From weakness to glory series—Week 8: ‘Spiritual communion’.
Yoshimasa Ashikaga was a 15th century Japanese Shogun. He had a tea bowl that he greatly cherished. One day he discovered that it was cracked. Because he treasured it so much, Yoshimasa sent the piece away to China to get it repaired. However no one had the skill to repair it, so the bowl was sent back clamped together. Yoshimasa was disappointed with the appearance of this and ordered a local craftsman to find a way of repairing the bowl.
Rather than trying to conceal the crack, the craftsman sought to emphasise it, filling it with gold lacquer. This was the beginning of the unique artform of Kintsugi, a Japanese word meaning “Golden joinery”. The art form emerged from the idea that every break is unique and instead of repairing an item like new, an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art can be created.
I think there’s a profound connection here with how God goes about bringing his church together. God created human beings in his own image and blessed them to have fellowship with him. When Adam and Eve turned aside from God to do what they desired, they broke this fellowship with God, and fractured their relationship with one another too. Not only did they bring these consequences for their sin upon themselves, but on the whole human race (Romans 5:12), entrenching separation between God and humanity as the new normal, plunging all creation into bondage to decay (Romans 8:21). Who could blame God if he decided to leave us in this state?
But he didn’t. Just as Yoshimasa was not prepared to leave his cherished tea bowl broken, so too God did not want people whom he created in his own image to remain separated from him. It was when we couldn’t repair our relationship with God and with one another ourselves that God sent his own Son into the world to ransom the world from the bondage of sin and prison of hell, reconciling us to God.
Just as each piece of Yoshimasa’s bowl was precious because he cherished his bowl so much, so too each person is precious to God. The ransom price God paid was the life of his own Son—a price paid once, for all. For God desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. So God the Father scatters the seed of his holy word through the preaching and teaching of it across the world, that the Holy Spirit might create faith in the hearts of those who hear, where and when he wills, calling people to Jesus through the gospel.
Just as broken pottery is gathered together, no two pieces of which are the same, the Holy Spirit goes to work in gathering people who are all completely different from one another: those with different nationalities, ages, family backgrounds, religions and philosophies, careers, positions in society, qualifications, abilities, and interests. People with different plans and hopes, shaped by individual circumstances and experiences. People with different pasts; some who the world says are deserving of honour, others who are ashamed of their failings.
Throughout the ages human beings have worked at coming together to pursue common goals. But methods and strategies of the world cannot be transferred to the Kingdom of God to attain unity in the church. Human beings can build church buildings—but we cannot build God’s church. We can’t manufacture the Communion of saints by making people come to faith. Only the Holy Spirit working through God’s word speaks into the hearts of people to call them to Jesus and bring his people to the same confession. Christians can work hard to attract people to come through cathedral doors, but if the word is not there through which the Holy Spirit speaks, then all that is achieved is a social gathering, but not a gathering of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Christians are worried that if they share their faith or speak the word, the church will lose new people. But if the word is not shared, then the church has never really had them in the first place.
Just as Yoshimasa’s cherished tea bowl couldn’t repair itself but needed a master craftsman to unite the pieces into a creation even more beautiful than the first, we needed the Master Craftsman to gather his people and unite us in Christ, with all our blemishes and brokenness. It is not by human strategy or effort that we are one with all those who confess “Jesus is Lord” across the globe, but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like the gold lacquer that binds Christians from all places together. Paul says: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
We were all baptized by the one Spirit—here ‘by’ can also mean ‘with’ or ‘in’. All three of these meanings are true. We were baptised not by the pastor, priest, deacon or bishop, but God himself.
We were baptised with the one Spirit—it was not just water we were immersed in, or that was sprinkled on our foreheads. We were baptised with the one Spirit, even as John the Baptist declared of Jesus “after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:1). If baptism were just by water then it would be powerless to effect the new life God’s word speaks of, and just be a symbol or reminder of what God has done for us and of our allegiance to him. But as Luther explained: “Water by itself is only water, but with the Word of God it is a life giving water, which by grace gives the new birth through the Holy Spirit.” (Small Catechism).
And we were baptised in the one Spirit. The literal meaning of ‘baptise’ means to immerse, dip or wash. Paul says we weren’t immersed, dipped or washed in water for physical washing, but in the Holy Spirit for a spiritual washing. We were submerged into and covered over by God himself, like a dish submerged into the sink to be washed clean. We were purified of all our sins to be made holy; saints of the Kingdom, not by striving to be good and performing miraculous deeds, but by sharing in the very holiness of God by his Spirit, who has washed away all our unholiness and all the evil that has been done to us.
