“If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.” (1 Cor. 12:15-16).
There’s some people in the church who are feet. Their gifts and talents and passions aren’t flashy and prominent like the people who are eyes. Feet are utilitarian. They get you from place to place, and you need them desperately, but they’re way down at the bottom of your body. You never pay attention to them. These are the people with gifts of service and generosity and mercy and hospitality. You don’t see them a lot, but the church couldn’t get anywhere without them.
And so in this verse, Paul is imagining one of these feet-people looking at the eye-people. Those could be people with gifts of teaching, leadership, healing, or miracles. Maybe people with advanced degrees or lots of money and resources they can use for the cause of Christ. Maybe they have a great wife or husband, and kids who are helpful and servant-hearted.
The foot person is saying, “I don’t have any of those things, so I must not be very useful in this church. I’m poor, and I’m single, and I’m working a dead-end job, and the only gift I have is the ability to set up chairs. … Oh, and I can sit in Starbucks and talk to people.” The foot-person doesn’t feel like he has a valuable role to play. And so he starts feeling like he doesn’t belong.
Paul responds in verse 17: “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?”
In other words, the eye people and hand people are doing great things, but there are many other needs in the church they simply can’t address. The teachers are busy preparing their notes, so they forget about the chairs that need to be set up. The people with great families are so busy dealing with the four kids hanging off their arms at all times that they don’t have time to sit down at Starbucks and just listen to people for hours and hours. We need people of all different gifts, life stages, schedules, and responsibilities.
Some of us are beautiful brown eyes, and some of us are stinky feet, or even armpits. We do nothing but sweat and keep the body from overheating (and we’re sometimes difficult to be around), and Paul says that’s the way the Holy Spirit designed us: “As it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (verse 18). If you don’t like the way the body was designed, and you don’t like your part in the body, then you’re saying you don’t like the way God does things.
That goes for the eye-people too. Sometimes the teachers and leaders and miracle-workers and tongue-speakers take the feet for granted, and start wondering if they’re really useful. They look at the people who serve and give in silent, invisible ways, and say, “Uhhh… what is it exactly that you do around here?”
But, as Paul says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (verse 21). The eye would be stuck on his sofa all day watching reruns of The Love Boat if the hand weren’t there to change the channel, or if the feet weren’t there to take him outside to see a beautiful sunset.
God designed us to be different, and he did it so we would recognize our fallenness and limitation, and be forced to rely on the Holy Spirit and each other. He designed us all, eyes and feet, to be dependent.