22 Sermon Illustrations on Unity in the Church

An old legend tells of a noisy carpenter's shop in which the tools of the trade were arguing among themselves. Brother Hammer was told by his fellow tools that he would have to leave because he was too noisy. To which he replied, "If I am to leave this carpenter's shop, Brother Gimlet must go too; he is so insignificant that he makes very little impression." Little Brother Gimlet arose and said, "All right, but Brother Screw must go also; you have to turn him around and around again and again to get him anywhere." Brother Screw said, "If you wish, I will go. But Brother Plane must leave also; all his work is on the surface, there is no depth to it." To this Brother Plane replied, "Well, Brother Rule will have to withdraw if I do, for he is always measuring others as though he were the only one who is right." Brother Rule then complained against Brother Sandpaper and said, "I just do not care, he is rougher than he ought to be and he is always rubbing people the wrong way." In the midst of the discussion, the Carpenter of Nazareth walked in. He had come to perform His day's work. He put on His apron, and went to the bench to make a pulpit. He employed the screw, the gimlet, the sandpaper, the saw, the hammer and the plane and all the other tools. After the day's work was over and the pulpit was finished, Brother Saw arose and said, "Brethren, I perceive that all of us are laborers together with God." Is it not wonderful how God uses all of us and our unique gifts in the building of His pulpit! The Uniting Love of Christ In a museum, an old white-haired man was standing fascinated before a picture of Christ. After gazing at it for a few moments he murmured to himself, with face all aglow, "Bless Him, I love Him!" A stranger standing near overhead him and said, "Brother, I love Him, too," and clasped his hand. A third caught the sentence and said, "I love Him, too"; soon there stood in front of that picture a little circle of people with hands clasped, utter strangers to one another, but made one by their common love of Christ. On further discussion they found they belonged to different Christian denominations. But this did not disturb their fellowship. Perhaps others belonging to their particular denomination, but not to Christ, could not do what they were doing, stand in awe before Christ and have fellowship with those who possessed the same feeling.

There were two Christians occupying the same cottage, each bound to keep his own side of the house well thatched. They were sadly divided denominationally, one being a Baptist and the other a Presbyterian. After repeated battles with words, they were not on speaking terms. One day these men were at work on the roof, each thatching his own side, when they met at the top and were forced to look into each other's faces. One of the men took off his cap, and scratching his head said to the other, "Johnnie, you and me, I think, have been very foolish to dispute as we have done concerning Christ's will about our churches, until we have clean forgot His will about ourselves; we have fought so bitterly for what we call the truth, that it has ended in spite. Whatever is wrong, it's perfectly certain that it never can be right to be impolite, unneighborly, unkind-in fact, to hate one another. No, that's the devil's work, not God's! The same thing may be the matter with the church as with this house. You are working on one side, and I am on the other, but if we only do our work well, we will meet at the top at last. Give me your hand, old neighbor!" So they shook hands and were the best of friends ever after.

As you look outside on a snowy day and admire the beauty of the landscape, you may recall that no two snowflakes have ever been found to be alike. Yet each individual snowflake is only a minute drop of frozen water as it falls to earth. However, many snowflakes together cover the ground and can change the course of things and persons. When you do your best, and join that best with the efforts of other Christians, you will be amazed at what God can do with your combined "bests."

"Cyrus, in Herodotus, going to fight against Scythia, coming to a broad river, and not being able to pass over it, cut and divided it into divers arms and sluices, and so made it passable for all his army. This is the devil's policy; he laboureth to divide the people of God, and separate us into divers sects and factions, that so he may easily overcome us." This needs no comment. What is needed is that by a spirit of brotherly love we promote the unity of all the churches, and the peace and concord of that to which we belong. May the peace of the church be "as a river." Unity is strength. "Divide and conquer" is Satan's watchword to his myrmidons; but Christ teaches us that the world will be won when his disciples are one.

Dr. Thomas, when Bishop of Salisbury, used to tell the following story: "While I was chaplain to the British factory at Hamburg, a gentleman belonging to the factory died at a village about ten miles distant. Application was made to the pastor of the parish for leave to have him buried in his churchyard; but, on being told that he was a Calvinist, he refused. 'No,' said he, 'there are none but Lutherans in my churchyard; and there shall be no other.' This being told me" (says Dr. Thomas) "I resolved to go and argue the matter with him, but found him inflexible. At length, I told him he made me think of a circumstance which once happened to myself when I was a curate in Thomas Street. I was burying a corpse, when a woman came and pulled me by the sleeve in the midst of the service, saying, 'Sir, sir, I want to speak to you.'—'Prythee,' says I, 'woman, wait till I have done.'—'No, sir: I must speak to you immediately.'—'Why, then, what is the matter?'—'Sir,' says she, 'you are burying a man who died of the small-pox, next my poor husband, who never had it.' The story had the desired effect; and the pastor permitted the bones of the Calvinist to be interred in his churchyard."

Rev. T. L. Cuyler sketches this scene at a late Christian convention in Brooklyn: "The Convention closed by joining hands, and singing, 'Say, brother, will you meet us?' I saw one of Dr. Storrs's deacons, and a Quaker, and a Methodist, standing with clasped hands, and flanked by a Baptist and a Presbyterian clergyman. It reminded me of the time when we college-students, standing thus in the chemical lecture-hall, the electric current leaped from the charged battery through the whole circle in an instant."

