The reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians provides an important image for the church, one that is typically Pauline and provided a consequential image of the church for the Second Vatican Council: The mystical body of Christ.
It is interesting to note, that especially after reading of the Gospel of John, one would think that the awareness of the habits of sheep provide a fundamental understanding to what it means to be a Christian and a member of the Christian community John’s Gospel is filled with references to sheep from Jesus as the good shepherd, the sheepgate, and his followers as the flock. The very word “congregation” is based on the Latin word for sheep, gregis. After reading the John’s Gospel and its emphasis on sheep, Paul’s letters come as a bit of a surprise since there is not one single sheep in all his writings! The stories told by Jesus were heard by persons living in farm areas and rural villages. Paul, on the other hand, wrote for city dwellers who perhaps only saw sheep wrapped in plastic and sold at the neighborhood grocery store.
So, Paul had to change the image that represented the gathered faithful since using sheep as an allegory made no sense. Paul instead took an image that was close to the hearts of minds of people who lived in the city, the idea of city life as a body with a head and members. Paul faced a challenge that was faced by countless Jesuits who interacted with foreign cultures, and it is the same challenge the church faces today. How do we make the timeless truths of the faith understood within a specific time and a specific culture remains a challenge for us today as it did 2000 years ago for the Apostle Paul.