We will always remain different from one another – that is the nature of human identity and personality. #One spirit one body how to#When we come upon a text such as Ephesians chapter 4, I believe we are given a kind of head slap to wake us up and remind us again of whom we are called to be.Ĭhristians may vary in their understanding of how to deal with the problems of the world Christians may approach political problems from a variety of perspectives but ultimately, Christians need to test every other belief and application of our energies against the call of our Lord to be faithful to him and to the needs of this world. This is why I always return to our source texts in the Bible – the Gospels, the letters of Paul and the early apostles – as the foundational statements about Jesus Christ and about the Church as the witness to Christ both in that age and in our own. I believe it is founded always on the presence of the Spirit of Christ, despite the way history has shaped and molded its particular contours. Call me a dreamer or a Pollyanna, but I do believe that the Church is still a sacred institution. I am disheartened by this continual factiousness.īut even if this is the case across our country, it cannot be allowed to characterize the Church. We seem to have lost our greater identification with one another, of sharing the recognition that we are all American citizens. We have become less a nation with a shared vision than a mass of factions each of which only listen to themselves and to those who speak the same language or who say the same things we say. Such vision redeems, rather than disparages, differences among members of the Church.Īs we enter 2018, what we see in our nation, let alone the world, is a confused mix of partisanship, of what one reporter called “tribalism.” We are very quick to identify ourselves ideologically as either for or against a whole laundry list of items. Each person is valued because he or she brings those gifts into the community to be utilized, as he says, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4: 12) Paul’s response to such diversity is to embrace it as an abundance of riches, rather than categorizing it as a threat to the group. Furthermore, all these gifts come from one Spirit. Though he says that among them they have various natures, Paul identifies these not as problematic, but rather as “ gifts of the spirit,” making some of them prophets, or evangelists, or pastors-and the list goes on. Nevertheless, through Paul’s eyes, we can see that all these differences pale when contrasted to the essential unity that we find in Christ. If we were able to use some sort of time machine to go back to Ephesus, or any of the Pauline churches in his day, we would see people who look different than we look, whose language and customs would seem very far removed from our own, and whose manner of interacting would appear every bit as strange as if we were transplanted into a village in the depths of Africa or the top of the Himalayas. More than that-we can use the strength of that unified vision to act creatively to transform the world.ĭifferences among us certainly abound! In fact, we read that Paul’s churches were mixed even within each particular congregation. Because of that identity, we can look at our fellow Christians and see commonalities, rather than simply differences. We are grounded ultimately in our relationship to the living Lord Jesus Christ. “One body and one Spirit” are the hallmarks of the Christian faith, of our calling to join and belong to not only our church communities, but also across time to our sense of belonging to something that is bigger than any one time, place, or denominational identification. Paul envisions, not only the congregation at Ephesus, but all future bodies who assemble in the name of Christ, as having an essential unity. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. (Ephesians 4: 4-7)Īs I read over the fourth chapter of Ephesians, the words there struck me as the best possible hope for the new year, which is why I’m using the text for this month’s newsletter. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
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