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But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. \\xa0This is why it says: \\u201cWhen he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.\\u201d (What does \\u201che ascended\\u201d mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? \\xa0He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) \\xa0So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers\\u2026 (Ephesians 4:7-11)

Gifts, gifts, gifts. \\xa0A diversity of gifts. \\xa0

The last set of verses stresses our essential unity as a unity that is grounded in God himself\\u2014for there is \\u201cone God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.\\u201d \\xa0And yet, the kind of unity created in Christ does not enforce us into a uniformity, for we each have different gifts. \\xa0This given diversity is a gift of Christ!

There are two distinct kinds of unity. \\xa0The easier unity, which is the unity we will often tend to seek, is a unity of uniformity. \\xa0School uniforms operate on this uniformity principle. \\xa0Uniformity seeks to ensure that there will be nothing to make us look different from one another. \\xa0We try to make sure that everyone does the same things, believes the same way, acts the same way, looks the same way. \\xa0We are unified and live in peace because we have removed any context for conflict. \\xa0We flatten all diversity.

There are pictures of this kind of unity-by-uniformity in the Bible\\u2014but it\\u2019s never the model we\\u2019re to base our lives on. \\xa0Uniformity shows up in the Bible through Pharaoh\\u2019s enforced brick making. \\xa0It is a way of slavery that forces everyone\\u2014the young and the old, the writer as well as the carpenter, the shepherd as well as the priest\\u2014to submit to one, single, repetitive task that dehumanizes them. \\xa0Uniformity diminishes one\\u2019s life, and utterly stunts human creativity to one, single, linear, repeatable output: a brick. \\xa0

The picture of unity envisioned in Ephesians is different. \\xa0It has more in common with the Biblical pictures of \\u201cliving stones\\u201d being built into a spiritual house. \\xa0Or, if you like, Paul\\u2019s own picture from chapter 2 of a building made of Jews and Gentiles being built on Jesus as the chief cornerstone. \\xa0\\u201cIn him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit\\u201d (Eph. 2:21-22).

Uncut stones are what the Israelites were to make alters out of. \\xa0Not bricks (Ex. 20:25, Dt. 27:5, Jos. 8:31). \\xa0The rationale is that the tools used would defile the perfect Creational gift God had given in the stones that lay on the ground, each in its unique form. \\xa0In the making of altars, therefore, each stone was to keep its unique colour and shape. \\xa0The stone was not to be reduced to something more amenable to human aims of efficiency or effectiveness. \\xa0Bricks, by contrast, are entirely effective and efficient. \\xa0Anyone can stack bricks. \\xa0But building an alter was to take some time and skill, figuring out how to fit each unique, diverse stone into a strong and stable unity.\\xa0

This is the picture of the unity Christ builds in his church. \\xa0It is not a brick-like uniformity, but rather a unity in diversity. \\xa0It is a mosaic of living stones lovingly and carefully built together. \\xa0How? \\xa0Gifts. \\xa0

It is Christ himself who measures out the dynamic colours and contours that shape the unique diversity of each living stone. \\xa0To each one of us he apportions a unique form of his grace\\u2014a gift that we are invited to use in service of building each other up toward the unity we have been given.

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