One Body In Him

We are priesthood. We are a Body. We are a Temple. We are a Bride. WE are a nation, a people belonging to God. Every image the NT uses to describe us is corporate in nature, as God by His Spirit ties us to one another in such a way that we cannot be separated. It is not simply our friends we belong to, or small groups full of people who see things the way we see things. We are a Body, an intense corporate configuration of old, young, short, tall, skinny, fat, black, white, funny, stubborn, creative, organized, easy to love and hard to get along with people who God has knit together within the united reality of what He calls the Body of His Son. We may assert our independence, insist on our autonomy, and exercise our personal rights and freedoms, but this never changes the truth that we are responsible to and united with those very persons we choose to reject. As my Dad use to say to me – “We may as well learn to get along now, cause we are stuck with each other forever.” He used to espouse this theory that we will be locked in a room with the very people we abandon until we learn to get along when Jesus returns, for Jesus will not allow anything but unity in the Kingdom to come. I wonder if you would enjoy being locked in a room with me. Doubtful. I don't think I'd enjoy being locked in a room with me. I’m not sure about the resolution my Dad proposed, but I am certain the principle of learning to love those God ties us to is a prerequisite.

Within the concept of Priesthood is the concept of the corporate nature of our faith. When we come to Christ, we are not set apart by ourselves to figure out faith as individuals. We are baptized into a Body, grafted into a Tree, added as Living stones within the framework of a Temple, dressed as a Bride, all corporate images of what happens to us through our faith. We are not so much in a “personal” relationship with God as we are part of a Body. We are no more isolated and autonomous persons of faith  than we are individuals who happen to be married. Marriage, by its very definition, creates accountability and responsibility to an entity bigger than “me”. We are part of a union which forever defines us, of necessity transforming the way we think and act. This is the life of the Believer as defined in the New Testament - a member of a  community, a part of a Body, belonging to one another (See esp. Romans 12 and 1 Cor. 12). From the very first instant we understand ourselves to be a part of a community, and almost every single passage in the New Testament that speaks of our relationship to Jesus is placed within the context of a community. The reason we emphasize so much our private relationship with Christ is more cultural than it is biblical. We have been taught from birth, in the post modern world in which we have learned to think about and interpret reality, that we are autonomous individuals with private versions of truth, private interpretations of right and wrong. We are most certainly not free of these patterns of thinking as Disciples of Christ. We have allowed the post modern worldview to be heavily absorbed into our thinking. In many cases, we are not so much theologically motivated as we are culturally relevant. When we pronounce ourselves autonomous agents of the Kingdom we are more a Post Modern participant than we are a kingdom resident.

Even Jesus never claimed to be isolated and alone when discerning God’s will. “Not my will, but yours be done”, Jesus prayed in the garden, desperately seeking companionship from his disciples as he prayed.  His prayer in John 17 emphasized over and over and over again the corporate nature of our faith. “I pray that they might be One as we are One.” The only time we are truly isolated and alone is in the depths of our sin, wallowing in broken pig sties of our own making. Adam and Eve discovered this isolation immediately through the Fall.  Sin instantly leads to isolation, guilt and shame, a desire to hide, and a strong tendency to avoid my own sin by pointing the finger at someone else. Christ restores us to relationship, community, oneness, and a deep commitment to one another which is built on the foundation of love and mercy, fellowship and corporate worship, grace and truth. We never read in the New Testament Church where the call of God for unity is  dependant upon people agreeing with one another or having people act the way we want them to act. The Spirit of God unites us as ONE in spite of our differences. This is precise definition of the mystery Paul says is the profound truth of the NT - The through Christ the dividing walls of hostility are broken down so that enemies (Jew and Gentile) can be united into ONE people of God. I wonder what Paul would think of us today if he was allowed to witness the disunity and brokenness that makes up the majority of our churches. If Christ can unite Jew and Gentile into a single Church, do we doubt God's ability to be able to unite us?  peace/out