Anticipating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, here’s a meditation from my book No Ordinary Man 2, reminding us of how, from the earliest days of the Church, division was an all-too-real problem, threatening to undermine and destroy Christian communities. Paul’s emphasis on each of us being part of the Body of Christ, all having something essential to contribute, reminds us of the ongoing truth that united we stand, divided we fall.
Reading
Together then, you are Christ’s body, each one of you being its members. Within the Church God has given some to be apostles, others to be prophets, others again to be teachers; and then there also mighty acts, gifts of healing, different ways of helping one another, all kinds of leadership positions, not to mention various tongues. Are all apostles, all prophets, all teachers, all equipped with great powers? Do we all have the gift of healing, or tongues, or interpretation? 1 Corinthians 12:27-31a
Meditation of the Apostle Paul
It was all so unnecessary,
such a senseless stupid waste –
grown men and women who should have known better,
arguing amongst each other,
almost coming to blows,
and all over so-called gifts of the Spirit.
Well, some gifts they turned out to be!
I could hardly believe it –
so much anger,
so much bitterness,
just because people experienced God differently.
Why couldn’t they see the other’s point of view,
recognise that some need to express themselves one way,
some another;
some have this gift,
others one completely different?
Why turn it into a competition,
a test of spiritual blessing?
It wouldn’t have been so bad had it been over something important –
our failure to love,
our inability to forgive,
our weakness in discipleship.
But this –
it was all finally so trivial,
the whole business peripheral
to what should really have concerned us.
Oh, I don’t deny such things have their place –
a time and a season for everything –
but when they divide rather than bring together,
upset rather than uplift,
surely something has to be wrong somewhere?
Yet they just wouldn’t have it,
each vying to outdo the other,
jostling to claim the most spectacular gift,
the profoundest blessing.
Couldn’t they see the damage they were doing,
the message they broadcast to the world?
Didn’t they realise that every dispute, every division,
broke again the body of Christ,
inflicting yet more suffering upon him?
Apparently not.
They were tearing themselves apart,
slowly but surely destroying the unity
which he had suffered such agony to bring them,
and all in the name of his Spirit.
Don’t think I blame one above the other;
I don’t.
They were all to blame,
each as intolerant as the next,
denying through their deeds what they claimed with their lips.
It’s up to them now;
I’ve done my best,
tried to get the message home.
They can go on feuding if they want to,
no place for anyone but themselves,
but when the day comes when they’re finally called to account,
and they find then that there’s no place for anyone like themselves,
don’t say I didn’t warn them!
Prayer
Lord,
we each have some gifts,
but none of us has them all.
We each have something to contribute to others,
and equally something to receive from them in turn.
We each need one another,
and our lives are impoverished
if we attempt to go it alone.
You call us all to be part of your body
with a unique role to play within that,
but by the same token we belong to an interdependent whole
in which every member is of vital importance.
Teach us, then,
not only to exercise our own gifts wisely
but at the same time to appreciate those of others,
and so may we grow together,
building one another up in love,
to the glory of your name.
Amen.