The
Priority of Unity: It Is the Mystery of God’s Will
Ephesians 1:9-10 (RSV) (God)
has made known to
us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose
which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all
things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
When your kids were growing up,
my guess is that the most frequent question they asked was, “Why?” Well, I never outgrew that. I’m
the kid that took his parents’ alarm clock apart to see how it worked. (But I
was going to put it back together…)
I was a curious kid. I remember
a Sunday School teacher responding in exasperation to a barrage of my
questions, “Jimmy, there are just some things we’re not supposed to know.” And
when I responded, “Then why did God give us a brain?” she slapped me—right
across the chops. She told my father I’d been disrespectful and, back home he
got right to the seat of the problem! Well, the questions didn’t go away, but I
stopped asking them to her.
I still don’t believe her
comment: “There are some things we’re just not supposed to know.” Really? Then
why DID God give us a brain?
The text above lets us in on ‘the
mystery (a better translation is “secret”) of God’s will!” Privileged with that
information, what else do we need to know? The only information withheld—which
also was withheld from Jesus, himself—is the day and hour of his return.
So, what is this secret? The
RSV says it is “to unite”; the KJV says, “…to gather together in one…” And the
text modifies the idea with the words, “…all things in heaven and on
earth under Christ”. All the
vital forces of the universe are brought
into focus in Christ. And when “all things in heaven and on earth” are
brought into their true relationship with Christ, they also are brought into
their true relationship with each other—into an all-embracing, universal
harmony. One way to know if we are in true relationship with Christ is to
examine our relationship with each other!
Nothing is more important to God than the unity of all God’s
creation. It is the mystery—the secret—of God’s will. Consider:
·
1 Corinthians 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you
and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
·
Ephesians 4:11-13 It was (Christ) who gave some to be
apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors
and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the
body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and
in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole
measure of the fullness of Christ.
·
Colossians 3:13-14 Bear with each other and forgive
whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord
forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds
them all together in perfect unity.
·
Psalm 133:1 How good and pleasant it is when
brothers live together in unity!
·
Romans 12:16 Live in harmony with one another.
·
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave
nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And
in the garden Jesus prayed this for his disciples:
·
John 17:20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray
also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father,
just as you are in me and I am in you.”
I could go on and on with verse
after verse of Scripture. Nothing is more important to God. Unity is the
mystery—the secret—of God’s will.
But a clarification is
necessary. Unity is not uniformity—it’s not “same-ness.” It was never intended
to be. We’re not called to be alike. Each of us unique with our own unique set
of spiritual gifts.
Nor is unity found in agreement
of opinion, philosophy or ideology. It’s not demonstrably possible to
experience agreement at those levels. Democrats and Republicans will never
agree totally—on anything. Nor will Baptists and Presbyterians and
Episcopalians and Disciples and Methodists and Catholics and entrepreneurial
independents…
God created free choice! I
can’t believe God expected or even desired that humans agree on everything
(although God intended humans to disagree with integrity, respect and love, and
in the process to discover new truth in each other’s’ perspectives).
God created us differently so
we could mutually enrich each other. A choir singing in unison produces
beautiful sounds; but a choir doesn’t reach its greatest potential until it
produces wonderful, rich harmony—beautiful precisely because the sopranos,
altos, tenors and basses all are singing different
notes at the same time!
In Paul’s body metaphors of
Ephesians and Romans it becomes clear that the church lives up to its full
potential precisely because each of us is different!
So, having establishing the
theme of the epistle, the writer of Ephesians moves through the metaphor of the
Body to this literary masterpiece, summarizing the unity that is the
mystery—the secret—of God’s will: “…speaking
the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of
him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every
supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Ephesians 4:15-16 (NIV)
And so, the cat’s out of the bag! It’s no longer a secret!
And that’s how I see it through the flawed glass that is my
world view.
Together in
the Walk,
Jim
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