Living in the Unity of the Spirit

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3) Jesus Christ rules over all.  To follow this Lord is to serve him wherever we are without fitting in, light in darkness, salt in a spoiling world (OWBTG 43).   I'm watching election results roll in from the US midterm elections as I write this on Tuesday evening.  Nothing is yet certain, except that there is much division in the air.  Perhaps it has always been so in ebbs and flows across history.  But this is the moment we live in, and what we do know for certain is that it's worse than it has been in a while.  So how are we as Christians to be salt and light in this present moment?  For Jesus to be Lord over all means that he is Lord over ALL.  There is no square inch that he does not claim as his own.  That includes every square inch of a divided church, of divided societies and countries—every square inch even in a divided world.  And if that is true, how can the Lord Jesus and his work on the cross not be powerful enough to reconcile his diverse and divided people within the church into one, single, family of God?  I continue to believe that the single most potent way for Christians to be different, to offer the flavourful and illuminating light of the Gospel to our present cultural moment is to make visible this unity of the Spirit in the bond of the peace that Christ has won for us through his cross.  Despite our disagreements even on the hottest and most contentious political, theological, and ethical issues—because of the cross of Christ: we remain one.  If the church, across all its differences, was able to broadcast that single message to our neighbours and the world around us—that despite all our deep and grievous, intractable differences, we remain humbly, gently, patiently, and lovingly united as siblings in Christ—well: that might just witness them right into this counter-cultural kingdom of God themselves. For, as Jesus prayed in John 17, it is when we are one as he and the Father are one that the world comes to know Jesus as the Son of God.  Isn't that a message that tastes good and shines bright? As you pray your prayers of intercession today, do remember to pray for the church to keep and visibly manifest that unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.