One Body

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity.

Some of you will have read the installation sermon of the Uniting Church’s current president, Andrew Dutney, in the “Assembly Highlights” brochure. In it, he notes some of the preliminary results from the most recent National Church Life Survey conducted in 2011. In response to the question, “Which of the following aspects do you most like about the Uniting Church as a denomination?”, 71% of nearly 20 000 Uniting Church attenders ticked the “inclusiveness of all types of people”. The next most commonly chosen option with under 25% of the vote was the "provision of community services". The inclusiveness, the diversity of the Uniting Church is a much lauded attribute. As Andrew reminded us, we are one flock with one shepherd, one people of God.

The diversity of the Christian church has been one of its markers since its very beginnings; and one of its challenges. The Pauline epistles, the letters associated with the apostle Paul and the emerging church communities influenced by him, are full of references to it.

In Galatians (Ch. 3), Paul highlights the very significant social differences that existed within the Christian community:

²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

In the first letter to the Corinthians (Ch. 12), the imagery of the many members of the one body is used:

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

And again the letter to the Ephesians (Ch. 4),

¹⁵…we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted 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.

Interestingly, it is generally not so much the diversity that the Pauline literature is worried about or interested in. It is the challenge of unity within it. And that too has remained a perennial issue for the Christian church—unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity. And this is what we have to hold on to when the going gets tough.

But what is it? What is the thing that keeps us together? That keeps us from losing our way in the midst of all our differences and variation and diversity?

Sometimes it’s easier to say what it isn’t.

It isn’t that we just like being together, that we get on well, that we all get along merrily, because we don’t. We do have our differences. We disagree. We argue. We debate. We drive each other up the wall. It certainly isn’t because we just like being together. Sometimes it’s just hard going.

It isn’t that we all interpret the scriptures in the same way, because we don’t. Some of us read them as history and some us read them as literature. Some of us like reading the detail and some of us are more interested in the big picture. We all think that they’re important, but we probably disagree on how and why. Whatever keeps us together, it’s not because we all read the Bible in the same way.

And it’s not even that we all come up with the same set of moral or ethical principles from our understanding of what it is that holds us together. Some of us are very sure of what is proper and correct behaviour; and some of us are equally as certain that there is a whole lot more grey in the world than black and white. No, we do not all share the same moral or ethical approach.

So, just what is it? What is the thing that keeps us together? What is the thing that keeps us from losing our way in the midst of all our differences and variation and diversity?

Whatever it is… it is encapsulated in the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—the story of a God who creates a world, who loves that world, who wants so much to be in relationship with that world that God enters the world in order to demonstrate that desire, in order to bring us into real relationship with God and with each other; the story of the God who continues to journey with us as the people of God in all our differences, in all variations, in all our diversity; the God who holds us together as one people, one flock with one shepherd; who works within us to maintain a unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity.

The classical marks of the church are that it is one, it is holy, it is catholic (or universal), and it is apostolic (it is commissioned or sent on God’s mission). None of these marks is understood as belonging to us as the humans whom we are. All of these marks are understood to be part of the nature of the one in whom we are enfolded, Jesus Christ. As Christ’s body, we discover our apostolicity, our sentness as the people of God, on the mission of God. As Christ’s body, we discover our catholicity, our universality, the applicability of the good news, of the Gospel, for the whole of God’s Creation. As Christ’s body, we discover our holiness, our set-apartness for the sake of God’s mission in the world. And as Christ’s body, we discover our unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity. This is who we are and this is whose we are—the whole people of God.