way: not as competitors in a hierarchy, not as more important and less important people, but as members of one another. Each valued. Each needed. Each carrying some gift the world requires. Each invited to put our whole selves into the offering plate and become part of what God is doing.

Because in the body of Christ, there are no insignificant members.

There are only different gifts, different callings, different ways of giving ourselves in love. And when we offer those gifts together, God takes this wonderfully imperfect collection of human beings and makes of us something none of us could ever become alone: the living, breathing, loving body of Christ in the world.