The Division of Unity

DAILY BYTE

We’ve looked this week at two kinds of division, but there is a third. This is the kind that blows in with God's new season on earth. It is cut with the hard truth of the gospel and happens not through being lukewarm or hardened but through becoming a fiery people.

I don't mean the kind of fiery that says - watch out or she'll burn you to smithereens. I mean the kind of fiery that catches onto everything it comes in contact with because it is a powerful, passionate blaze that goes where the wind blows it.

Jesus says, "I've come to start a fire on this earth ... how I wish it were blazing right now!" We think of Jesus as being placid, gently reaching out his hands to embrace children and heal sick people. And the scriptures do show that Jesus was gentle, but when we think about the kinds of things he did in his ministry and the radical truth that he stood for, we see the blazing of the spirit through him.

Really think about it. He healed sick people no one could bear to touch. He gathered large groups of people together without discriminating between who could come and who was not allowed. He was unafraid of speaking truth to his friends and to people in power, even overturning tables in the temple with the truth that every thing and every person belongs to God alone.

One of the greatest causes of division in the world is peoples’ fear of the Gospel's unashamed commitment to this radical unity. The world might shy away from challenging people and circumstances, and we might try to dominate or segregate those we’ve judged to be wrong, but the Gospel refuses to surrender the truth that we are all one. The division Jesus talks about bringing to earth comes because people both inside and outside the church can't seem to handle the truth that God loves us all.

The kind of division Jesus brings is ironically caused by commitment to unity.

When true Christian unity happens, people must look at followers of Jesus, petrified of the immense power that they find in that storm of love that breaks down walls between people of every colour, sexual orientation, nationality, and socioeconomic situation. That kind of love actually has the power to conquer the world.

Relinquishing our power and our kingdom to God’s power and God’s season of unity that will outlast every one of the world’s divisions is the difficult and wonderful commitment that we make when we are baptized and when we live out of our baptisms every day.

But when it doesn't happen, I'm sure people outside the church look at it and say - the church is so divided and exclusive - those people don't even believe their own gospel. So why should I?

Do you believe your own gospel? And if so, do you commit yourself to the kind of unity Jesus speaks of – the kind that can cause division?

FOCUS READING

1 Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

IF YOU ARE FEELING BRAVE…

Pray again for God to reveal to you a division that exists in your life, in the life of the church, or in the world. Ask God for the strength and wisdom to act in some way that might bring about healing and reconciliation. Discern clearly with others in the community of faith, and go do it!