Ephesians 4:1-16 page 1

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After a service where I had been the guest preacher, a church steward wanted to talk with me. She proudly told me about some forthcoming meetings between her Methodist church and the local Roman Catholics. "Isn't it good that we all believe the same?" she said.

Before I knew what I was doing, I nodded and said, "Yes." But part of me wanted to say, "No."

On further reflection, I really wanted to be awkward and say, "Yes and no." But then my school reports always said I took simple things and made them complicated!

All of which sets the dilemma for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We are one - or are we? You might say that the Christian churches can mostly agree on the historic creeds. That's mostly true, although the Eastern Orthodox churches point out that the Roman Catholics changed the Creed without consulting anybody else. And then there are the Quakers, who won't subscribe to any creed on principle.

All that is before the things we know divide us: historic ones such as our views on baptism, Holy Communion, ordination, church government and many other painful issues. And then there are contemporary heartaches: how we understand equality between the sexes, homosexuality, how the Holy Spirit works today, and so on.

And even to state the problem this way is controversial. Because what I've just presented is rather like an extended check-list: where do we stand on the Creed, the sacraments, ministry, sexuality and so on? It's as if you could tick the right boxes and that would make you a sound Christian. These issues matter at a very deep level, but Christianity is not a set of statements, or laws, or propositions. Christianity is about receiving the love of God in Christ and responding in relationship and gratitude. You can tick the right boxes and still not know God for yourself.

The 'check-list' comes in once the relationship with God has been established, because these are issues about truthfully describing God, his creation, salvation and the human race according to what he has revealed.

So can we turn to the Bible to help us with our dilemmas? Of course I want to say, 'Yes', but we have to recognise a gap between the New Testament Church and ours. There are passages in the New Testament (such as our reading today) which address the question of Christian unity, but they do so in very different circumstances. There were divisions in the Early Church over all sorts of things, but at that stage the divisions had not turned into denominations.

So if we ask someone such as Paul to help us with our struggles, we're not going to be lifting proof-texts out of context, we're going to be walking across a bridge between his world and our world, and seeing where it takes us. Along the way, I think he might also raise some unity issues that we don't immediately think of.

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.