Unity

             So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

 

            I hear a lot of calls for unity, not just within the Church but across the world, but even within the calls for unity, I hear a lot of screams for disunity. Those who are of African descent are to be treated in accordance with their demands. Those of Latin extraction are to be treated another way, in accordance with their demands. Heaven forbid you treat someone Chinese the way you treat someone Japanese, and you’re a monster if  you treat anyone the way you’d treat a person of European lineage. Even in the Church, there are those who believe they are of a specific denomination first, and Christians only secondly – or of a specific race first, and Christians only second or even third.

            On the other hand, some people find fault with the Church because it doesn’t do the same thing the same way in every location and among every group of people.

            Here’s the problem. You can only be united to one thing, which is your god. As I type this blog, I am experiencing the impossibility of being united to one thing. I am trying to write, to figure out whether my current crochet project needs one more row (and to crochet it), to put together order slips for pictures that I want to sell, and to put together the tags that will tell people which pictures they are. I pick up the crocheting, put down the crocheting, turn my attention back to my computer, pause I mid-word to sneeze, then try to think of what I want to put on the picture tags. Oh yeah, I’m working on my blog. Mind if I get a drink? And I need to mail a sympathy card to Erie. And how much should I charge for an 8*10 photo? Sigh.

            In the same way, I can be a Christian, or I can be a political person, or I can be a white person, or I can be a woman, or I can be a single, or I can be something else. What is most important to me? I can relate to this in another way. I have a problem with my identity. I struggle with the idea of being known as a ______ employee, or a member of _________, or of being in a relationship with _________ because somehow, it always comes down to my deciding whether I am the employee, the member, or the relative… or myself. I struggle with being known as a Christian because I’m afraid I’ll embarrass God (He and I have discussed this but it’s not entirely gone), but I am willing to be made more Christian and less me. With those others, I’m  not. When trying to be more than one thing, you’ll have to choose between them at some point.   

            The world (or the American part of it) would have us believe that we can be all these things simultaneously without ever choosing among them, but it’s not true. Paul tells us that as Christians, all those other things go away. Jesus taught us the same thing when He said,

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you

 will be devoted to the one and despise the other. (Matthew 6:24)