This month, we take our lead from the last two points from our July series. We are called to unity and we are also called to bring our differences into relationship with each other. Guided by our understanding of the Trinity, much of our Christian life together is caught up in the balance between unity and difference.
This first week, we continue to take our cues primarily from Paul. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, he helps us think about what it looks like to live our lives together as the body of Christ (see Ephesians 4:1-16). We are united into one body, but we each bring something difference to the relationship. We each have a different part to play.
* * *
In the last two weeks, I talked briefly about the interplay between our unity and our differences. Through Jesus we are united in one body. But we bring our full selves with us, all that we have experienced and all that we are. Our lives together as Christians are lived in the tension between our unity and our differences.
This month, we will explore a bit more what this looks like in practice. How do we all fit together into one body? How do our differences help make us better?
Paul is once again our primary text as we explore what this looks like. In many ways, our shift in focus to look at the balance between unity and difference follows a similar shift in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul spends the first half of this letter trying to help us understand that our unity and our relationships are gifts from God. It is part of our calling as Christians that we live lives connected to one another.
“Therefore...I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God” (Ephesians 4:1, CEB).
Paul now shifts into helping us understand what this looks like in practice. What does it mean to live as people worthy of the call that has been placed on us? What does this mean for us as a community?
Paul starts with the qualities he expects Christians to hold in common. We should conduct ourselves with humility, gentleness, and patience. We should accept one another with love. We are bound together in peace.
We are one body and one spirit.
But in that one body, God has given grace to each of us, grace that manifests as various gifts. In other words, even though we are all joined together in one body, we all play a different part. Each of us has a different role to play.
Now Paul does not go into the detail here that he does in 1 Corinthians, but he still wants us to understand that we all have different gifts and different roles to play. Some are gifted to be “apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11, CEB). And if we read outside the lines, we can also say that some are called to sing, some to write, some to grow crops, some to cook. Every good thing that helps to build up the community is a gift from God. It is a sign of God’s grace, evidence of the Spirit at work with us.
Each of these gifts is different because all of these different gifts are needed for building up the body of Christ that is the church. This makes it clear that all of these gifts are necessary -- no one gift is more important than the others. All of us and our gifts make up the body, joined and held together. Each of us does our part.
For Paul, this image of a united body is important in helping us understand what it means to be the church. The church becomes the continuing body of Christ in the world. Some of us are knees, some elbows, some fingers. I suspect this image had particular meaning for Paul and perhaps the people he was writing to.
For me, when I read these elements in Paul’s letters, I am reminded of a puzzle.
Have you ever put together a jigsaw puzzle? Think about your experience. Are all of the pieces the same? Why aren’t the pieces all the same?
Some pieces fit along the edges, some have corners, the others all fit together in different ways. But usually, each piece has a very specific place it will fit in the puzzle. Maybe it will fit in numerous places well enough, but it takes all of the pieces together in the places where they fit best for us to get the right picture when we are done.
What happens when you work on a puzzle for hours, and then you get to the end, only to discover that one piece is missing? Sure, you can make out the image, but it just isn’t quite right without that one piece. I wind up searching all through the house for that piece; I just have to find it to make the picture complete.
Now, I would like to invite you to think about you church family. Think about the people you regularly worship with. Are we all the same?
Much like the puzzle pieces, we are not all the same. We are all a bit different. Some of us are tall, some short. Some younger, some older. We have many differences from the way we look, to what we enjoy doing, to the skills and talents that we have.
This is the point that Paul is trying to get at here and in similar passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians and Galatians. As we have discussed before, Paul is writing to the community in Ephesus primarily to encourage the non-Jewish members that they have a place as a part of the community. They have a role to play. They are a valued piece of the puzzle.
There are two elements of this that I think are important for us to think about today. First, who are the members of our community that might feel left out? Who are the people around us that need to be reminded that they are a valued part of the puzzle? What pieces of the puzzle are we missing?
And second, we must remember that we each have different gifts and that each of these gifts is important. We don’t receive the same gifts; nor is any gift inherently better than another. But as with the pieces of a puzzle, our gifts fit together for the betterment of the community. And we can only understand our gifts completely when we put them together with others. When we work together to better our community, the whole picture comes into view.
These two elements are a big part of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus comes seeking the lost, the marginalized, the people who are missing. Jesus also makes it clear that the divisions that we create for ourselves are unimportant. This is why this is so important for Paul that he touches on this in more than one of his letters. We each have some gift to offer to the community. Maybe we can provide large financial gifts. Maybe we can teach a Sunday School class. Maybe we can paint or do repairs. Maybe we can be a model for thankfulness for all the things we do have in life. Maybe we can offer hospitality to visitors and members alike as they arrive for different events. Maybe we are called into leadership to help the congregation put its pieces in order. Maybe we can play music or lead the church in song. Whatever the gift, as long as we are using it for the betterment of God’s world, we can know that it is a gift from God.
In other letters, Paul makes the case that one of the most important times that we see this in practice is when we gather together at the table. When we celebrate at the table, we are reminded that no matter our background, no matter what it is we bring to the table, we are all equal in the sight of God. We are all in this together. We celebrate together. We eat together. We are reminded that we live and love together as one community.
And within that one community, each of us has a gift to offer. These gifts have been given to us by God through the working of the Holy Spirit. Through baptism, we are made part of the body of Christ – the Church. These gifts that we have are for the betterment of God’s people here on earth. And it is only through using our gifts together – everyone’s gift – that the church can truly be what God has called us to be. Like a jigsaw puzzle, even one gift out of place or missing can keep the picture from being complete.
And like a jigsaw puzzle, sometimes we do discover something amiss. Perhaps there are gifts that this congregation still needs in order to complete our picture. Maybe we have tried putting a piece in the wrong spot. Or maybe there is a piece that is missing altogether. And just like with the puzzle, we need to search for those missing pieces. Maybe you know of someone with the gifts that are needed, or maybe you you notice a something out of place that no one else has noticed. It takes all of us working together to get the picture in order.
Today as we are reminded of the Table, we turn to the hymn I wanted to sing a few weeks ago. The hymn “One Bread, One Body” draws on this imagery that we find throughout Paul’s letters. It reminds us that we are called together into one body from various places and backgrounds. It reminds us that we are given various gifts, for the support of the one body and for the good of the world around us.
So let us be reminded of our gifts and our call to live together in both our unity and our differences.