I’m about to take you back to my high
school days: 2 bits, 4 bits,
6 bits a dollar all for the Wildcats, stand up and holler! I participated in that cheer every fall
Friday afternoon during each of my 4 years of high school. In the gym, with a large picture of the
Angleton High School wildcat mascot prominently displayed above the door and
spirit signs decorating all the walls, we held a pep rally for the football
game that night. At “stand up and
holler” everyone would stand and yell at the top of their lungs. Unity—we showed our unity with voice
and body—with sound and movement!
My
Papa told me about another example of unity. Showing me his garden—Ken, it was about as big as yours,
though he did not grow as many tomatoes as you—showing me his garden, my Papa
would tell me how he 1st started gardening during World War II. Just about everyone in Angleton had a
victory garden, he said.
You fed yourself and your family as best
you could from your garden, then more of the produce from large farms could
feed the men and women serving our country in the war. Back then, my Papa said,
he picked up many a hitchhiker on the road. People walked and thumbed rides because there was the
limited gasoline, and they wanted most of it to be used for the war
effort. 4 F’d by the draft board
supervisor, my Papa was told, Roy, we need you here—driving your dump truck,
collecting metal, rubber, and glass for the war. During World War II, Americans showed their unity in the
sacrificial changes they made to their lifestyles.
Unity—that’s
what today’s scripture is about.
Here, Paul talks about unity for the purpose of building up the church—not
this building of bricks and mortar.
The 1st century Christians like those in Ephesus worshiped in
each others’ homes. They had no
concept of a building specifically for worship. Paul talks about unity for the purpose of building up the
church, the community of faith, unity for the purpose of equipping the church
to be Christ’s hands and feet, unity in which both voice and action play
important roles.
Today’s
scripture starts with love, ends with love and has unity in the middle. Accept each other with love, 3 and
make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you
together . . . Speaking the truth in with love, let’s grow in every way into
Christ.[1]
For many years I equated preserving unity with “keeping the peace.” That meant “don’t rock the boat.” Every time we visited west Texas, there
would be at least one big Jones family get-together—with Kevin’s Mamaw and
Granddad, his parents and brothers and their families, his Uncle Bill and Aunt
Shirley and their children and their families—lots of people, lots of eating,
lots of talking, lots of laughing.
But sometime during the visit, Uncle Bill would start talking
politics.
A strong supporter of one of our country’s
2 main political parties, he would espouse the party line and offer the party
examples of what’s wrong and how to fix it. Now, it so happens that I identified with the other
political party, and I disagreed with much of what he said. But, in the spirit of keeping the
peace, of preserving unity, I said nothing. I smiled or nodded and ultimately found a way to excuse
myself from the conversation and the room.
While that may have been appropriate for
that particular situation and the few short years Mamaw and Granddad and Uncle
Bill were living after I married into the Jones family, the problem is—I
practiced “keeping the peace, not rocking the boat” in most of my other interactions
in all aspects of my life—even in Bible studies and Sunday School classes.
I
really needed to be focusing on Paul’s words at the end of today’s text:
speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every
way into Christ.[2] Years later, when I finally realized I
could no longer be quiet and be faithful to Christ, it was difficult to break
my habit of silence. I had to
speak the truth in love—even when it opposed what had already been said, what
was hanging out there in the conversation. How uncomfortable but necessary it was for me, to speak up
in the neighborhood women’s Bible study.
This study was led by and mostly attended by women whose denominational
backgrounds were different from mine.
Their denominations offered a more conservative interpretation of the
Bible. It was uncomfortable but
necessary for me to finally give voice to my convictions and beliefs. Responding to statements written by the
author of the study and affirmed by the leader, I heard myself saying “that’s
not how I understand . . . salvation. I don’t
believe it’s a matter of our doing anything to earn God’s love. I believe it’s a gift, a freely given
gift, a gift we sometimes close our eyes to, a gift we sometimes refuse to
accept, but it’s a gift. I believe
it’s a gift offered to every single person, and here is the Biblical witness on
which I base my beliefs.” You’ll
notice I did not just say, “Here is what I believe.” But I also included the
scriptures guiding me to those beliefs.
Using scripture as a basis for conviction in a Bible study is
appropriate.
Today’s
scripture starts with love, ends with love and has unity in the middle.
Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness,
and patience. Accept each other with love. [3]
I used to understand
humility, gentleness, and patience to be quiet, passive traits. But that’s not
what Paul is talking about here. The New Revised Standard Version might help shed
some light: “Bearing with one another in
love.”[4] Paul is calling his readers not to feel warmly towards each other but to
help carry each other’s burdens, to do
love.[5]
This kind of active love is the glue[6]
that holds the community of faith together. This kind of love “knits the body together”[7]
like the ligaments that connect bone to bone—the ligaments that enable our
bodies to move, to be active. This
kind of love knits the community of faith—often called the body of Christ—together
enabling the church to do God’s work.
Today’s scripture starts with love, ends
with love, and has unity in the middle.
Pointing out what his readers share in common, Paul describes the unity
that binds them—that binds us—together. 4 You are
one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all,
through all, and in all.[8] Although
we are many individuals, we come together as the church (one body) in this
place and time. We, the church,
are empowered by the one Holy Spirit.
Our unity is based in the one calling we all share—the call to be
disciples of Christ—to live our lives through the model Christ provides. Our unity is based in the one hope we
all respond to—that God’s love offers us abundant, new life. Our unity is based on the one faith we
share—faith that Christ’s grace extends to and covers us, even us. We look to the same one God—in family
language our loving parent—in whose guidance we trust.
Today’s
scripture starts with love, ends with love, and has unity in the middle. The purpose of our unity is to build up
the church. Here is what our Presbyterian constitution says about the church:
The church is the body of Christ. The church is to be a community of
faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life. The
church is to be a community of hope—rejoicing in the sure and certain knowledge
that in Christ, God is making a new creation. What does that mean?
God is making each of us a new creation
by transforming our lives. God is making the world a new creation
by transforming the structures within which we live and work. God is making a new creation to
ultimately align with God’s good purposes. The church is to be a community
of love where sin is forgiven, reconciliation is accomplished, and the dividing
walls of hostility are torn down.
The church is to be a community of
witness, pointing beyond itself through word and work to the good news of God’s
transforming grace in Christ Jesus its Lord.[9]
Today’s
scripture starts with love—God’s love supporting our works of love. Today’s scripture ends with love—God’s
love empowering us to grow into Christ’s image. And today’s scripture has unity in the middle—unity for the
purpose of equipping us to serve God.
Together we many threads are knit by God’s loving hands into one
tapestry. Today’s scripture is
about unity—our response to God’s love through our voice and our actions. Today’s scripture is the cheer of love
that supports that unity.
Rather
than a 2 bits, 4 bits yell, we can say the Apostles’ Creed together as our
cheer of unity.This is a
confession first used to teach those converting to Christianity in the 1st
century AD. It continues to be
used in worship services in many different Christian denominations today. The Apostles’ Creed is an affirmation
of what the “catholic” with a little c church—the church universal—believes. The phrase “communion of saints” refers
to the inter-connectedness of Christians—from the past, in the present, and
into the future. So, “saints” does
not mean perfect people. None of
us is perfect.
As
a sign of our unity in Christ, let us stand—offering movement—and say—giving
voice to—what we, the one body of Christ, believe.
I
believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth,
And
in Jesus Christ God’s only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he
descended to the dead. On the
third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is
seated at the right hand of the Father; and he will come to
judge the living and the dead.
I
believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen. [10]
[1] Ephesians 4: 3, 16 (Common
English Bible)
[2] Ephesians 4: 15 (Common English Bible)
[3] Ephesians 4: 2 (Common
English Bible)
[4] Ephesians 4: 2 (NRSV)
[5] G. Porter Taylor, “Ephesians 4: 1 – 16 Theological
Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word,
Year B, vol. 3. Edited by
David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p.
306.
[6] Taylor, 306.
[7] Taylor, 306.
[8] Ephesians 4: 4 – 6 (Common
English Bible)
[9] The Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church, (U.S.A.) Part II:
The Book of Order 2011 – 2013 Louisville:
Office of the General Assembly, 2011. F-1.0301.
The italicized parts are my
paraphrase.
[10] “Apostles’ Creed, (Ecumenical
Version)” from The Presbyterian
Hymnal: Hymns, Songs, and
Spiritual Songs.
Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1990, p. 14.
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