Toothache

Last Sunday, I woke up with a toothache.

This really is news because I’m 45 years old and I never had a toothache in all that time. The closest I ever came to what I felt on Sunday was getting my braces tightened once a month back in junior high.

On Sunday, when I first noticed the toothache, I shrugged it off. I figured I would wake up on Monday morning and it would be gone. I didn’t even bring it up to anyone in my family.

But the toothache was not gone when I woke up on Monday. It was worse.

It was so much worse that I went to the dentist that day. She took an X-ray and found damage to the tooth’s ligament and nerve.

“What did you do to this tooth?” asked the dentist.

“Nothing that I know about,” I said. “I woke up this way on Sunday morning. Could I have done this in my sleep?”

She prescribed antibiotics, but said I was likely to need a root canal anyway.

I started taking the antibiotics and prescription strength Motrin on Monday night. By Tuesday morning, I was miserable. The pain spread to my gums, lips, and lower jaw. Even the high dosage of Motrin could not mask it. I could barely focus on anything I had to do all day. I took a handful of Motrin along with some melatonin and went to bed early.

By Wednesday, the antibiotic finally kicked in and the pain and swelling started to go down. I called my dentist anyway and she sent me a referral to an endodontist. He took his own X-rays that showed the tooth’s nerve is damaged and dying. I scheduled a root canal.

I keep thinking about how all 207 pounds of my body hurt this week because one part of it–a nerve that is smaller than an eyelash–hurts.

The parts of my body that were healthy, pain-free, and strong all joined in suffering the trauma that one small tooth suffered.

One small part of my body was in too much pain to do its work, so my entire body took time off from its normal work to take care of that one part.

I wonder if the Christian apostle Paul had a toothache in mind when he wrote this to the church of Christ in the ancient city of Corinth:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and we were all made to drink of one Spirit…the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension in the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it (First Letter to the Corinthians 12:12-13, 22-26).

I heard this verse a lot as I grew up in a strong Church of Christ congregation. I understood what this verse meant from an early age because I saw how our congregation cared for members who were going through hard times.

I’ll never forget how one family in our church had a sick child who needed a lot of special care to survive. The crisis lasted for two or three years. During that time, the congregation oriented itself toward the sick child. We had special prayer services. We heard weekly updates on the child’s health and how the rest of his family was doing. We took up special collections. Members took it on themselves to babysit, cook meals, give rides, help with household chores, send notes of encouragement, and visit the hospital.

It was a 207-pound body reforming its life for the care and comfort of one part that was smaller than an eyelash.

In a lifetime of belonging to local church of Christ congregations, I’ve seen this “body caring for its parts” principle in practice more times than I can count or recall.

A few weeks ago, my wife, Tracy, lost her dad. Our congregation, Rochester Church of Christ, went to work caring for our family. The church brought a full meal for extended family on the day of the funeral. The elders and some members came to the visitation and funeral. Cards are still arriving in the mail every day. I’ve enjoyed watching Tracy exclaim at the grace, kindness, and thoughtfulness of our church.

“We haven’t even been there because of the pandemic,” she said.

But I’m not surprised. This is what I have experienced all my life.

This is just what we do, I think to myself when I see how the church is caring for us in our time of grief. This is the church being the church. The body is caring for one of its parts.

This week, I watched Tracy write thank-you cards while my tooth throbbed and I had three thoughts about the church of Christ as a body.

First, I need to take a long look at how I’m caring for other parts of the body. I didn’t know what a big deal a card could be until sympathy cards started coming from church members we barely know. I know that some of them are as busy as I am, but they made the time to send a card to my wife. I find that I feel satisfied with myself for volunteering for lots of “organized church activities”–teaching Sunday school classes or volunteering at a community service project. But how many times did I enjoy the care that I got from individual members of the church when I needed that kind of support? As a member of the body of Christ, am I caring for other members of the body as they care for me? No. I have work to do.

Second, as local congregations of the church of Christ, let us make this teaching from 1 Corinthians 12 a key teaching as we come back from the pandemic. I think church leaders will feel the temptation to try to put everything back to the way it was before March 2020. We could put a lot of energy, money, and time into bringing back the old “razzle-dazzle” of “production values” and programs that marked some congregations before the pandemic. But what if we chose to focus on the health of the body instead? As we come out of the pandemic over the next year or two, who among our members is grieving, hurting, missing, struggling, or wandering in what feels like a strange new world? What if we, as congregations, obsessed over our members like a 207-pound body obsessing over a tooth?

Third, as the universal church of Christ, let us make this teaching from 1 Corinthians 12 an obsession for these times. The thing that upsets me the most about political “polarization” is how it divides the church of Christ. Christians are not caring for each other, not listening to each other, not trusting each other because they are more faithful and obedient to politicians and pundits than they are to their Christ. One of the most shameful legacies of the church of Christ in America is how large groups of our members suffer while the rest of our members refuse to listen. Because we have largely bowed our knees to the idolatries of ideology, nationalism, and politics, we excuse and explain away the suffering of our own members because a politician or pundit said so.

The history of the church of Christ in America is the story of a body madly cutting off its own parts or neglecting them to death.

It’s no wonder the Way of Truth is maligned (2 Peter 2:2). Who wants to join a body that mutilates itself?

Rather than follow the politicians and pundits, let us pray for the courage to follow the Spirit of the Christ. That means that when politicians or pundits tell us that a group of our own brothers and sisters in Christ are evil, immoral, suspicious, or threatening, we go to those brothers and sisters and care for them as our own flesh and blood. Let Christians give their fellow Christians the benefit of the doubt.

It’s amazing what a tooth can teach you if you are ready to be taught by it.

Grace and peace.