Walking in Unity

Ephesians 4:1-6

Glory to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In the late 1800s, a little Baptist church in Mayfield County, Kentucky, had two deacons who hated each other. One Sunday, one of those deacons nailed a small wooden peg to the back wall for the pastor to hang his hat. When the other deacon saw the peg, he was outraged that he had not been consulted. An argument followed, and the members took sides. The church split, and the people in Mayfield County all called the new congregation the Anti-Peg Baptist Church.

Churches fight, split, and die because of personal conflict. And there are things worth fighting about. The whole Church around the world came together at Nicea to proclaim that Christ our Lord was God before the foundation of the earth, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and they anathematized the heresy that said otherwise.

But unfortunately, we Christians often divide to defend our personal territory, more often than the truth of Orthodox dogma — and too often, we defend issues at the expense of doing works of repentance in the world. Christianity has lost its influence, in Europe and in America, because western Christians have spent the last 500 years trying to reinvent their faith from the ground up, and here in the US it’s hard to find anything that any three Christian people will agree on.

We confess one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church – but how can the world believe the Gospel of the Kingdom of God if they don’t see in Orthodox Christians a model of community, mutual submission and humility? 

This is the background of today’s epistle reading from Ephesians.

The very first verse contains a “therefore.” Anybody who wants to understand a text ought to ask, what’s the “therefore” there for? That word says we are changing directions – usually from information to actions.

The first three chapters of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians were about the riches of our inheritance with the saints in Christ. What God has given us and made us to be in union with Christ.

Therefore.

The other three chapters are going to be about our duty and calling; how to live and walk together in Christ. And Saint Paul starts by calling us to walk in unity.

“Therefore, I, the prisoner for the Lord.” Paul is writing this letter under arrest in Rome, where he was on trial for his life, so it’s literal truth.

It’s also his spiritual reality. A prison cell and some emperor’s decision did not limit Paul’s destiny. His prison sentence was a divine appointment. Paul’s ultimate concern, even from in prison, was to serve the churches, and he exercised his unity with the Church in Ephesus by writing to them as a father in Christ.

“Therefore, I urge you.”

I entreat you, I exhort you, I encourage you. Paul doesn’t give a command, but rather he appeals to the Ephesians. This is the heart of a spiritual servant, not a leader exercising authority. If our understanding of fatherhood has been shaped by examples of domination, control, or ego, then we’re likely to have some wrong ideas about spiritual fatherhood, or about the God who names himself our Father. It’s part of our growth in Christ to start learning about the goodness and welcome and trustability of God the Father – so that revelation can teach us how to be sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, and fellow citizens with the saints in the kingdom of God the Father.

“I urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received.”

Paul says “walk” and he means our actions, not only day-to-day but our way of life. Walking well points out strength, balance, and progress.

Princess Margaret sat beside her mother, Queen Elizabeth, during the young princess’s first presentation to the British public. When she was called on to address the gathering, her mother leaned over and quietly said, “You are a princess. Walk like one.” 

Paul writes, “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” 

“Worthy” here is the same word we use when someone is to be ordained. The bishop shows him to the people and proclaims, “Axios!” I find him worthy! And the clergy all respond three times, “Axios! Axios! Axios!” and the choir and people respond, “Axios! Axios! Axios!”

Worthy means fitting, due, proper. It comes from a word for weighing – when the scale balances, then you’ve correctly ascertained the weight and value of a thing. The one who calls you is the one who decides you are what they want: They declare you worthy.

To walk worthily is to balance – on one side of the scale, the grace and holiness and calling and personal presence of God in our lives; and on the other side of the scale, our practice, our words, our inner life, our works.

When you cut an apple or an orange, you find the skin and the inside are very different! But when you stir a glass of pure water, it is the same at the surface and underneath. It is all one thing. The word for being the same inside and outside and throughout is integrity.

Are you walking worthy of your calling? Is your inner life consistent with your outward life? Paul exhorts, with a loving father’s confidence, “I urge you to walk worthy of your calling. With all humility and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love…”

Humility is the virtue of not thinking much about oneself. We know pride is attention on ourselves; thinking we are more important, more deserving of attention and praise, thinking we know better than others. So Paul cautions us, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3).

