I don’t know about you, but I read the epistle differently these days than when I was a little younger.

Paul writes of “the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly…”

I didn’t used to notice quite as loudly the part about “as each part is working properly” when all of the parts of my own body were a little more reliable than they are these days. Still, I can read the hope, and the intent – I know what my hips and knees are supposed to do, working together – and we know that with God all things are possible, even if they are not always convenient, easy, or pain-free.

Here’s the thing: if every part of the body were working properly, joined and knit together with smooth and stretchy ligaments, to promote the body’s growth in building itself up in love to him who is the head, that is, Jesus Christ – if everything were working perfectly, we would no longer be here, but in the kingdom of heaven.

As it is, we work with what we have: our imperfect, slightly broken, somewhat pre-worn selves, and each other, to do what we can “to lead a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called in love,” as Paul also says. 

And we have been called in love. We have been called into being and into being together by a God who loves us, who has created us, who heals us, who sustains us, who welcomes us home. There is nothing in our slightly broken or worn bodies that can undo the love with which God has called and created us.

Now, to push the metaphor a little further, there are different kinds of brokenness, and different levels of pain, that require different interventions.

A break may be ugly, open, prone to infection, like the running sores of racism and contempt that continue to plague our country and its discourse. This will not heal itself by running its course. It requires a more radical intervention, and we had better look out for the signs and symptoms in ourselves, too, excise from our speech and actions the tendency to contemptuousness, the conscious or unconscious bias that distorts our perception of the image of God in another. We had better look for the antidote of justice.

There may be a lesser kind of injury – a strain or a sprain – that simply needs support and rest, warmth and elevation. Grief, regret, disappointment might fall into this category. There is a balm in Gilead; there is a balm right here in the heart of a loving community, to soothe the troubled soul.

And there is pain that is productive – ask anyone who has been in labour. My God, it does hurt. But it is a generative use of muscle and strength that brings new life into being. Elsewhere Paul writes of the whole creation groaning to bring into being the kingdom of God; here he invites us, each one, to bear down upon love, to support one another in the work of love, cry out the truth of God’s justice and mercy, to breathe the love of Christ into being.

Don’t give up, Paul might say, despite the worn and broken nature of the world, despite our own limitations, whether every part works or not. For we are each formed by God and called together in the love of Christ, and when we work together, to support and to encourage and grow one another’s faith, we will discover and do more than we can ask or imagine, by the love of God.

 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:16)