Unity in the Body of Christ – Ephesians 4:1-16

Unity in the body of Christ is something that has been the vision and hope of many people over the last two thousand plus years. Various attempts have been made during that time to heal divisions within the body and bring about reconciliation. What will finally bring about unity in the body of Christ is still something that is unknown as anything we have tried has seemed to have not enabled it to happen. But one thing is clear: the issue is ours, not God’s.

In the first century after the death and resurrection of Christ, the community of believers were attempting to stay within the fold of the synagogue and not have this new revelation from God divide them from those who had chosen not to accept.  The tension between the two groups eventually would lead to their separation and the establishment of communities of faith that saw themselves as inheritors of the ancient faith but infused with the new revelation from God that took that faith to a new level.

To the apostle Paul, it was clear that this new revelation from God was something that was intended to be preached not just to the Jewish people but to the whole world. His missions took him to uncharted territories where he spoke of a God unknown to the wider world.  Their acceptance of the message, their baptism and their reception of the Holy Spirit made it clear to Paul that this was the vision of God. People everywhere were to be encouraged to become followers of God in Christ.

When we read through the book of Acts, we begin to see the tensions between the apostles who tried to stay within the old tradition and Paul who believed that the faith needed to be spread to the wider world.  Of course, the second problem came when Paul was preaching not to Jews who lived outside of Palestine, but to people who had never been part of the people of God.  He was inviting pagans – people whose lives were lived according to a belief in a pantheon of gods.  Peter was one of the apostles who was connected to the group in Jerusalem but he came to understand that the message needed to go out into the world.

But even in these new communities of faith being established by Paul, there were divisions beginning to be revealed.   One of Paul’s greatest concerns was people being led away from the true heart of the gospel by focusing on one or the other of the missionaries who had visited them.   Paul cautioned them against falling into the trap of dividing their community based on their attraction to different preachers or leaders.  But it seems that we humans find great difficulty in agreeing as to how we will be the people of God in our worship, interpretation of Scripture and the governance of our communities of faith.  I wonder what Paul would make of all the divisions within the Christian community today.

It is interesting that when people ask if I am a Christian, their next question is Protestant or Catholic and then what denomination of Protestant.  I am not identified as a follower of God in Christ but as a member of a particular denomination.  And to tell the truth, when I was young I was not told that I was a Christian as much as I was told that I was a Presbyterian.  The story goes that the family had been Presbyterian from the time of John Knox and not just Presbyterian but ultra conservative Presbyterian.  I was reminded of the proud independence of the Presbyterians who chose not to become part of what would come to be known as the United Church of Canada.  We were the remnant that had stayed true to the faith and not abandoned our principles to achieve a union.

But when I studied for the ministry, I found myself in an ecumenical programme where I was taught by Christians from different branches of the church and had classmates who were preparing for ministry in different denominations.  We came to see each other not as rivals for the truth but as companions in faith who would go on to serve different communities of faith but coming from a common background.  That grounding has given me the privilege of appreciating the different communities of faith and respecting the choices that others have made to serve God in different ways.

Over the centuries Christian communities have sought to impose their interpretation of the Gospel on those who chose to see things differently. It has led to campaigns designed to eradicate one group or another.  It has caused people to act in very unchristian ways towards one another. It has often been the defence given that the people leading these campaigns were protecting the true Gospel, they were eradicating those whose false interpretations – they believed - were a source of harm to the lives of those who had departed from what had been accepted as the true gospel and community of faith.

For Paul the Christian life is a calling – a calling that requires of each believer a decision to live a life worthy of that calling.   We may have grown up in the church – in a faith community – and we may identify ourselves by the denomination of that community, but for Paul the determining factor should be our acceptance of the call of God in Christ on our life and a commitment to live a life worthy of that calling. We will not be perfect in this life but it is the responsibility of every person who has been called to faith in God in Christ to seek to live with humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, and making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Obviously the people of Paul’s time struggled with his vision of one body and one Spirit. It is clear that there were those who had different interpretations of the Gospel and were proposing doctrines that Paul believed were divisive to the body of Christ and harmful.  But he never proposed that people kill or intimidate one another. They were to speak the truth of the Gospel in love.  They were to not be swayed by those who would twist the message to what was most pleasing to their ears.  They were to seek for the gifts of God’s Spirit by which the body of Christ could be built in a unity of faith and a mature knowledge of what Christ had shared. To grow up in our faith is to be the goal of our calling.  To grow up as part of the body of Christ, but to always grow up in love.

Will Christians ever come together as Paul envisioned? Is this what God is waiting for to happen before the Second Coming? These are questions to which I do not have the answers.   But this I know: it is for each one of us to understand that first and foremost we have been called to be Christians – to be followers of God in Christ and to seek to live a life worthy of that calling.

May God grant us the strength and the wisdom to live this life that we may mature in our faith and so reveal that we are part of the body of whom Christ is the head.

AMEN