No Extra Parts

 

I recently stumbled upon a movie that really hooked me. Hugo (Martin Scorsese) kept reappearing as I scrolled through the rows and rows of movies on Netflix. With four kids, sleep is very dear to me. I rarely find it appealing to invest time into an actual movie. I’m glad I had a change of heart when I finally clicked “play” next to Hugo.

You really need to watch the movie in its entirety, but I want to share the scene that has really stuck with me. To fill you in, Hugo Cabret was left an orphan when his dad, a clockmaker, died in a tragic accident. Before he died, the two of them worked on an antique automaton that used clockwork to move. Because of his closeness to his father and interest he took in his dad’s work, Hugo learned a lot about clockwork himself. So, in this scene, Hugo is talking to a friend about how he knows she has a purpose. He walks with her to a large window that looks out onto the bustling Paris below. Cars and people are moving non-stop all over the place and he says,

“Right after my father died, I would come up here a lot. I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too.”

BAM! That was perfect. No, Hugo does not mention God in this at all, but what an illustration for how we are all of value and play a part in the body of Christ. No extra parts. None. 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 says this,

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴ while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

No extra parts. None.