So often we think of our faith and relationship to God individually—a matter between the self and God. In the picture we have today from the 1 Corinthians text, faith is presented as a communal matter. Paul says that God’s people have all “been given one Spirit to drink”—language that calls to mind God’s quenching the thirst of his people as they wandered in the desert, with water gushing forth from the rock (Exodus 17). The drink we have been given is a life-giving drink, so that we will never thirst again for the life that only God can give by his Spirit.
Paul pictures the church not as a building people come to, but a people who are the Church, gathered by the Spirit. One cannot be a Christian without being a member of the communion of saints, who are not only united in Christ by the Spirit in their local assembly, as we are today, but with Christians of all times and places, even those who have gone to our heavenly home before us; the great cloud of witnesses spoken of in Hebrews 12.
Luther understood the church in this way too when he said: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church day after day he fully forgives my sins, and the sins of all believers. On the last day he will raise me and all the dead and give me and all believers in Christ eternal life.”
Like the Kintsugi artists who don’t throw away, replace, or even repair broken ceramic items, but create a beautiful new work of art with them, the Holy Spirit gathers the pieces of our broken human race together, to make something new and beautiful—a new creation; his church. Yet he is not only the Gatherer but the precious gold that binds us together. He has called, gathered and enlightened us to come to Jesus and know him. The Holy Spirit has gathered us here again today, to meet with Christ, and receive his grace, to have our hearts purified by the washing away of our sins, to be made holy in truth, and strengthened in faith as we continue the spiritual journey from earth to heaven; from weakness to glory.
And so, with the work of the artist restored, cemented together with precious gold, would the pieces of pottery suddenly decide they themselves should not be a part of it? Paul uses the analogy of the human body to make the same point: “Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.” (verses 15-17).
To think like this would be to lose sight of the church God has created—not bricks and mortar, but people with whom we are one in our common faith across the world—the unseen church which lives in the world 7 days a week. It is not our privilege to decide who is worthy and unworthy to be hands and feet in the Body of Christ; who is necessary and unnecessary, who is indispensable and who is replaceable, who is welcome and not welcome. Since God gathers his people and unites them as his holy church on earth we should not tear apart what he joins together. We are not to pass judgment on a brother or sister and cause them to stumble so that they lose their faith. Paul puts it this way: “The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”
As God gathers us to rest in his presence again today, may he, by the power of his Spirit, give us his vision of the church—one which is shaped less by ancestral history, architectural beauty, denominational loyalties, and anxieties over falling numbers—and more about what God is building by the power of his Spirit on earth as it is in heaven—a holy communion of saints and angels with the divine, where each person is precious and holy and placed by God exactly where he wants them to be.
Though we are fragile, frail, broken, undeserving people who are unable to repair our relationship with God and others ourselves, God didn’t throw you away. But by the precious golden lacquer of the Holy Spirit, the Master Craftsman produced a new work of art, joining redeemed sinners with Christ through faith to make us the holy people of God, whose journey through weakness in this life will culminate in participating in God’s own glory in the next. Then the words in Isaiah, of a future hope of God’s people restored to him, will be ultimately fulfilled when Jesus comes again to take his faithful people to share in his glory in heaven:
“You will be a crown of splendour in the Lord’s hand,
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62: 3-5).
So dear brothers and sisters, let not any human spirit of unforgiveness, resentment or bitterness take root. For the Holy Spirit has bound us together, that there be no division in the one body, and the parts of the body have equal concern for each other. If one of us suffers, we share in their suffering; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.
“As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:12-17). Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Time after Pentecost, 2026
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
“Human beings can build church buildings—but we cannot build God’s church.”
- Why do you think God gives different gifts to different people?
- What does the image of the human body teach us about spiritual unity?
- How does this passage challenge pride and feelings of inferiority?
- Why is every believer important to the health of the church?
- What gifts, talents, or abilities has God given you?
- How can you celebrate the gifts of others rather than comparing yourself to them? Why is it dangerous to compare our gifts with those of others?
- Have you ever felt unimportant because your role seemed less visible? How does this passage encourage you?
- Are there people in your church whom you tend to overlook? How can you better value them?
11.What are some threats to spiritual unity in the church today?
12.How does focusing on Christ help maintain unity among believers?
