In a house not far from yours, there’s a little blue kitchen with a host of appliances. Of all the appliances in this space, there are two important to our story: a blender and a toaster.
Once upon a time, there lived a blender and a toaster in the same humble cabinet. Both appliances were well-used and loved by their owners. The toaster had more history, having been initiated into the family long before children were present, but the blender often received more praise for its impressive capabilities.
One day, the blender said to himself, “This toaster has no place here. He is cramping my style. He’s so old and rickety that sometimes crumbs fall on me. I am much more useful to this family, sometimes being pulled out multiple times a day for smoothies, sauces, and soups! I can make things cold or hot! I can pulverize ice and frozen kale! I am powerful, useful, and beautiful! What place does this toaster have in this home, let alone in the same cabinet as me?”
For a while, these thoughts remained quiet and hidden inside the blended and the toaster was blissfully unaware.
However, the thoughts persisted and began to come out in subtle words and actions. It wasn’t much at first. The toaster thought she was imagining the silence and snubs. (The waffle maker always told her she was reading into things; certainly, this was just one of those situations.)
But one day, the blender told the toaster everything he had been thinking over the past months. Why did the toaster insist on staying in this home? What did she have to offer besides toast? Didn’t she know that most of the population was becoming gluten-free and toast was not nearly as popular as the smoothies and acai bowls he could create? Couldn’t she feel her inadequacy and age? She was pushing 17 years after all; most toasters have reached an honorable retirement age by this point.
The toaster realized she was not imagining anything. She began to believe the words spoken to and about her. Though she had no control over her retirement, she decided to try to change some things about herself. The blender could make things cold; maybe she could try not to make things so hot all the time. The blender made a lot of impressive and powerful-sounding noise; maybe she could amp up her volume.
Over the next week, the toaster carried out her plan. Where she would normally have made the smallest amount of noise when her toast popped, she became louder like the blender. Instead of getting so dreadfully hot, she barely got warm to try to act a bit more cool like the blender.
The family was befuddled; the blender was pleased. His plan was coming together quite nicely.
When the replacement toaster arrived, the blender stared in shock at the shiny, beautiful appliance. But then he remembered that the toaster could only toast bread while he had quite a plethora of service options at his disposal.
He wasted no time in cutting down the new toaster, reminding him that smoothies were more popular than toast. The toaster responded, “My dear blender! You have obviously been stuck in this cabinet for far too long! Have you not heard of gluten-free bread and avocado toast? Don’t you know that I have the ability to provide the perfect crust and crumb to days-old bread whereas all you can do is give a smooth consistency? Besides, we live in New England! Do you really think this family wants smoothies all winter?”
The blender had not considered these things. He began to feel incompetent. Why couldn’t he also produce the perfect crust? He was useless as far as toast was concerned! If only he could be more like his impressive cabinet-mate, the sleek toaster rather than insisting on blending and pureeing everything.
And so the drama continued in that little cabinet. The old retired toaster, relegated to the back of the cabinet, wished that he had stuck with what he was good at rather than wishing he was more like the pompous blender. And the blender, instead of blending his heart out, began to find less and less joy in what he was good at and wished instead that he had crisping capabilities.
If only they had been content with both their abilities and limitations instead of trying to be what they weren’t created to be.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 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. 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? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
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.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
—1 Corinthians 12
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