ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE
A man was answering questions for a national poll. When asked for his church preference, he responded, “Red brick.” Sometimes whenever we talk of church, it feels like it all comes down to what we prefer. We might ask someone what they look for in a church and hear a list such as worship music, Biblical teaching, or friendly people and good children’s programming. When I think of what we should look for or expect in a church, it is people who love Jesus and act like their life depends on Him.
The search for unity within God’s church continues, and while we have the word united in our name, we know that humans being who they are and how they are, for the most part being united is just part of our name. True unity comes from God, it’s not a human achievement. Still, we are meant to participate as if we are one, and we have to if we’re going to build up in love. That’s what this series is about, accomplishing God’s goals for us in the spirit of love.
What are we building, and how has the plans, and how do we help? We’re building the body of Christ, and no, it’s not done yet. Just calling ourselves the body of Christ does not mean we’re actually functioning that way, not properly anyway. It’s very disconcerting when the parts of your own physical body do not work together, or at all. Imagine how God views the average Christian church, often inactive to the point of inertia.
God is the builder of the body of Christ. His plans are well documented and if we accept and follow them the work is easier. This is not a do it yourself project. We’re tasked with becoming a unified, not uniform, earthly representation of Jesus our Savior. Our part is to do the groundwork necessary for God to do the finishing work.
Explore this groundwork with me again. I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience.Accept each other with love andmake an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together.
Paul offers no subjectivity here, no space for us to deem ourselves either worthy or called. We are made worthy through the hard-fought battle over sin, and we are called because we are victorious in Christ. God’s call is a lifelong call, a reminder of our adoption as children and heirs. Right away Paul makes it clear we don’t get a pass because we don’t want to accept this call.
The question is, will we live in a way to demonstrate our worthiness to others? Will we show by our words, our actions, our inactions that we are those who are called by God because of our relationship with His Son? We will by making our conduct focused on three particular traits; humility, gentleness, and patience.
We all have this nailed down in our lives, I know. There’s no room for improvement, which you can tell by the feelings of peace and harmony and joy responsible for the stories on the evening news. You know, when you read words like these in scripture they either make you feel good because you believe yourself to be pursuing these traits, or they make you feel irritated because you know plenty of other people who need to pursue them as well as you do.
In the case of the second reaction these words are just that – words, letters on a page taking up space. The verb at the beginning of the sentence indicates movement, action, effort, and if we aren’t making the effort or taking the action, we can call ourselves whatever we want, but the world won’t see anything different in us than the rest of the population.
The next sentence really brings things into perspective, asking us to accept one another in love, which happens to be the theme of this month’s sermons, acting in love. I struggle with the variances in Bible translations sometimes, and this verse was challenging because some use the word accept while others use bear with. I suppose we could also say put up with or tolerate.
Acceptance is not the same as tolerance, and I don’t think it’s the same as bearing with something or someone. Acceptance seems to say that we are comfortable with someone, even if we don’t agree on everything. Bearing with one another is not excusing bad behavior or being a party to letting someone get away with anything.
That kind of tolerance shows a true lack of courage. What’s worse, it’s unkind to the one whose behavior is ignored. When we just put up with someone and then go air our grievances elsewhere, we have broken that bond of peace Paul spoke of. We must forgive the faults of others as we would expect them to forgive ours, but we don’t bear something by staying away. That’s not bearing, that’s escaping.
God has not only given the church its fundamental unity but has also given the church a rich diversity of members. Each is a recipient of God’s grace as the Spirit calls, equips, and gives people to the church. The goal of unity is not a church where everything or everyone is the same as everyone else. If we aren’t encountering and learning to love people who differ from us, then something is wrong; this is not the healthy community that God desires.[1]
The binding between is described by Paul in the seven uses of the word one; one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Paul is not thinking of the different denominations we have today. He has in mind the cliques and parties that develop within all congregations, including this one. Wherever such divisions persist, the church is failing in its commission. On the other hand, whenever there is renewed fellowship, deepening respect, developing affection, there are the signs that God’s plan is working the way it’s supposed to.
It is the church and only the church, when it is working properly, that is “joined and knit together in love” across every barrier of race, age, class and experience. There is nothing else in human life – literally nothing – that levels distinctions and creates new relationships like the knowledge that one has been saved by grace.[2]
A favorite author wrote, “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So, one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”
We’ve heard so much about the potential changes to our structure, our Book of Discipline, for as long as I’ve been in the conference and long before then, changes over one issue, a very sensitive issue depending on which side of it you are on, one that’s hard to settle even when Scripture seems clear. The issues relating to human sexuality and the Christian faith are deeply personal, yet they affect us globally.
In February 2019 delegates will meet for a special conference to determine the future of this issue within the church. This is the one and only issue to be discussed, mainly because it has been contentious in the past and created impasse to other progress. However change comes in 2019, it’s clear that, as the song says, something’s gotta give.
I encourage you to attend an informational meeting with Bishop Ough this fall as he explains the three options being presented by the special committee to the delegates in February. While we as individuals don’t have much influence over the whole proceeding, we can support this important work with our prayers. We need to bring back the unity to the United Methodists.
God desires us to grow up in every way to become like Christ, who is the head of this body of which we are a part. When all the parts are working together, the body can build itself up in love. If the parts can’t even cooperate or communicate, the body can’t accomplish a thing. May Jesus bless each of the parts which make up the body of Christ, the conservative parts, the liberal and moderate parts; the urban and the rural parts, the elderly and the young parts, the fractured and the inward-looking parts.
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[2]Rutledge, Fleming, The Bible and the New York Times, pg. 186 and 189