Cutting Up a Rembrandt

“We wouldn’t put up with an art dealer cutting up a large Rembrandt into two inch squares and selling them off nicely framed.

“So why do we so often positively delight and celebrate the dividing up of the Jesus community into contentious and competitive groups?

“And why does Paul’s rhetorical question, Has Christ been divided? (1st Corinthians 1:13) continue to be ignored century after century?” — Gene Peterson, “Comfort Zones” in Called to Community

Wow.

Ouch.

Then there’s a prayer that has resonated painfully in my heart, mind, and life since it first knocked me around like in 1988, and you might recognize it from here last Monday —

Help each of us, gracious God,

to live in such magnanimity and restraint

that the Head of the church may never have couse to say to any one of us,

“This is my body, broken by you.”

— Prayer For the Unity of Christ’s Body, from China,

United Methodist Hymnal, 564

— God help us.

All of us.

Starting with you and me.