Standing, one day, before a beehive, Gotthold observed with delight how the little honey-birds departed and arrived, and from time to time returned home laden with the spoils of the flowers. Meanwhile a great yellow hornet—that wolf among the bees—came buzzing up in eager quest of prey. As it was eveningtide, and the bees, after the heat of the day, had settled about the mouth of the hive to breathe the cool air, it was amusing to observe that their fierce adversary lacked courage to attack their combined host and serried ranks. True, he often advanced for the purpose, but, seeing how densely and compactly they were sitting, was forced to retreat empty-handed. At last, a bee, somewhat belated, arrived by itself; and on this straggler he instantly seized, fell with it to the earth, and dealt with it at his pleasure. S35. CHURCH, Trial of the. When the Romans immortalized any of their emperors, they brought one to swear that they saw him go to heaven out of the fire; intimating that the fiery trial had passed on him. It is thus that the Church has become immortal. S36. CHURCH, Union of the. As the different oceans, called by different names, form one body, so the different denominations of Christians form one Church. S37-S39. CHURCH, Unity of the. A mass of quicksilver let fall on the floor will split into a vast number of distinct globules. Gather them up, and put them together again, and they will coalesce into one body as before. Thus God's elect below are sometimes crumbled and distinguished into various parties, though they all are, in fact, members of one and the same mystic body; but when taken up from the world, and put together in heaven, they will constitute one glorious, undivided Church for ever and ever. S38. As the ark was made of many pieces of wood, and joined together in one; so the Church consisteth of many members knit together in one faith. Conedroy. S39. Christians but one Church. The second Adam, like the first, is the husband only of one wife. Just as the Church cannot have two heads, so the one Head cannot have two bodies; for as that body were a monster which had two heads, so the head which had two separate bodies. Dr. Guthrie. S40. CHURCH, Weakness of the. Balak, the King of the Monbites, hated the camp of Israel, and bribed Balaam, a prophet, to curse them. Just thus doth the world hate the Church, and is never happier than when it can hire the ministers of the Church to turn against it, and betray its interests. But it can no more succeed by its curses than the wicked Balak could: it must seduce Christians to sin, and then it prevails; not by its own power, but by tempting the Church to provoke the anger of God. When Balaam found that he could prevail nothing by his sacrifices and enchantments, then he gave counsel to Balak to corrupt the people of the camp with fornication; and that soon answered the purpose. W. Jones. S41. CHURCH, Weapons of the. The Romans in a great distress were put so hard to it, that they were fain to take the weapons out of the temples of their gods to fight with them; and so they overcame. This ought to be the course of every true Christian in times of public distress,—to fly to the weapons of the Church, prayers and tears. The Spartans' walls were their spears; the Christian's walls are his prayers. Spencer. S42. CHURCHES, Cultivating the. Like as if the land be not tilled, but lie barren, it will bring forth nothing but briers, thistles, and nettles; even so, if churches be not continually labored for by preaching and catechising, they will wax secure, and so bring forth nothing but ignorance, atheism, superstition, idolatry, and all wickedness of life. Conedroy.

Mr. Ward, the Indian missionary, used to tell a story of a Brahmin, who was asked if the various views of Christians about their own religion did not lead him to doubt its divine origin. He replied, "Not at all. Hear, my brother. There was once a city of which all the inhabitants had lost their sight: they were blind. It was one day rumored that a magnificent elephant was to pass through their streets; and, as none of the people had ever seen an elephant, all rushed down to examine it, and pressed close for free inquiry. One felt his leg, another his trunk, another his tail, one his ears, and one his tusk, till they were satisfied. The elephant went on his way, and they returned home. Many were obliged to be content with the reports of the more fortunate. After a time, the various visitors of the gigantic animal began to converse about him, and to describe to others what they had observed: but all their evidence seemed contradictory, since each bore testimony only to the particular member with which he had come in contact; and each denied what his brother attested. Disputes were running very high, when a wise old Brahmin interposed, and said, 'My dear brethren, forbear, I beseech you. All those to whom you have listened are right, and all are wrong. You each know a little, and only a little, of the great creature concerning which you would be informed. Now, instead of disputing, put together all you have heard, combine the different testimonies you have received, and, by so doing, you may best hope to gain some idea of the whole.'"

If two ships at sea, being of the same squadron, be scattered by storm from each other, how should they come to the relief of each other? If, again, they clash together, and fall foul, how should the one endanger the other and herself too? It was of old the Dutch device of two earthen pots swimming upon the water, with this motto, "If we knock together, we sink together." Spencer.

Symbol of the. Doubtless the pregnant symbol of the early Church, according to which the four Gospels found their type and prophecy in the four rivers of Paradise, which together watered the whole earth, going each a different way, and yet issuing all from a single head, — a symbol which we find evermore repeated in the works of early Christian art, wherein, from a single cross-surmounted hill, four streams are seen welling out: this symbol was so great and general a favorite, because it did embody under a beautiful image this fact, namely, how the Gospels were indeed four, and yet in their higher unity but one. And so not less, when the Evangelists were found, as they often were, in the "four living creatures" of Ezekiel's vision, of whom each with a different countenance looked a different way; and yet all of them together upheld the throne and chariot of God, and ever moved as being informed by one and the self-same Spirit, — this, too, was something more and better than a mere fanciful playing with Scripture: there was a deep truth lying at the root of this application, and abundantly justifying its use. Archbishop Trench.

Charles V., Emperor of Germany, at the close of his active and stirring life, retired to a monastery, where he amused himself by constructing clocks. The emperor is said to have expressed no less regret than astonishment at the remembrance of his own folly in having used such violent measures to make about twenty millions of people agree in their religious sentiments; when he found, after repeated experiments, with all his skill, he was unable to make two clocks go exactly alike for any length of time. Bowes.