Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16, John 17:20-24 United
in Christ
You can always tell it’s an
election year by the bumper stickers you see on cars.
Now I’ve got political
opinions - we all do - but I’m not about to put them
on a bumper sticker on my car for them to be
misunderstood.
The bumper sticker I do have
on my car is a Disciples chalice, as most of you probably have noticed.
But not so long ago, I
realized that even that could be misunderstood.
I was at the grocery store,
and there was a clerk who was helping me take my groceries out to the car.
As we were unloading the car,
she noticed my bumper sticker. “I like
your bumper sticker,” she said.
“Really?” I answered,
kind of surprised, thinking she must be a Disciple,
or at least know of a Disciple. “It’s my church,” I added.
“OH!!” Big oh. And then another one.
“OH!” “I thought it meant don’t
drink and drive!”
Another oh! this time from me.
“Oh. I see. No, you see,” I said, pointing to the bumper
sticker, “It’s a chalice with a cross on it.”
It’s kind of a funny story
but you can hardly blame this poor woman.
I have a book - our library
has it too -
called Handbook of Denominations in the
It describes more than 200
different denominations in this mosaic
that we call American religion.
We get so used to the variety
that we hardly notice the confusion.
Arlene, one of our regular attenders here, grew up in
She’s lived here for several
decades, but she says the sheer number of choices and figuring out the
differences
between them can be overwhelming.
This diversity is part of our
American history. With our emphasis on
liberty and freedom - including freedom of religion - anyone who could gather followers
could start a new denomination.
This is still going on,
although founders often create what become mega churches instead of new
denominations.
Our denomination, the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
was founded in this era of liberty in the early 1800s.
Barton Stone, Walter Scott, and Alexander and Thomas Campbell were all drawn to
the idea of freedom, particularly when it came to interpreting the Bible.
But this Christian movement
was also driven by a desire for unity.
Thomas Campbell called unity
“the polar star of the Christian faith”
and wanted to reduce the divisive denominationalism that
existed.
He condemned what he called
the “heinous nature of religious controversy among Christians”
and offered his belief that this “uncharitable division”
was avoidable
by accepting the principle that “the
But to this day, unity, or
ecumenism, which is another word for unity, is one of our Disciple principles.
The proposed 21 century
vision statement of the Disciples focuses on unity:
“We are Disciples of Christ,
a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.
As part of the one body of
Christ, we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.”
Of course, others are working
to end divisive division in the church, too.
Coincidentally, coming up
this week is an event in
This is what Jimmy Carter,
who has helped organize this meeting, says about the event:
“I’ve seen the devastating
and adverse effects there are in the Christian world because so many of us are
in public disagreement with other groups on different matters. And this was
part of the early Christian church problems that Paul and Peter had to address,
and it still persists now. But I think it is the most devastating, adverse
element that prevents the effectiveness of the mission of the current church.”
(AJC, p. E-1-E-6)
This type of cooperation has
always been valued by Disciples.
There are numerous ecumenical
organizations around the globe - the World Council of Churches, National
Council of Churches, Christian Churches Together, and more.
Disciples are always
represented in these organizations and even provide leadership
in these efforts to achieve unity among Christians.
Today’s reading from the letter to the Ephesians lifts up unity
as one of the most important identity marks of the
church.
The image used is of a body -
an image that was also developed
in the first letter of Corinthians. What the writer is encouraging us to understand
is that each of us is given a gift. Gifts of teaching, and
guiding and encouraging. Gifts of leadership and wisdom and proclaiming.
Each of us is to strive for
humility and gentleness and patience,
and to bear with one another in love. But the gifts and the efforts are all to be
aimed towards one goal:
to build up the Body of Christ. Sounds good. Should be no problem.
But this is more
countercultural than we might want to admit.
We live in a culture where we
pride ourselves on our independence.
In the workplace, working
together may be given lip service,
but climbing to the top (even if it means stomping on
someone to get there)
is what gets you a raise. In our day to day lives, commitment is
optional.
People think nothing of skipping
out on a social event,
a church activity if something better comes along. The corollary to this is that people don’t
give you a yes or no anymore when it comes to invitations. To RSVP (does anyone even dare ask for that
anymore)
is just too big of a commitment to make.
So standing apart and against
these cultural messages is the message of Christianity which is telling us that
we will always be more together as a body than we can
ever be on our own. And that each part of the body must commit to it in order
for that body to grow. A mature Body of
Christ is not just about our own individual spiritual lives and growth. Any one of us can do that.
Spiritual maturity requires a group of individuals to
learn to work together as a body.
