There is no better time for a kid
than Summer Camp, and Montlureis finishing its fourth week! Pray for Stephanie
Hamilton! Pray for the counselors! And pray for the all the children and youth
who will be blessed by getting away from their routines in order to get into
Jesus.
Last week I served as chaplain for
the senior high camp andwas excited to bring this year’s theme at Montlure: Power
Up in the Spirit. The fourthday’s lesson was taken from Ephesians 4:1-6, which
says in part:
…Be completely humble and gentle;
be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the
unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all
and in all.
This passage was quite fun to teach
as it allowed me to break out the story from Dr. Suess’ The Butter Battle in which two tribes from the same locale war over
the correct way to butter bread: butter side up versus butter side down. I
divided the campers into two groups and asked them to shout out their answer to
the question, “What is the proper side of the bread to butter?” As each side
made their voices heard, in ever increasing volume, the cacophony blurred into
a single, guttural cry that sounded something like, “AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!”
Sadly, this exercise is in some ways a metaphor for the Church.
There are seven “ones” in this
brief passage of Ephesians: one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all. Seven being the symbolic
number of heaven for the ancient Israelites, this passage speaks both literally
and symbolically toward our unity even in the midst of our differences, the
triumph of diversity over division for those who share in Jesus Christ.
But how is such unity in diversity
accomplished? In the presbytery as it is in the church, in the church family as
it is in the extended family, among all families and friends, the character
qualities the Lord seeks of his people, and which draw us toward a common heart
for the Lord Jesus, are humility, gentleness, patience and forbearance. To
demonstrate the reconciling power of these
character qualities, imagine the reverse of these traits. What kind of
teamwork, unity and common purpose is found when members are arrogant,
obnoxious, impatient and intolerant?
At the Camp Dance the evening of
day four, the senior high campers – a famously cliquish tribe – brought joy to
my heart as I observed them dance with one another almost exclusively in groups,
large and small, constantly morphing, constantly changing who was dancing with
whom. It was as if they had figured out that jocks and musicians, theater folk
and brainiacs were all different and yet somehow one. Our presbytery and our
churches can learn a lot from their example. Indeed, may
we learn from their example the “new math” of the Kingdom: 1 + 1 + 1+ 1 + 1 + 1
+ 1 = ONE!
Pray on these things,
Brad
