This week we in some ways pick up where we left off last week. Over the course of this month, we have been discussing calling. Who are we called to be? What are we called to do? We have looked at the source of our calling and the ways that God provides us what we need to fulfill it. We have discussed our call to be a blessing to the world around us.
Last week, we explored a little of what it means to be joined to others in our calling, a notion we will explore in a different way today. Our reading from Ephesians last week helped us think about being united together. Unity implies that we are joined together in common goals and purpose. Unity suggests one whole.
But this week, we turn to a different nuance. Today we discuss relationship. In some ways, unity and relationship are similar, but relationship is a little bit different from unity. Unity is about the whole, about things being united together into one thing. And as Christians, we are united in purpose and core beliefs. But we are also in relationship with one another. We each have our own lives, our own experiences, our own thoughts and actions. While there are many things that unite us, there are also many things that make us different. Relationship is found in those points of difference.
Perhaps looking at a family is a good way of exploring what I mean. The people who make up a particular family are united. They share a common name. They often share certain common thoughts and goals. But the parents are not the children. Siblings are different. The grandmother is different from the uncle. There are bonds that unite them -- we touched on the importance of blood last week -- but there are also differences between them all. And how they navigate those differences is how they relate to one another.
This is also part of how we think about the Christian idea of the Trinity. God is One, but God is Three. God is united in power and purpose, but the three persons of God are in relationship. This is a bit of an oversimplification. We in the Church have spent centuries trying to understand the concept of the Trinity, and there are times that I read theological texts and feel we are no closer to understanding than we were two thousand years ago. But at the most basic level, this notion of unity and relationship is what defines our understanding of God, and it is this same image that we are called into.
To begin to tug on that thread a little more, we turn primarily to Paul again today. Paul’s letters are among the earliest of Christian writings, likely predating most of the written Gospels as we know them. Reading Paul gives us a glimpse into how the early Christians understood and lived into all that Jesus had taught them before he returned to heaven.
In our reading from Ephesians today (Ephesians 3:14-21), Paul is again looking at our differences. Last week, he talked about the Jews and the Gentiles being united into one body, but today his language is more relational. This section starts off, “This is why I kneel before the Father” (Ephesians 3:14, CEB). He is using relational language to talk about God. This turns us into a family, a family made up of different people with different relationships to one another.
In the translation I read from today, the next line continues, “Every ethnic group in heaven or on earth is recognized by him” (Ephesians 3:15, CEB). For Paul and perhaps for many of us today, we think about the differences between races and ethnicities as the most obvious of differences between us. Paul is making it clear that even if we are different, we are together in one family, recognized by the Father. A different Bible translation makes this relational understanding even more obvious, as it says that the Father is the one “from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name” (Ephesians 3:15, NRSV). Through our relationship with God, we are called into relationship with others, others who are different from us, who look different from us, who talk differently from us. No matter the differences between us, we are called into relationship with each other as sisters and brothers. We may be working toward a common goal, but we may have different ways of getting there.
Thinking of our model of family again, we might consider a family whose members love music or movies. This may be something they have in common. On the other hand, the mother may enjoy country music while the daughter likes rap and the son likes opera. They are still in relationship to one another even if their ways of enjoying their common love of music is expressed in different ways.
Paul goes on to remind us that it is love that draws us together into relationship with one another, especially in the midst of our differences. “I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers” (Ephesians 3:18, CEB). The love of Christ is wider and deeper than we can imagine, wide enough and deep enough to call us into relationship with folks who are different from us.
For Paul, his purpose when writing this letter, as we touched on last week, was to encourage primarily the non-Jewish members of the early Christian community in Ephesus. He wanted them to know that they were included, united in the one whole. But he also wanted them to know that there is nothing wrong with their differences. The love of God is big enough for people with different opinions to all exist side by side in relationship with one another.
It is a point that is still important to us today. As we think of all the different denominations that exist, the different churches that exist around us, it is good to know that God’s love is big enough to call all of us into relationship with one another regardless of what may be different about us. This week, a pastor at a new church start reached out to see if our congregation might be interested in doing some Bible studies together on occasion. The idea is that even though we are different groups with some different experiences and backgrounds, we are still members of the same family and perhaps we can find ways to be in relationship with one another. We are different in many ways, but that doesn’t stop us from having relationships with one another. I don’t know where these conversations will go, but I am interested in seeing what might be possible.
