We are familiar with the story of five blind men who went to see the elephant. For a blind person, touch is sight. So, they touched various parts of the elephant.
The first, who touched the belly of the jumbo was convinced that an elephant was smooth and solid like a wall. The second, who touched its tail, concluded that it was like a big rope. The third touched the elephant’s tusk and was convinced that an elephant was a sharp spear. The fourth touched a leg of the elephant and concluded that an elephant was a pillar. The fifth, because he touched the elephant’s ear, ‘knew’ that the animal was a magic carpet that could fly over treetops and mountains.
This story has several variants; but the insight common to all of them is: we relate to reality only in parts, reflecting our limitations. Or, as St Paul puts it, ‘we know in part’. That would not have become as great a problem as it has, if we had realized that our knowledge, even in the best of times, is partial. The mistake we commit is that we conclude something to be absolutely true just because we feel strongly about it.
In the story, each one of the blind men felt strongly, based on what he touched, that the elephant was this or that. Since his view was absolutely right, the views of all others were totally wrong. In this view of the matter, the poor elephant suffers. If the animal is literally subjected to their cognitive tug-of-war, it will be torn to pieces! There is murderous violence lurking beneath the veneer of such understandings. To know thus is to kill. Hence Paul’s insight: ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools’. Fools of this kind are not the illiterate and the ignorant; but those who think they know, but know not that they know only in part. In this partial and perishable world, everything implies its opposite. So, knowledge and ignorance coexist, like the wheat and tares in the parable of Jesus.
Now consider yet again the elephantine impressions of the blind men. Each of them is indisputably correct within the ambit of his perception. They touch different parts, so they form different impressions. That notwithstanding, the elephant is an organic unity, which is alien to their impressions. Now look at their hypothetical dispute about what the elephant is like from the perspective of the elephant. The dispute looks laughably ridiculous, reminiscent of T.S Eliot’s words, ‘Son of man, you know only a heap of broken images’. While the five parts of the body of the elephant are distinct from each other, within the body of the animal they do not exclude, but seek, each other. Or, their unity is the sine qua non for the very reality of the elephant. Not only that. Each of the limbs has to function in its full vitality for the elephant to be worth anything. If one of its legs is broken, or its side pierced with an arrow, or its trunk chopped off, the elephant will cease to be an elephant in terms of its functional effectiveness.
This universal principle is basic to the idea of the Church as the Body of Jesus. Sadly, it is not realized that two ideas work in this metaphoric intuition. The first is unity, which we have examined. The second is perfection. As is widely recognized, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Especially in relation to anything perfect- say, a painting by a master artist- even the least element is crucially indispensable. If a required brush-stroke is missing from a Da Vinci painting, it will not be a masterpiece. An irreducible aspect of perfection is absolute indispensability. Anything that contains, or involves, an element or a dot that is dispensable is assuredly imperfect.
So, what did Jesus mean by exhorting: ‘Be perfect, even as your father in heaven in perfect’? His parable of the lost sheep affords an insight into its meaning. The lost sheep must be sought out and restored to the whole, if the shepherd is mindful of the fold in its ‘wholeness’. True shepherding is not merely the maintenance of the given number of sheep, but also their stewarding within the framework of wholeness. Perfection, not profit, is the shaping paradigm here. So, a Church that ‘shepherds’ believers as the flock of Jesus, must aim at perfection. None is dispensable or expendable. The shepherd must be not only a ‘keeper’, but also a ‘seeker’. If not, the ‘lost sheep’ will be claimed by wolves.
Secondly, the Church, as the Body of Christ, must exist in organic unity. Unity cannot be an accidental outcome of whatever we pursue. It is the ‘fruit’ of a particular, appropriate, vision of life. In nature, no tree fruits, if it is not ‘perfect’ within the logic of nature germane to it. That perfection involves the mysterious, hidden processes within the tree, as also its connection, in ways subtle and broad, with the wider order of creation. Each part of the tree functions perfectly and to its full capacity. You don’t have a tree in nature one branch of which remains at the sapling stage, and the rest mature enough to fruit. All are equally mature and ready. And they exist in mutual harmony. The result is flower (beauty) and fruit (bread).
A tree is unity-in-diversity. No part of a tree is identical to the rest. But all parts belong together. That is because of the common denominator: uniform growth. Tolerance of diversity, including dissent, is vital to growth. Intolerance is the death-principle. Church, as the Body of Jesus, must be unwaveringly focused on stimulating the growth towards spiritual maturity of its members. For want of this cohesive dynamism, a congregation -indeed, Church as a whole- gradually slides into a state similar to the valley of bones entertained by the rattling of dry bones as its ecclesial symphony.
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