The Power of Real Unity
“Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (Phil 1:27).
Paul speaks often and passionately about the imperative for the Church to be united. He pleads to the believers in Ephesus “to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). He does the same to the community in Corinth: “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissension among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor 1:10). There are similar exhortations to the Church in Rome and Galatia. Paul is adamant, we might say, on the need for the Church to be one. Not uniform. One. United. In harmony with each other. Of one mind - the mind of Jesus.
Are we? Do we even believe it can happen?
Is it any wonder our parishes aren’t growing by leaps and bounds.
Last week we mentioned that it’s important to remember the simple military principle that the enemy gets a vote. How crucial it is to remember that in this life we are born into a battle - not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the devil and his minions (cf. Eph 6:12-3). Diabolos, the Greek word for devil, means the divider. His name reveals his character; it’s what he does. He does other things, to be sure, like lie, slander and accuse, but division is one of his principle tactics. And division not only keeps us from living in freedom and abundant life but from effectively witnessing to the world of the power of the gospel, thus attractively drawing those around us to the only One who can save from the powers of Sin and Death.
It’s striking to me that we are commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr Day and the March for Life in Washington, D.C., within the broader context of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. MLK Day is a plea for us to overcome the racial divide, injustice, hostility and more that have haunted and still haunt our nation. And the March for Life is a cry for us as a land to recognize the most vulnerable members of our race. “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” These famous, and yet to be fully lived out words, came from a biblical vision of reality. This week, perhaps, it’s worth reflecting on the role the Church plays - or can play - in accelerating them.
St. Paul knew this. That’s why he wrote so often to the early Christian communities about unity. It wasn’t only so that they would live more peaceful lives. It was so that they would be attractive witnesses and real life examples to their neighbors of what onl the Holy Spirit can do.
In Paul and the Faithfulness of God, N.T. Wright comments on this with words that might serve as a kind of “parish examination of conscience” during this week where we are praying for so many things related to unity and peace and healing. “The communities which came into being through the gospel,” Wright says, “were to embody that new world in the ways which our disjointed categories have separated out...These communities were indeed, despite their powerlessness or actually because of it, on the way to becoming a new kind of polis, a social and cultural community cutting across normal boundaries and barriers, obedient to a different Kyrios, modeling a new way of being human and a new kind of power… [Paul] saw the church as a microcosmos, a little world, not simply as an alternative to the present one, an escapist’s country cottage for those tired of city life, but as the prototype of what was to come. That is why, of course, unity and holiness mattered. And, because this microcosmos was there in the world it was designed to function like a beacon: a light in a dark place, as Jesus had said…A place of reconciliation between God and the world; a place where humans might be reconciled to one another; a microcosmos in which the world is contained in a nutshell as a sign of what God intends to do for the whole creation.”
In other words, people should walk into our parishes on any given day, but especially on Sunday, and be able to see that these people get it! Here’s real unity, real love, real affection for one another, real fraternity, real carrying of one another’s burdens.
This really happened in the early Church! And this unity served as a magnet to non-believers and drew them into fellowship. Men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor - whatever the traditional boundary or barrier - they were all overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of the believers. It’s still happening today in various places across the world.
Let us pray it will happen in our parishes.