There are two kinds of people: Those who love jigsaw puzzles; and those who do not.
I love jigsaw puzzles.
I come by it honest. My dad loved jigsaw puzzles, and both my brother and I love them. (It has yet to be demonstrated if my children have inherited the jigsaw gene, but I remain hopeful!)
There is an art to putting together a jigsaw puzzle. After sifting out all the “puzzle dust” I find all the edge pieces. And in the process, when I find the corner pieces, I have a little mini celebration. Corner pieces are very exciting. More celebration is in order as I complete the first edge – giving me one of the dimensions, either the length or height of the puzzle. When all the edge pieces are together, this calls for greater celebration, for now I know how big this puzzle is going to be! Then I group together the inside pieces according to their color. The group of “sky” pieces is usually the largest.
When working on a jigsaw puzzle, fun usually has a companion called frustration. Frustration shows up when I can’t find that one piece I have been looking for. It is at this point I will typically say something like, “This puzzle is defective! The store sold me a puzzle with a piece missing! I’m taking it back to the store and getting my money back!” That is when someone (usually someone who does NOT love jigsaw puzzles) walks up, looks at the pieces for about 3 seconds, picks up a piece and plops it right in the spot I was hoping to fill. “Is that the piece you were looking for?” they innocently quip.
I think they were hiding it up their sleeve.
Recently, I was going through some old toys – trying to get rid of some of the things my kids no longer use or want. The things that still have some usefulness left in them were placed aside to bring to the church for the youth yard sale. While cleaning out a closet I came across two little jigsaw puzzles (and by little, I mean under 100 pieces). I asked one of my sons to put them together to see if all the pieces were there. He quickly put the first one together. And indeed, all the pieces were there. It was a complete picture. Now, someone else could take those pieces and put them together and see the same picture. All the pieces went back in the box, and we put tape on it to hold it together – so none of the pieces would be lost.
Out came the next puzzle. But pretty soon, it was evident that some of the pieces were missing. The picture was incomplete – and no one looking at it would ever know the full scope of what it should look like; no one, no matter how hard they tried, would be able to put it together to make a complete picture. Sadly, the pieces were tossed into the recycle bin along with the box in which they had come.
This thing we call “the church” is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. Each one of us has a piece of the puzzle to give. God has gifted you in ways like no one else. Some of you are corner pieces; some of you may be edge pieces; and some of you might be a piece of blue sky. You may think that your piece isn’t as important as some other piece. But it is. Without you the picture is incomplete. And the world around us can’t see the beauty of the full picture.
There is a lot more to this metaphor, about the shape of each piece, and how sometimes a piece almost fits – but really belongs somewhere else; about pieces that have very distinct parts of the picture, and pieces that do not; about the glaring hole when a piece is missing, compared to hardly noticeable pieces when the picture is whole. But I will leave those things for you to ponder.
I have a puzzle to work on!
