Torn For Unity

Ephesians 4: 1-6    Genesis 15: 7—21

 

 

          Ephesians is one of that group we refer to as the prison letters because it was written by Paul while in prison in Rome. In it he presents or re-introduces several themes, from election to grace by faith to redemption to reconciliation, to name a few. Today’s passage concentrates on reconciliation of all people to a new creation in one body, the church. Paul talks to his beloved church plant in Ephesus about unity. He tells them to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit. Notice that Paul asks them to maintain the unity of the Spirit. He doesn’t ask them to create unity because it is already there. He wants them to preserve what has already been established by God through the Holy Spirit.

          Paul talks a lot about ones. One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. That’s a lot of ones. What Paul is trying for is to get these members of the new Christian community to enter into relationships with one another. And he wants them to do it in a certain way. He wants them to be humble. He wants them to be gentle. He wants them to be patient. He even wants them to bear with one another in love. These are the building blocks of unity in the church. While the word is never used, the concept of a Trinitarian God is clear: one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father. As there is unity in the Godhead of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, so does Paul exhort the church to experience and maintain that unity in itself.  

          So Paul is lifting up the themes of redemption and restoration through God’s grace and the saving act of Christ. These themes are not new. There are echoes of them from the beginning. The story of God is a story of mission…God’s mission to create, redeem and restore his people and all his creation, and that story is told across the pages and books of the Bible.

          Look, for example, at an old story from Genesis. In the fifteenth chapter, we read of a story that at first seems strange to us.

God is giving Abram, the nomad, the promise of land. Abram wants to believe but is having trouble buying in. He asks God how he can know as truth what God speaks. God says to Abram: Go get me these three animals and birds. Abram does as he is told and then cut them in half, except for the birds. He set the halves opposite one another so as to create a path. It is late in the day and Abram falls asleep. God shows him his future in his sleep, as well as the future of his people. Then, and here is the strange part, the presence of God passes between the pieces in the form of a smoking firepot with a blazing torch. Because of the promise made and the passing of God’s presence through these cut pieces of animals, this became known as “cutting a covenant.”

          So what is the significance of this strange ritual? God is saying to Abram that if he (God) ever goes back on his promise, then may what happened to those animals also happen to God. Bible scholars call this a self-maledictory oath. In plain English, it is a promise to bring bad things on oneself if he breaks his word or covenant. God makes promises to Abram that will affect all God’s people, and God says: I will keep my word or tear myself to pieces. He wants to unify Abram with him in a lasting covenant. This is the word given by God the Father.

          Two thousand years later, God the Son hung on a cross. He looked up to the heavens and cried out: “My God! My God! Why have we been ripped asunder?” Think about that. We were the ones that failed. God never broke covenant with us. It was, and still is, the other way around. But God loved us too much to accept the outcome which had been covenanted. So the love and unity that exist among Father, Son and Holy Spirit were broken. God did that for us. He loved us enough to break the peace of his own union as the Trinity rather than make us pay a debt we could not pay. Father, Son and Holy Spirit were torn asunder so that we might be united with them.         

          When Paul writes to the churches in Ephesus, this is the unity he is talking about. God in the Trinity has bought us with a price. We are redeemed because not only did he keep his part of that old covenant cut between him and Abraham; he kept our part of it too. Then he birthed us anew as his bride. We are the church, the gathering of God’s people. We are celebrated as individuals and wedded to one body. We belong to one family and that family is built by God himself.

          The unity of which Paul speaks is a unity not just between you and God or me and God, though that is certainly of great value. It is much more than that.  God keeps covenant with his people. God stays on his mission. God even tore himself apart to unify his church. God acted from love to give us the opportunity for restoration. It is God’s grace that does the heavy lifting. We just have to believe, and a significant part of the way we act out that belief is in community. As Tim Lane puts it, “Paul constantly applies the message of grace to individuals, but individuals who are in fellowship with one another.”

          For Jesus, church is as big as it gets down here. Jesus called it his bride. He died for it. He was torn from God for it. He ordained his disciples to go out and build his church. He trusted them with the whole future of the church and they came through for him. Though they were separated as they went about doing kingdom work, they were united in the idea of ecclesia, the gathering of the people of God. And they committed their lives to that effort. They knew what Paul teaches here. You can come to God alone, but you can’t do God alone. God was meant to be done in community. The Church, the bride of Christ needs you and you need it. And when you act in love to your fellow members, the body does not hurt; it thrives.

          He was torn for our unity. Let us honor that by being unified in this great priesthood of believers. We have kingdom work to do. Let’s do it together!