Spirit of Unity and Diversity

Ephesians 4:1-16 1 Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you 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. 7 God has given his grace to each one of us measured out by the gift that is given by Christ. 8 That’s why scripture says, “When he climbed up to the heights, he captured prisoners, and he gave gifts to people.”

9 What does the phrase “he climbed up” mean if it doesn’t means that he had first gone down into the lower regions, the earth? 10 The one who went down is the same one who climbed up above all the heavens so that he might fill everything. 11 He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. 12 His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ 13 until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults – to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.

It’s very easy to talk about what Unity and Diversity mean, but much, much more difficult to live into it on a daily basis.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.

The danger for me is in associating, and working with like-minded Christians; the danger in surrounding myself with only those who think like me is that I close myself off from the gifts that the Spirit has given my more conservative sisters and brothers. I have chosen to place myself in a situation where it is very easy to discount those who don’t believe as I do or who don’t read and interpret scripture in the same way that I do, or who live out their faith differently than I do.

A silo, in this context, refers to a closed completely self-contained ecosystem, where those within the system do not interact with anyone or anything outside of the system.

God has a funny way of putting people and situations in my life that constantly challenge the notion that I’m the only one who has it right. The more I dig in and say, “nope, they’re wrong”, the more opportunity God gives me to rethink my assumptions.

I was being asked to sit with people who didn’t want anything to do with me and I was certain I didn’t want anything to do with them.

Breaking out of my silo…has led me into friendships with people who I would have never known otherwise and has provided me with the opportunity to see our shared faith in an entirely different light.

Instead of the head of the Fellowship of Presbyterians, a group whose interpretation of some parts of the gospel are diametrically opposed to my own, it’s also my friend Paul, who is a husband, a father, and a fellow organist. Instead of that person who, in the view of some, contributed to the latest schism within the denomination, it’s also my friend Jerry, who is a pastor, a devoted family man and a leader in the anti-human trafficking movement.

In spite of our profound differences, this small band of faithful Presbyterians continue to search for common ground. We are continuing to look for places where we are in agreement, where we can join together in building up the Kingdom. We don’t paper over our differences, and we don’t minimize what separates us. I believe we can’t build bridges to the other side without knowing what’s over there.

We are called to be: Humble, Gentle and Patient.   We are called to be: One Body. we are called to serve and build up the body of Christ