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When a red blood cell first met a nerve cell, it exclaimed, \u201cAh, an alien!\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d replied the nerve cell, \u201cI am your brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participating in the Menno Simons 500th anniversary seminar in the Netherlands in the spring of 1997 was my first time partaking in an international Mennonite gathering. My emotional reaction was to an extent the same as that of the red blood cell: Are these people all Mennonites? Why does their way of thinking differ so much from mine?<\/em> At the Pennsylvania 2015 MWC Assembly, I experienced this sense even more powerfully!<\/p>\n Whether it be 2000-year-old Christianity or the 500-year-old Anabaptist church, we were born from the same theological tradition. Due to the passing of time and differences in cultural backgrounds and social environments, we grew to take on different faces. In the face of the numerous delicate issues of today, we also have different views and stances.<\/p>\n This makes me think of Paul\u2019s metaphor of the body: we really are like a body with parts that have different shapes and functions. The church must be divergent and diverse \u2013 this is the DNA placed into the church when God first created her.<\/p>\n The church must accept differences, because this is the church\u2019s vital lifeline. Through my brothers and sisters from Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America, my horizons and perspectives are broadened. I see a different picture of faith. Yet these cultural \u201cothers\u201d come from the same theological DNA; these spiritual blood relations have become an indispensable part of the \u201cme\u201d or \u201cus\u201d of faith. The sisters and brothers from the global family comprise our co-humanity in Christ.<\/p>\n At the same time, however, this differentiation at the \u201ccellular\u201d level is for a greater unity at a higher level: there is only one body. We as members were integrated into the divine body. What we share in common is that we all commit ourselves to Jesus Christ, to radically following him. We also have the Shared Convictions in common. Therefore, we are made one in our diversity, while remaining diverse in unity.<\/p>\n The church is full of light and order at times, and disarray at other times. Nevertheless, from this mosaic of the church emerges a face of the transcendent one: Jesus Christ. He reveals himself through the church\u2019s overall life. The church is the holy image of Christ; its mission is to faithfully demonstrate Christ, so that the world can see the face of the one who transcends.<\/p>\n
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