How might we be stronger in relationship with each other?
Of course, Paul has an answer to that question as well. “God...is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20, CEB). This to me is key to helping us understand what Paul is getting at in our reading today. The relationships we have and all that we can accomplish through them comes from a power within us, but we must always remember that it is God’s power that is at work within us. God’s power nudges us, works through us, works through the relationships we share, works through both our unity and our differences, and the results are far greater than we could imagine.
A perfect example of this is our story from the Gospel of John today (John 6:1-21). This is perhaps a familiar story to you, and one that appears in all four of the Gospels in our Bibles. In fact, you may recall that our reading from Mark last week skipped several verses in between the segments of the reading. That is because the lectionary left out the feeding story from Mark so that we could read this version from John today.
Because the feeding of the five thousand, as it is commonly called, is so familiar to most of us, I won’t go through the entirety of it again, but there are a few key points that I want to highlight for us related to our topic today. As we have gotten familiar with from our Gospel readings lately, Jesus is continuing his ministry in the area of the Sea of Galilee, crossing back and forth by boat while crowds follow him everywhere he goes. Jesus goes up a mountain with his disciples. This is an important example of the relationship amongst them. There are times in which Jesus chooses to be alone, but there are also times that he chooses the company of his disciples. They have perhaps at this point become more than merely teacher and disciples, but they have become friends, choosing the company of one another.
Then there is the matter of the crowds. The size of the crowds following him makes it obvious that this is more than a single family. These are people of various backgrounds and cities, all walking alongside one another. They are united in purpose, but they must also figure out how to be in relationship to one another through their differences.
While it is not as obvious to our modern minds, the framing of the crowd is in direct contrast with the Roman legions. Roman military legions were drawn from all over the empire, from all of the lands conquered by Rome. But their training and the harsh rules they must follow erase the differences between them. They become united in purpose, but there are no longer any differences between them. Unlike a family, they become interchangeable parts of a single whole, nearly indistinguishable from each other.
On the other hand, the crowds that follow Jesus are from all over the areas that Jesus has taught. They are likely dressed differently based on the areas they are from. There are likely all sorts of differences between them. They are united in their desire to follow Jesus, but they are still unique.
And then there is the miracle. Five loaves of bread and two fish somehow become enough food to feed thousands with more left over than they started with. As Paul points out, this is “far beyond all that we could ask or imagine.” The disciples obviously had no concept of how all these people could be fed. Philip can think of only the cost of feeding all of these people. Even six month’s wages wouldn’t feed all of these people. Andrew points out the tiny bit of food that is available, but what good is that in the face of so much need.
Far beyond what we could ask or imagine.
But I want to stretch your understanding a little. You see, that is not the end of the quote from Ephesians. God does far more than expected “by his power at work within us.” What if we include this part of the line in our understanding of what happened in the feeding miracle?
I heard another pastor talk about it this way one time. First we must consider that this crowd set out from their homes to follow Jesus. It is unlikely that they set out unprepared. Most of them would have come with their own food from home, carried in whatever belongings they had with them. What if the miracle is not that the baskets came around and everyone was able to pull what they needed from them, but instead, when the baskets came around each person said to themselves, “I have a little extra here that I brought with me; I’ll just add this to the basket for someone else that might need it”? How does this stretch our understanding of the story? Does imagining the story taking place in this way make it any less of a miracle? No. All were still fed because of the five loaves and two fish. All were still fed with plenty left over to feed others.
But it does highlight our need for relationship with one another. Perhaps not everyone had resources to bring with them. Perhaps there were those in the crowd who would have gone hungry without the food that was shared. And yet, no one went hungry. All were able to eat their fill. Jesus made an example of sharing, and so the crowd followed his teaching.
“By [God’s] power at work within us.”
In spite of, or perhaps because of, the differences between us, we are brought into relationship with one another. Our relationships acknowledge the differences between us. We learn from one another, share with one another. We may be united in one body, but we also carry our uniqueness with us. And through the relationships we share, we find that we all have enough with even more leftover to support the world around us.
“Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us.”