We are the Body?


 
"I've got a uvula, you've got a uvula, all God's chil'en got a uvula!"  From "Barney and the Choir"
      I am a big fan of podcasts. Since my daily round trip to school is around 60 minutes, a lot of podcasts echo inside my Honda Fit.  Andy Stanley is probably the most frequent podcast I listen to regularly, followed closely by Stuff to Blow Your Mind and Stuff You Missed History Class.   Today I finished the Andy Stanley series You'll Be Glad You Did and listened to the first sermon of Follow.  Why am I telling you this? Andy's last sermon in the You'll Be Glad You Did  series  center on his church collecting information from its members and then helping find their place of ministry at North Point Church.  Paul repeatedly talks in his epistles about the church being the Body of Christ, and us being members of that body.  Andy's text was Ephesians 4.
      If you have been a Christian for very long you have heard this sermon many times.  I taught on this passage in Ephesians when I was a Sunday School teacher at Marina Baptist Church in Marina, California.  My reference to the pianist as the "big toe" of the church was well taken, but not as humorous as I thought it would be.  She never let me live it down.  However, I have always wondered what part of the body of Christ (the Church), I am.  As I listened to Andy conclude his sermon today, I had an epiphany.
     You guessed it!  I am the uvula.  According to Wikipedia  it is also called "punch bag or gully whopper."   In  Semitic, Caucasian, and Turkic languages the Palatine uvula  plays a role in the articulation of some sounds of the human voice.  Most of us are more familiar with the function of the uvula in stimulating the gag reflex.  Some people have a bifurcated uvula (if you want to see pictures you can Google it!).  I had a student one year who laid claim to this fame.
     Now that I have had this epiphany, I have to wonder where that puts me in ministry at the church I attend.  Primarily, I am the guy who records the sermons, pastes it together with a snazzy introduction and wrap-up segment and posts it on the church web site.  We have a lot of people in our church who travel extensively within the US and internationally.  It is very rewarding to me to know that they can hear a Sunday sermon wherever they are.  It really isn't a lot work or effort on my part, but the key is consistency (and having the cord that connects to my recorder consistently connected to the correct output on the sound board).
     Not sure how the part about the gag reflex relates to my part of the body!  But I am content with how God is using me at Rosemont Church. Yeah!   I am the uvula.  Would the church cease to function without me?  No!  But that isn't the point, is it!  God has given me the talent to make the podcast happen each week, and that effort on my part blesses shut-ins, elderly, travelers, and those who are out of town and miss one of Adam's toe-crunching sermons.  Yeah!!  I am glad to be a uvula!!!  I guess I am a bifurcated uvula, since I also teach a youth Sunday School class.  Ha!! Ha!!!

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