Meditations from Zion

Here’s what happens when someone doesn’t do his/her part in a volunteer organization: other people have to work harder to pick up the slack. Even if it’s a justified slacking, the work remains. That’s the case with tasks, but what about practicing love?

Ephesians 4:16
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Paul spends a lot of time in Ephesians talking about love and unity and maturity and operating in the call of grace. And the upshot here is that this work, this practicing of God’s presence (that is what this is all about), is how the Body of Christ is “built up.” Today’s group of people who are believers and participants in the work of Christ have been asked to become a whole by doing their part: live loved and give love; live in grace and give grace.

The message has not changed over the years, only the people who are here on earth practicing, reflecting, and trusting.

I used to think that doing my part was all the “doings” of a life in Christ like evangelizing or feeding the poor or visiting the sick and imprisoned or reading the bible or praying or going to church. And certainly, these manifestations do happen. The difference is that these “doings” are better as an outgrowth of the core “being” in love and grace.

There are no tick marks for service. There is never a point at which we have “done enough” because the needs will always be greater than the workers to meet them. Even in Jesus’s time, this was true. [John 12:8] We do not get points with God by being inexhaustible Energizer bunnies.

O God, help me do my part today. And out of this part – love and grace – may a soul be touched, a heart opened, a wound healed.