A humble person does not think he or she is worse than others, more deserving of pain or punishment; the humble person just does not think about himself that much. If you know someone who is a good listener, that person is probably good at paying attention to you, rather than trying to respond to the things you’re saying.

Our word humility comes from Latin humus, which means soil, which is in the lowest place. To humble ourselves is to accept a lower place simply because we are interested in blessing and raising others up. Christ “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

“With all humility and gentleness.”

Gentleness is how strong people deal with fragile things. Nobody treats crystal and glassware the way they handle steel tools or hammers. Saint Seraphim taught,

You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of the one who gives and kindles joy in the heart of the one who receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other.

There will come a day when Christ will judge the living and the dead — but this is not that day.

If you watch parents who know how to be humble leaders, without any ego, they can correct a child who is doing something wrong without making the child believe she is bad and wrong.

We can agree that fornication is a sin without having to tell any person “You are unacceptable, condemned, and not worth loving.” In fact the Lord gives us an example in John 7 when a woman has been caught in the act of adultery and he accepts her; when he goes to the house of the corrupt tax-collector and sits down to eat with him. And what happens? Without anyone accusing them, they are drawn to the purity of Christ, and as Saint Paul says, “the goodness of God leads them to repentance” (Romans 2:4). 

Gentleness can describe a horse, medicine, or wind. A tame horse wins races and battles; a wild horse is dangerous. The proper dosage of medicine can heal disease or ease pain; an overdose can kill you. A soothing breeze relieves and refreshes you; hurricane-force winds knock your house down. 

“With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.”

Are we patient? Patient people are not short-tempered, thin-skinned, or easily offended. Maybe I’m just not patient.

Your Bible translation might say longsuffering here. Longsuffering is not merely being slow to anger. It’s an act of will that says “I choose to permit this for now.” It’s related to the next phrase, “bearing with one another in love.”

“Forbearing” means to permit, endure, or suffer something. You don’t have to put up with it. But you choose to. Someone rubs you the wrong way, they have a habit or manner that irritates you; and it may not rise to the level where you have to say “You are sinning against me and you need to stop.” The thing is, that person is a member of your family, or of your parish. You didn’t choose them and you have to figure out how to not only live with them but do love to them. Welcome to the annoying reality of life.

God has not planned for us to find a church community where there is perfect harmony; he has planned for us to make peace. “Blessed are the peace makers,” (Matthew 5:9), not necessarily the peace keepers. One of the ways a healthy Orthodox parish community shows the goodness of God that leads people to repentance is the way we deal honestly and nonpathologically with sin, conflict, and brokenness. People go to one another and ask forgiveness, or seek mediation to restore fellowship; this isn’t a sentimental notion of love, it’s hard work, it’s humbling ourselves, and a lot of the time it looks like forbearance.

So Saint Paul says, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failing of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Romans 15:1; Galatians 6:2; Colossians 3:13).

“Endeavoring (working) to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The communion of saints is not organizational, institutional, or programmatic. It’s “the unity of the Spirit.” We cannot make or manufacture it; we “maintain” it.

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” That union and communion are real, even when we fail to live it out. How do we maintain spiritual unity?

• By acting in love toward one another.
• By giving the benefit of the doubt. 
• By speaking words that build up.
• By refusing to listen to gossip.
• By practicing gentleness and forbearance.
• And, because we are not very skilled at any of those things, by forgiving as Christ has forgiven you and me. 

As eager as we are to guard the truth, we should be that zealous to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. “For [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the wall of division” (Ephesians 2:14).

In Antioch, the unbelieving neighbors of the church members began calling them by a new name: Christians. Acts 11:26 – “And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” Christians – little Christs. You know, it doesn’t really matter whether we call ourselves Christians; it’s our neighbors and coworkers who are going to figure that out. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love for one another” (John 13:35).

But we’re still taking baby steps, learning how to walk this walk. So the Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen says that “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly.”

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Amen.