RESOURCING THE CHURCH FOR ECUMENICAL MINISTRy A ...

Look at the church. Christ’s one indivisible Body,
the Reign of God at hand, the visible evidence of the
gift, the appetizer of the feast, but Christians still
can’t gather at one Lord’s Table.
So, in spite of what Genesis shows us about the gift
of unity, in spite of Jesus’ solidarity with us on the
cross, in spite of what Ephesians declares about our
being One Body already, our experience says loud
and clear that we are not yet one.
So which is it? Unity already? Or—not yet?
My husband and I have two adult children. They
look a lot different today than they did the day they
were born. They act differently, too. Praise God!
And yet, we notice some similarities now to what
they have always been.
Our baby daughter was a snuggler. We’d hold her
close, and her little body would just relax into us like
a second skin. She loved being close. Needed us to
rock her to sleep every night for her first year!
Then her brother came along! When I tried to rock
him to sleep, he’d get agitated, fight sleep. One
night I finally just put him down in frustration. He
turned over . . . and went right to sleep.
They thought people would look at us living as
family and say of us, like Roman citizens said
of the early Christians, “See how they love
each other!” And they’d want what we’ve got.
Twenty years later, you know what? Our grown up
daughter still needs “Mommy” time—when she’s
sick or stressed. And our son? Mr. Independence.
The day we brought them home from the hospital,
they were already who they are today—and not yet
even close to who they would become. Already AND
not yet.
I preach a lot about unity and wholeness. People
definitely do sometimes receive it with a
hermeneutic of suspicion. Can’t I see the disunity
so apparent within our own church? The scar of
racism still festers across the Body of Christ. The
outrage of poverty still exists among us.
The church still bears so many of those same
divisions we engaged so long ago in Baptism,
Eucharist and Ministry but did not finally resolve.
We’re definitely not yet where we should be.
It’s just that, according to the Bible, from Genesis
Watkins • Already...Not Yet: God’s Gift of Unity
50
to Ephesians, God has already given us the gift! of
unity—in creation in the first place, and (in case we
missed it there) in the greatest gift of all, the gift of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who came to earth
to reconcile us to God and to each other.
Yes, it’s still all packed up in the mailing box—plain
looking, full of tape and labels and all marked up
with post office stamps, and beat up around the
edges.
But what if we could just receive the gift? And begin
to unwrap it? To take away those outer layers of
division, piece by piece. What if we would begin to
live beyond those divisions and barriers and act as if
we were already one? As we are! Beautifully diverse,
but not divided!?
Did you know that our forebear Disciples—those
early Disciples who passed on to us this inspiration
about the givenness of unity—believed, really
believed, that if we could just live as one, our visible
unity would result in the evangelization of the
world? And thereby bring in the full reign of God?
They thought people would look at us living as
family and say of us, like Roman citizens said of the
early Christians, “See how they love each other!”
And they’d want what we’ve got.
Ephesians 4 has a witness here as well . . .
“I beg you,” it says, “to lead a life worthy of the
calling to which you have been called, with all
humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with
one another in love, making every effort to
maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace.” (Eph 4:1-3)
Maintain the unity of the Spirit. Not “get,” not
“seek.” “Maintain.” Again I say, “maintaining
unity” does not mean passive acceptance of what is.
To receive the gift of unity, and open it, means to
stand up when that fundamental gift of unity already
given by God is not yet experienced in this world. It
means to speak out when God’s unity is covered up
by the world’s injustice. It means to move on to
something else when our ways are not God’s ways.
This passage says, how we treat each other matters.
Have you seen the studies about children and
teachers in a school classroom? If a teacher decides
on the first day that a child is smart and treats the
child that way, that child will act smart. What if we in
the church would expect the best from each other?
What if we would remember on the first day we ever
meet each other that we are united in creation—one