unity in God...

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:14-16

on this day that we celebrate the life of martin luther king, jr., and all that he did to unify our country, it seems appropriate to speak of our unity in Christ. this is, indeed, a day that we recognize how far this country has come in terms of race relations. we have made progress and, hopefully, will continue to make progress in this area.

dr. king revealed the importance of unity - that no group of people should be treated as sub-human. he helped america see that we were all created in the image of God and that life should be valued in light of this truth.

but i fear that our country is more divided than ever over different issues. we say that we value unity but not at the sake of what we have deemed as necessary "progression" in society. we think that only when we achieve this progression will we be unified.

to this, i fear that we have pushed progress for the sake of progress and seek unity for the sake of unity. may i say that we are confused about what is truly progressive and unifying?

let me explain. someone once asked me if i would support peace and unity over purity in the church. this question is ridiculous to me, however, because peace and unity without purity are only distortions of peace and unity.

peace and unity only occur in Christ. if this is the case, these things cannot occur in a way that is inappropriate to Christ. you see, the only way to be progressive is to come together in ways that seek to support life, not destroy it (do you ever remember Jesus doing anything other than healing people?), in ways that seek to recognize that people are created in the image of God, not to support them to live in ways that are a distortion of this image (does Jesus not heal peoples' afflictions and then instruct them to "go and sin no more"?). as athanasius said, sin is a movement into non-being because it is a movement away from the way God created us to be. any movement for the sake of unity into non-being is no unity at all. do we really wish to be unified in our non-being? if so, that should be a piece of cake. this is not possible, however, because unity does not come at our terms. it comes by the terms of God in Jesus Christ.

we have been deceived by these discussions, however, because they have been masked with language of freedom and rights. friends, freedom to sin is no freedom at all in the end. as paul warns, let us use our freedom, not for selfish gain, but for Christ. in Him, we have been set free. using our freedom for sin only creates for ourselves a prison. in light of this, perhaps we should evaluate things we have deemed progressive. are they, in fact, really regressive... a moving away from God instead of a moving towards God? do we really want to support a freedom that only imprisons people?

further, let us not be confused about the difference between right and privilege. may we stop making demands about things we think we are entitled to. the world owes us nothing.

unity is extremely important. may we grow up together in Christ and discover that it can be used to give people true freedom to live by truth in love.

cheers,
jw <><