Spirituality is NEVER JUST ABOUT ME.
To work together as a body
means we sometimes put that ahead of ourselves.
A half dozen youth met in the
parking lot 2 weeks ago
before leaving town for the youth retreat at St.
Simons.
We met so I could send them
off with a prayer.
But I also talked to them
about what I always tell youth groups
before they leave together on a trip: Because you are part of a church - the body
of Christ -
you may have to sacrifice a personal desire for the good
of the group.
This is not just advice for a
group of youth. This is advice for any church that wants to be more than an organization, that wants instead to be a living, dynamic,
growing organism - the Body of Christ.
In the gospel reading for
today, we just heard a snippet of a prayer.
But it is a powerful prayer
prayed by Jesus for his disciples, “so that all may be one.” Jesus’ longing for unity among his followers
continues to be a challenge for us today.
Despite any of our differences, no matter who we are, we are one in
Christ Jesus. United
in Christ.
When Christians are divided by differences we are
weakened in our witness.
People inside the church know
this - that’s why we have these ecumenical gatherings and organizations.
But people outside the church
see this weakness too. And it is not
helping our cause.
There was 3 year study done
recently by a church research group.It was a survey
of 16-29 year olds that shows that this group is more resistant to Christianity
than were young people of the same age
just a decade ago.
And it’s no wonder. Many of these young people have had
experiences with the church
that are far from positive. Their negative perceptions include the
following:
87 percent have experience
present day Christianity as judgmental; 85 percent as hypocritical, and 75
percent as too involved with politics. Only
55 percent of the young people said Christianity was a faith they
respected.
Now don’t get me wrong.
Christianity isn’t supposed to be winning a popularity contest.
BUT, what some of this
research seems to point to is that our
church family quarrels - between denominations, between churches, sometimes
even within a church - have weakened the body and its ability to tell the good
news to young people. We’ve got some work to do.
According to Ephesians, to be
effective as the church, “to lead a life worthy of the calling to which we have
been called,” we must be “grown up into Christ who is the head of the body.”
We must be spiritual grown-ups.
If you take a closer look at
v. 15, there is specific instruction about how we’re to do this.
“But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him
who is the head, into Christ.”
Sometimes we grab a hold of
that verse – “speaking the truth in love” -
and think this gives us permission to give someone a
piece of our mind.
And THEN what happens is we
don’t speak truth or love.
There is something more we
need to understand about this verse.
There are some nuances with
the Greek words here. The sense of this
“speaking the truth” has more to do with a relationship -being genuine, being
real and vulnerable with each other.
It has nothing to do with
thinking we are right –and then trying to convince everybody that we are.
For if we are to be the church Jesus left us to be, we
must decide it is more important to be in relationship than to be right. That’s
a tough assignment in today’s fragmented world,
where we are so quick to make judgments about
who is right and who is wrong.
I am not saying that we have
to all be the same in order to be the church.
Neither was the writer of the
letter to Ephesians. I’m talking about
unity here, not uniformity.
It takes the gifts of all of
us to be the church. We are not all
gifted in the same way.
Some of us can teach, some of us can count the offering.
Some of us can serve
communion, some of us can pray.
Some of us can invite people
to church.
Some of us can work at the
Norcross Coop.
Some of us can fix computers.
Some of us can lead in worship.
Some of us can mow
lawns. Some of us can cook. Some of us
can wash dishes.
Some of us can give
children’s messages. Some of us can pray
with a friend.
Some of us can listen. Some of us can bring in food for NCM.
But all of us are to use our
gifts to build up the body of Christ.
The spirit of God glues all of us together in such a
way that we are a
far, far greater witness TOGETHER than any
of us can be by ourselves.
Let me share with you an
image of working together that has been helpful for me.
It’s the space shuttle - an
American marvel of a technological dream.
(use handout)
So why am I telling you all
of this?
According to a very reliable
source, an engineer I know,
in certain key locations, the loss of a single tile can
have catastrophic results.
It’s been nearly five years
now since we experienced just that
with the space shuttle
On
killing all 7 crew members aboard.
A piece of foam insulation
about the size of a small briefcase -
weighing only a couple of pounds, had broken off and damaged
some of these key tiles.
Every single one of the tiles
on the space shuttle is needed to do the job.
It’s the same way with the
church.
Each one of us has a job to
do in the church.
But more than that, it takes all of us working
together to BE THE CHURCH.
We are much more together than we can ever be on our
own.
When we are one in Christ, we are the Body of Christ.
The world needs the strength of THAT witness.