Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
When I was more actively involved in the work of the Anglican Church of Canada in the wider national context, I spent a lot of time travelling and staying in various conference and retreat centres across the country. One of the retreat centres we frequently used was run by a community of religious sisters.
In one of the common areas of the convent there was always a large table with a jigsaw puzzle in progress. In the evenings anyone who was in residence could pull up a chair and contribute to the work in progress. Often there would be other groups meeting at the convent as well and the puzzle became a gathering place for folks from different parts of the country and from different working groups of the church. Every once and a while one or more of the sisters would stop by and join in.
Everyone knew the process. First, work on the frame of the puzzle. Then bring together little islands of interlocking pieces and coordinate their location by referring to the box top. As this is being done, someone might discover a piece that links one island to another. Piece by piece the puzzle emerges.
Putting a jigsaw puzzle together has two benefits. The benefit we most often think of is completing the puzzle itself. But the other benefit is working with other people on the project. Some folks are really skilled at creating those little islands, while other have the knack of finding the links that connect one island to another. As we work on the puzzle, we chat and learn from one another. It helps that we do have a clear goal and the box top offers a bird’s eye view of what we’re working towards. In the working together new relationships are forged, new friendships emerge and new possibilities wait to be discovered.
In many ways the life of faith takes place within the age-old human adventure of working on the vast jigsaw puzzle we know as the kosmos, the universe and all things visible and invisible. Over the course of millennia we have been able to construct a significant part of the frame of the puzzle, though much still remains to be done. We’ve been able to piece together some clusters of the puzzle, those islands that bring us closer to grasping the whole picture. Then there are those ‘eureka’ moments when some one finds the piece or pieces that connect islands together, expanding our knowledge.
Throughout all these millennia we have benefitted not only from the data we have gleaned and the knowledge we have gained. We have benefitted from the process of working together on the puzzle. Millions of people, some known to us, most unknown to us, have collaborated by bringing their hearts, minds, hearts and intuitions to the task. While I would never deny the importance of history’s geniuses to this human endeavour, I would affirm that whatever knowledge we have gained, whatever wisdom we have nurtured, has been a corporate and collaborative effort of the wonderful but often annoying diversity of human beings.
What is true of our study of the universe is equally true of the life of Christian communities over the past two thousand years. We’ve been piecing together the puzzle of the kingdom of God, the reality of life in communion with God in the here and now, for a long time. That puzzle is not yet completed and there are times, I must confess, when I fear that there are some pieces missing. But perhaps the most important thing is that what we’re doing is corporate and collaborate. To use a familiar saying, the journey, the piecing together of the puzzle, is enriches us as much as reaching our destination, God’s promised reign of justice and peace.
We will always need new eyes to help up see what God is doing, new ears to hear what God is saying, new hearts to beat with God’s love and compassion, and new voices to speak God’s word afresh in ways understood by those who have been hurt by the life of faith, by those who don’t miss this life, by those who have never experienced it and by those who are curious about who we are and what we are doing. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is the emerging kingdom of God are human beings in whom the glory of God is just waiting to be revealed.
Today Clara joins us at the table where we are working together to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is God’s kingdom. She brings her own gifts to join with those of the whole Christian community in this long work of restoring balance to the world and renewing the lives of all its creatures. So pull up a chair for Clara and let’s see what we can discover together about the God who doing more than we can ask or imagine.
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