Unity

Rob Kaczmarek
Written By Jeff Rybacki
 

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

                                                                                  --Ephesians 4:2,3

I remember playing ball as a young boy with my dad and brother every Sunday morning while most people I knew were in church. We would go out to the field, just us with no one around and we would begin to play and practice. I found out that my dad quickly had a lot of
patience with me. I was the younger brother and I am the youngest of three, so I was always just the little guy. My dad would be patient and gentle with me and just encouraged me to have fun and do the best I could to learn the skills that would make me better.

However, with my brother he was different. My brother was four years older and my father expected him to play at a higher level. He would at times yell, be frustrated, and continue to press hard on my brother to perform. It wasn’t long until I caught up to my brother in skill and
that caused more tension, not just with my dad and brother but with my brother and myself.

It seems that in today’s cultural climate it is easy to be hard on one another. We look at this world and all its issues and we expect the Church to act or perform a certain way. But not all of us are at the same place in our faith and not all of us see the issues the same way. I have heard it said about America at this time, we are all in the same storm but not in the same boat.

I love that Paul urges the Church of Jesus Christ to have humility towards one another. To consider the other person and to really try and encourage and bring them up. It’s a humility that is worked out in gentleness. It’s hard to be gentle and understanding at times. We can feel frustrated that the other brother just doesn’t get it and we want to yell and stomp our feet. But with patience and gentleness our humility towards one another will be received as loving. Patience, love, gentleness, humility are all marks of Christ that each of us are commanded to embody. We are to be like our Master/ Teacher in all things. Jesus was patient with us, and the Spirit brought us along til we saw the truth of God and embraced Christ as our savior. We are to live our lives in a manner worthy of our calling. We are to live and act towards one another the way Christ was with us. In the gospel of John, Jesus said the world will know we are His by the love we have towards one another.

It is the love of God manifested in us that joins us together from every nation, race, tribe, and tongue making us one. That in Jesus there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, we are one. One in peace, one in The Spirit, one in the Body, one in hope, with one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

This is what unity looks like. And unity starts at home. It starts with the people of God loving each other well and in doing so loving a world that is fractured and broken well, holding out the hope of what only the gospel of Jesus can do: bring true, lasting, and true reconciliation.

Jeff Rybacki
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