The Puzzle of God's Love

When I was visiting some of my family over the Christmas break, we began to work on a 1500-piece puzzle. It was a big picture of a living room, with a guitar against the wall near a window that looked out at a small tree by a deep blue lake. There were many different colors and hues and we spent quite a bit of time sorting puzzle pieces before we could even start to see the big picture.
But this puzzle was different than many I had worked on in the past. Usually, the picture on the box showed what the puzzle looked like, but this one was not so obviously put together. It was true that the picture on the box showed what it resembled “in general.” What we discovered as we assembled more of the puzzle is that there were various things in the picture that were different than what the picture on the box had portrayed! For example, instead of one clock on the wall, there were two! Instead of four record-albums, there were five! Not only did this make it more difficult for us to assemble, it also made it harder to fit pieces together. Pieces that looked like they never should go together actually did. In fact it was more likely that pieces of the same color and shape would not fit!
         On a fun side note, my 3-year-old niece decided at about 4am the next morning to “help” put the puzzle together without us there to guide her. Let’s just say, we had to start all over again.
         1500-piece puzzles are already challenging enough when we know what the picture looks like. It makes it even harder when we don’t know what it looks like! Regardless of the size, the scope, or the amount of 3-year-olds helping us, puzzles will always be harder to fit together when we don’t know what the picture looks like.

I.

Jesus said, “Holy Father, protect them in Your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as We are one.”  Jesus prays these words to God the Father on behalf of His disciples, all of who Jesus had just said would be scattered because of His death in the previous chapter of this Gospel.  Since we know in the Easter season the reality that Jesus has risen victorious over death, we sometimes give the disciples a hard time for not being able to understand what Jesus was saying. And yet, when we read the Gospel of Saint John, we all should get a little confused at what Jesus is saying. How can they be one as God and Jesus are one if they are scattered? How can they be unified if they are apart?
Not only that, but how can the disciples even begin to carry out the mission of God revealed through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, if He leaves them and goes back to His Father?
        Jesus, if you are not here, then how can you expect us to carry out God’s plans for the kingdom of heaven? If we don’t know what the grand picture of the kingdom looks like, then how can we ever put the puzzle pieces together?

II.

When we look at the world we live in, we cannot help but be aware of how divided people can become. We as citizens of the United States are being confronted with the fact that we have not solved some fundamental problems that we perhaps thought we had put behind us.
We are in international upheaval about racism, which, as we have learned over the past year, is alive and well in our country. We have probably heard and seen numerous articles and talking-heads discussing the “pro-immigrant” or “anti-immigrant” positions that certain people take. And there are many more divisive issues that I could name. The point is, whether it be debating positions or deflating footballs, we are all intimately aware of the human capacity to wrong our neighbors and hurt other people.
          These issues and problems are not very far removed from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’s doors either. In our churches, differences about belief and ethics can very quickly transform themselves into theological firefights about who is right and who is wrong, leading both groups to basically excommunicate each other from the Christian faith. Even in our blessed Anglican Communion, the relationships continue to be strained as we struggle to find unity in all of our various diversities. Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town South Africa, noted in his speech to seminarian graduates this past week that social media has been instrumental in breaking relationships with our other Christian brothers and sisters.  Through social media, blog sites, or even a seething comment on a news page, we sometimes vilify each other when we should be trying to continue the message and prayer of Jesus to be one, as He and Our Father are one.

III.

But even in all of this upheaval, we need to realize that Jesus has not left us orphans to fend for ourselves. In fact, God has never been more present. As we heard today in the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit has come to us. The Spirit chose Saint Matthias to be numbered with the Twelve, to fill the missing puzzle piece left after Judas’ betrayal and suicide. Not long after this, we have the first deacons of the One Church selected to take care of the widows and orphans. And as the teaching about Jesus the Son of God spreads, we find that the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ begins to change the world. We have Gentiles invited in along with the Jews to be a part of God’s kingdom. The lame walk, the blind see, the hungry are fed, and the outcasts are welcomed in to the household of God.
And it is in this saving action of Jesus that we find the truth: we don’t assemble the puzzle pieces. We are the puzzle pieces. And we are meant to be a part of a beautiful picture that our heavenly Father is putting together, being assembled and moved into place to become the very image of Jesus Christ.

IV.

         Therefore, my brothers and sisters, when we engage this broken and mixed up world we live in, let us do so unified in the power and love of God. Let us recognize that we are all pieces of God’s puzzle meant to be where God has put us, right here in Siloam Springs. We were meant to work where we are working at, to live where we are living at, and to know the people we engage with every day. Since this is the reality as Christians, make the most of every opportunity that God has provided you in your life.
         Love your enemies. Pray for those who curse you. Play with the little children. Care for the poor. Visit those in prison. Heal the brokenhearted. Rebuild bridges that have been burned. And do these things knowing that you are an irreplaceable puzzle piece in God’s picture of love.

        And may God our Father fulfill what Jesus has prayed on our behalf:

        May we be one, just as God is One.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.