A Reading from Ephesians 4:1-16
1 I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: 4 there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it is said,
“When he ascended on high, he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people.”
9 (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11 He himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Reflection
In the 1970’s, a man walked into the Museum of Modern Art in New York, approached a Picasso painting, and defaced it with spray paint. Workers labored hurriedly and within an hour, amazingly, the vandalism was undone.
In Ephesians, Paul views the Church as God’s great “workmanship” (2:10), facing its own form of self-vandalism: disunity (4:1). For this reason, Paul pleads with his readers — even evoking his prisoner status — to urge them to “maintain the unity of the Spirit.” Interestingly, the apostle urges them to “maintain” the Church’s unity, not to create it. The rationale arrives quickly: “There is one body and one Spirit … one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” To this truth, let us reach across all denominational aisles, crossing the Tiber and sauntering on Canterbury’s trail to offer in a pentecostal tongue, a hearty “Amen!” What Christ has accomplished cannot be undone. Despite all our divisions and denominations, the unity of the Church through the Spirit of God is indestructible.
Why then the call to maintain the unity of the Church? For good reason. The oneness of the Church cannot be destroyed by us, but it can be defaced by us. The question is: What will you do to maintain the unity of Christ’s church rather than deface it? Ephesians 4 is quite clear. We can only “do” something by the Spirit. Let us then use our gifts to bring believers into maturity in Christ. Let us not be caught off guard by false doctrine. Let us speak truth in love to call believers home. This is the work of maintaining and adoring the Church’s faith. We may then be surprised at the defacing that the Lord will “undo.”
Very apt, the comparison of destroying or repairing art with rending or mending the unity God has given. The hard thing is seeing the priorities rightly. Unity becomes a higher priority, I think, as you live through more damage zealously caused.
I really like your analogy of disunity in the Church as being like vandalism of great art.