From a longer article about unity in the church from our denominational magazine
As I have wrestled with Jesus’s prayer, I have become increasingly convinced that I’ve been thinking about this all wrong.
This oneness Christ desires for us is not something we create or try to make happen. This oneness is a gift, a reality we receive from God. It’s a fact. We are one. Paul reminds us of this: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27, NIV).
A wise friend taught me years ago to notice that this is not an aspirational statement. It doesn’t say, “You should try really hard to be one body.” It doesn’t say, “If you all get your acts together and do what I’ve told you, you will be a body.” It doesn’t say, “If you love me, this is what you should be working toward.” It says, “You are the body of Christ.” One body. Christ’s body. (Italics mine.)
At adult class this morning I said something related, that sometimes we might be doing the right thing - in my case posting on a blog, perhaps - but doing it wrongly, without charity. I have said many times over the years that it may be that what we accomplish in this world matters little, but how we accomplish it, with love and service, may be everything.
I have said it so often that one might think I could begin to learn it.
Sometimes it can seem like the old story from the GDR:
ReplyDelete"Are the Russians our friends or our brothers?"
"Our bothers, of course; you choose your friends."
And it is true: if we try to align ourselves according to the latest ecumenical design, it will fall flat--and perhaps worse than merely flat.
ANTHONY. As for this trouble of a word, with me to show,
it may go well enough. The spirit matters
more than the letter. It were better to let slide
some jot or tittle, that has in its mere self
little significance than to split peace wide.
It is fit, if possible, not to antagonize souls
by the more-or-less, the give-and-take, of words:
better that quarrels should cease, and peace live.
THE FLAME. It is, we of heaven agree, a thing indifferent;
but any indifference may become sometimes a test.
Will God dispute over words? no; but man
must, if words mean anything, stand by words,
since stand he must; and on earth protest to death
against what at the same time is a jest in heaven.
Alas, you are not in heaven! the jests there
are tragedies on earth, since you lost your first poise
and crashed. Yet pray that his will be done on earth
as it is in heaven—tragedy or jest or both,
and so let it be. Do you know, Anthony, what I say?