Striving for Peaceful Unity: A Meditation on Ephesians 4 for the Season of Pentecost

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you

that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering,

forbearing one another in love;

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit

in the bond of peace.

There is one body, and one Spirit,

even as ye are called in 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 you all.

 

There’s a lot of distance between the unity St. Paul called for in his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus, and the way unity is popularly discussed today.  Politicians call for unity, as do theologians, bureaucrats, coaches, administrators, corporate executives, neighborhood gangs, international crime syndicates, intelligence agencies, financial institutions, professional associations, craftsman guilds, and likely a myriad of variations in between and beyond.  In much of the way worldly organizations speak of unity, it is a means to an end, or a stepping stone toward some other objective angling toward power, money, pride, or influence.  When a politician calls for unity, they often want consolidation of power to implement their policy against the will of their adversaries; businesses want growth and profit; team leaders want victory and prestige.  I’m not sure the average person, when they hear a leader call for unity, thinks of themselves as a manipulable pawn coalesced to solidify the leader’s ambitions for power, wealth, and influence, but sitting for a while in many political, economic, or theological strategy sessions will make it hard to miss the point.  Worldly calls to unity often come with ephemeral promises for the people who rally to the leader, but unity oriented as a means to power usually works out much better for the leader than it does for the followers.  The Pharaohs lived much better than the unified slave labor force who built their pyramids; kings lived better than their unified serfs who tended their land; most military leaders live far better than the troops in the trenches; Stalin and Mao lived far more sumptuously than their brutally unified populations; Popes and denominational leaders often live lavishly while their unified members struggle against rising secular and apostate forces which harass and wound their congregations and communities.  Unity as a means to a worldly end, rarely works out well for those people turned into a means for some other power-hungry leader’s goal.

 

This is worlds away from the unity St. Paul is talking about.  Rather than calling for unity as a way to pad his wallet, build his Apostolic prestige among the other Apostles, or become a sectarian leader who could bend all congregations to his political will, Paul started the chapter by noting his personal role as a prisoner—a captured slave—of Jesus Christ.  As a servant of Jesus’ Word and Spirit, Paul called the Christians at Ephesus to start with lowliness, meekness, and a longsuffering forbearance in love toward one another.  With that, he could enjoin them to strive toward keeping their unity in the Spirit, bonded together in a fellowship of peace—a hard work of focus and devotion which did not create unity as a means to an end, but sought to keep unity as a gift to be cherished.  Such unity was a reflection among them of the deeper reality that in fact there is only One Body of Christ which is His Church, only one Spirit who calls and sanctifies that Body, only one Lord who leads and saves that Body, only one saving faith in that one saving Lord, only one Baptism that He established for uniting all people through His new covenant of justification by grace through faith in Him alone, and only one Father who is above and within and among all His people.  This was not a unity born of man, but of God—a gift of unity and fellowship in Jesus which connects all those who put their trust in Him.  This unity does not bolster the pride, power, wealth, and prestige of any man, but makes everyone who will repent and believe the Gospel a joint heir of the Kingdom of God.  Such unity is not a means to another end, but an end in itself:  the establishment of a renewed human community made one with each other because they have been reconciled to God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  This reality rings through eternity to the glory and praise of God alone, so that as St. Paul would say, no man may boast, regardless of whatever individual gifts or callings or talents they might be given to live and serve in God’s Kingdom.  No matter our individual diversity within this blessed unity, to us all is grace, and to God is all the glory.

 

Like so many of the good gifts of God, they give us opportunity to recalibrate our thinking, and to examine ourselves in light of them.  Christian unity is not something we make, but something we are given, and that is very good news.  In our fallen condition, with our inclinations to pride and the whole host of sins which mark our fallen race, we should not be surprised that human attempts to build unity on promises of utopia tend toward dystopia, where sinful people use other sinful people to accomplish sinful ends and leave vast scenes of human wreckage everywhere in their wake.  We learn from God’s good gift of unity accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and given freely to all people by the power of His Gospel Word proclaimed, how far our human attempts at unity fall short of His everlasting righteousness.  Such a Law’s polished mirror should drive us to acknowledge and repent of our depravity, to turn from the paths of destruction and evil which can only lead to death and despair.  And like all of God’s Law, it is a faithful tutor to drive us to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

The gift of God’s unity in Jesus also empowers us by His Word and Spirit to keep what He has freely given us.  Not a work we do to save ourselves or to preserve our salvation, but the loving call of God’s redeeming grace which unites us to Jesus, continues to call us to live in that same faith which He gave us in the beginning.  What begins by grace through faith, continues by grace through faith and is found in Jesus alone, as Jesus alone has finished the work of our salvation from beginning to end.  The lowliness and meekness and longsuffering and forbearing love needed to strive for keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace are gifts given to the people of God through faith in Jesus, so that our work in keeping what He has given us is actually His work ongoing through us.  We do not build the Kingdom of God nor its unity by human efforts, but God continues to build His Kingdom among us by His Word and Spirit, through means of grace which pass through human mouths and hands.  The Kingdom is His, the Salvation His, the Glory all His, while to us is given freely the inestimable riches of His forgiveness and everlasting life.

 

If you are disheartened by the world’s disastrous forays into variations of unity, and the echoes of those sinful ambitions reverberating even through ecclesiastical halls, be of good cheer, for Christ has overcome this world by His own shed blood on Calvary.  What man has pursued and failed to achieve in his fallen powers, Jesus has accomplished by His omnipotent love.  What we have often failed to reflect in our own communities and congregations and even within our own hearts, Jesus continues to create and sustain in, with, and all around us.  What man cannot do, God has already done, establishing His everlasting Gospel in Jesus Christ and drawing all people unto Himself by grace through faith.  The Kingdom is come, the Word is proclaimed, the feast is prepared, and the banquet hall rings with the joyous acclimation of Jesus Christ as our Saving and Victorious King.  To you this day, and everywhere hearts long for unity with their God and neighbor, the endless chorus of the Living God with all His saints and angels and every redeemed soul of every time and place calls out across the expanses of heaven and earth to welcome you home, and into the unified, finished work of Jesus Christ.  Amen.