The Zanforb Incident

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

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. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would 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 would 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 the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 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 members, 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 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 within 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.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

I know it’s overdone.  I know all the clergy use this sermon illustration but you’ve got to admit, these lessons pretty much demand that I use the Zanforb Incident as a sermon illustration, don’t they?  Wait. Don’t tell me.  You have no idea what I’m talking about do you? Well, great! Then this sermon will make NO sense! Alright... well, I guess all I can do is to pitch THIS thing and tell you the story.  

Zanforb is a planet on the other side of our galaxy. About six million years ago, the evolutionary ancestors of the Zanforbians crawled up out of their red florescent ocean and eventually evolved into the beings they are today. At the same time on the other side of the planet, the evolutionary ancestors of the Zanforbos did the same. 

The Zanforbians and Zanforbos evolved in pretty much the same way. Same number of brains and tentacles… same beautiful, blue-green, shiny scales… same gills and fins... all the same. The one difference is that the Zanforbians have THREE eye stalks and the Zanforbos have TWO. Over time, both got smarter and learned to make fire, tools and all the other normal evolutionary stuff. They learned how to milk the BoBo bird and turn it’s purple milk into the cheese they use to build their homes. They built ships and sailed around their planet and eventually met one another. 

Believe it or not, that went really, really well! I know!  Surprising isn’t it? The different-number-of-eye-stalks thing wasn’t a big deal. They built their cheese homes on the same canals together, worked and played together, and shared their joys and hardships together. Their main hardship, of course, stemmed from the fact that the BoBo bird cheese they used to build their homes is HIGHLY flammable! The homes were forever bursting into flames and melting into puddles of burnt, stinky, purple, cheesy goo. 

Then one day a Zanforbian, named Ethyl, invented a fire fighting robot. Using her third eye stalk, she was able to program the robot to fly around her house and put out the fires on the cheese BEFORE they spread! It was a HUGE advance! Ethyl tried her whole life to adapt the robots so they could be programmed with just two eye stalks but neither she nor anyone else could make it work, no matter how hard they tried. As you might imagine, before this invention, everyone spent the majority of their lives tracking and capturing BoBo birds, milking them, making cheese and rebuilding their homes, over and over and over again. But after Ethyl’s robot came out, the Zanforbians didn’t have to do that anymore. The Zanforbos, unfortunately, still had to constantly put out the fires, milk the birds and rebuild their homes. In a word, the Zanforbians became privileged and sadly over time, with that privilege the Zanforbos and the Zanforbians grew apart. Many Zanforbians grew to assume this was just how nature intended things to be. With three eye stalks, naturally came this privilege.  

But one day, all that changed when a little Zanforbian named George and a little Zanforbo named Betsy were laying out on their school’s neon blue lawn together looking up at their five, green and purple moons effortlessly orbiting around one another. There on that lawn, they had a revelation! What if Zanforbians used their third eye stalk to program their fire robots to watch their own houses AND ALSO watch the houses of their Zanforbo neighbors?  

At first, many Zanforbians thought this was a TERRIBLE idea! What if the robot was putting out a cheese fire on a Zanforbo house when their own Zanforbian house caught on fire!? They didn’t want to risk their own security for those two stalked Zanforbos! But George and Betsy persisted, as the young often do. They insisted on an honest answer to a simple question. How often do two cheese houses melt down on the same canal in a single night? The facts were clear! A double meltdown had never happened in recorded history. In spite of the facts though, a few, living out of their enormous fear, pointed to an ancient legend known as “The Great Melt” which told of five cheese homes melting down on the same night.

They were afraid sharing their robots would make Zanforbians less “great” than they had grown to be, but here and there, small groups of Zanforbians and Zanforbos gathered together in communities of love, compassion, inclusiveness and hope. The Zanforbians courageously shared the privilege of their fire robots! And it worked! Soon, the Zanforbos’ houses weren’t melting down all the time either and now they too had the same extra time, security and peace of mind that their neighbors had. Together with that shared extra time, and having learned the power of coming together in love and compassion, those small groups, BECAUSE of their differences, were together able to discover many new things that they could NEVER have done alone!  By sharing their stalks, they discovered wonderful new possibilities! Among the things they discovered was that with FIVE eye stalks they could control a spaceship that went faster than the speed of light! Together they could explore the galaxy! Apart they would have been stuck in the same place forever.  

They basically learned what Paul teaches us in the lesson for today. They learned what our congregation knew back in 1866 when our ancestors, right after the Civil War, welcomed all people regardless of race into this church. They learned what we will again celebrate today in our annual meeting... that when we come together, in love, compassion and inclusiveness, we will always be greater than the sum of our parts! They learned that God makes no distinctions... male, female, black, white, gay, straight, Lutheran, Episcopalian, two eye stalks or three... God created everything and everyone in the whole of creation to be connected with one another. Those aliens learned from the Zanforb Incident, the same thing God tells us over and over again… that when we use our wonderful and diverse gifts together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. So now you know the lesson of the Zanforb incident.  Amen.

Actually, hold on a minute.  It just occurred to me, that since you didn’t know any of THAT story, you probably also don’t know that story’s postscript either. It turns out that in addition to controlling fire robots, and mastering faster than light space travel, Zanforbians and Zanforbos were ALSO able to use their eye stalks together to program an electronic camouflage device so when they visit other planets they can look EXACTLY like the creatures from that world. Their camouflage is almost perfect… almost. Because you see, their camouflage device has one, unique, quirky feature... and if you know it, you can tell who among you is really from Zanforb and who is from Earth.  That quickly little feature, you see, always makes the camouflaged creature from Zanforb appear to be wearing... a black shirt... with a little, white, tab in the collar!