Make Every Effort To Maintain The Unity Of The Spirit

I want to talk about something this morning that isn’t much fun to talk about, but something we all struggle with and something that is very important. The topic is broken relationships.

We all know the pain that broken relationships cause. When a marriage is broken by divorce, there is so much pain, to the couple involved, to the children, to the extended families, to mutual friends.

And in many families that haven’t reached the stage of divorce, there are those days when you come home from work and there are all these things that you just can’t talk about because they are too hot to handle. A very normal piece of business comes up. Shall we go out with the so-and-so’s this weekend? Do you think we could afford to replace that chair in the living room? There was a charge on the credit card that I don’t recognize; do you know what it is? And you bring up the simplest things, that should be handled so easily, but a whole history of unresolved conflicts gets attached to it and there’s this big blowup and the simplest thing gets so complicated and you wonder how it’s all going to ever get resolved. And you really need your family. You need a place that you can go home to and let down your guard and just relax and be understood and accepted. We all need that. Broken relationships hurt.

You can understand the problem of broken relationships in the workplace. There is an ongoing battle between two people. They collect accusations against each other so that the air is poisoned with the accusations and the attempts to sort it all out. One tries to keep the other out of the loop. When a decision needs to be made, it’s not as simple as what is best for the business, but there are all these personal or political complications. You have to think about egos and what this person will accept and that person. When the normal irritations of life occur, instead of the two people just sitting down and working it out in an amiable, cooperative way, they take their complaints to everyone in the office except the one involved. Gossip runs wild. Issues that are tiny and should be handled easily or maybe even just ignored get blown way out of proportion and become major battles. Cliques form as people are drawn into taking sides. And what happens to the productivity of that office? It plummets. And what happens to morale? Who wants to work in that kind of setting? Broken relationships really hurt.

And it can even happen in the church, perhaps especially in the church because we have such high hopes for being loved in the church and we are working for God and we want everything to be done “the right way.” But we don’t always agree on just what “the right way” is. And we hope that we can bring our wounded selves into the church and find people who will be mature and understanding and healing for us. But the problem is that most of us are wounded. John Wesley talked about Methodists “going on to perfection.” But none of us has made it there yet. And so most churches have at least a few broken relationships. If you read just about any of Paul’s letters to the early church you’ll see that they had struggled to get along, too. But in the church, it can really hurt. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they, together, were the body of Christ. And if you are treated with love by the body of Christ, then you feel Christ’s love. Jesus said that the world would know that the Father sent him if they see the church loving one another. But when relationships break down, God starts to feel very far away.

Can you feel how important it is for us to learn to get along, to keep working together, to maintain unity?

And so in our text for this morning, the Apostle Paul urges the members of the church in Ephesus to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Kathie, would you come and read our text for us now, and would you all stand as she does? The text is printed for you in your bulletin, so I encourage you to keep it open as I talk about it.

1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.