“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 4:15-16).
Look at the stitches in your work! It takes all of them to make a scarf. If we were to drop just one stitch, it would affect all the others. The piece would develop a run, and pretty soon the whole project would be a mess. To lose just one stitch weakens the fabric. According to Paul, what knits us together as a community of faith? Jesus does. We heard before that God is at work knitting each one of us together before we are born. But God is a master knitter. And God knits together all the children of God together into a family of faith, into the body of Christ. We need every one of us, every little stitch of us, for the body to be whole and strong and healthy.
This message is excerpted from “Stitches and Scripture,” a 2011 resource of the Women of the ELCA, based on a study by Mary Jorgensen and adapted by Audrey Novak Riley.
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