Today the Pits, Tomorrow the Wrinkles

I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us. – Ephesians 4:1-3

Paul did not see himself as a prisoner of a government but as a prisoner of Christ. Though he no way of understanding fully all the possibilities radiating from his imprisonment, he accepted that he was where he needed to be at the moment. He had made a nearly identical statement just a few paragraphs before, then going on to urge his readers not to be discouraged by his troubles which were, in the long run, for their benefit. As best I can tell, given the statement that follows, the ‘therefore’ in Paul’s statement refers back to his discussion of unity in chapter 2. The third chapter of Ephesians is a sort of parenthetical set up for moving from the spiritual facts to the material application as the Apostle returns to his call for unity among all in the Body, including Jews and Gentiles.

The mystic thinks of unity as oneness with Christ and that is true. Carried just a little further, it would seem obvious that unity with Christ means necessarily unity in Christ. If Christ is in us and we are in Christ, then we are all unified one with another – many branches perhaps, but one Vine. That’s easy enough to grasp and envision, as an ideal, at least. Where I may run into difficulty with my persistent individuality is confusing my inclinations and intentions with the greater purpose of my existence in the Body. Further complications arise from my very limited ability to put all cause and effect into an understandable formula. In the material world of individual physical beings, if I do A, B is supposed to happen. If I press on the gas pedal, my car goes faster. If I eat Oreos, I get fat. If I watch CNN, I get lonely. It carries over into the spiritual realm where I think if I am a good person, good things will happen to me – forgetting that good is the end rather than the means. Good is the fruit borne of obedience to the life of the Vine flowing through me.

We have received a divine summons, and we should order our lives so that they are consistent with that summons. It doesn’t mean we won’t ever get what we want. It does mean that our wants and desires may change over time. It means an end to arrogance and the sense that our lives are solely under our own control – or solely for our own benefit. It may also mean not saying, “I told you so” when it’s true, for example. One of the hardest things for me is knowing what is right and watching someone – especially someone I care about – ripping himself apart doing wrong. I so often want to grab people and shake them while saying, “If you would only LISTEN to ME!”

Sometimes I do know. Sometimes I am right. But God always knows. The worst thing I can do for people is get between them and what God is trying to do with, for, or to them. That doesn’t mean you or I don’t get to play the part of prophet now and then. “How can they hear without a preacher?... Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word”. It means, though, that I play my part with humility. I enter into the role fully, burying myself in it. I must operate humbly, gently, and with patience.

Damn, but I need more patience right now, and that acceptance, too, I need more of that. And I will grit my teeth and pound the desk until you understand just how patient I am being.

I’ve tried knocking sense into people – including myself – both figuratively and, a time or two, literally. It may even work for a little while. But, as much as I may hate to admit it, the royal road is humility, patience, love, and peace. If somebody doesn’t “fit”, if somebody is rough and sharp-edged, it’s up to me to compensate for that, to accommodate the rough spot, to give a little of my space – to maybe let them knock off a little bit of my own sharp edge. Like stones in a wall, we have to fit together or the wall will never rise.

It is all from the Lord. The poking and the pruning, the banging and clanging, all is an extension of His hand – just like Paul’s chain and the Roman centurion that guarded him. It’s not always comfortable, not always “logical”, but it is always logos, according to the Word -- perhaps, like words in a great poetic cycle. And if it doesn’t quite make sense, it could be that the end is not yet seen.

It had occurred to her to imagine those two – the old woman and the poet -- watching the last act, themselves its only audience, as if it were presented by the imagined persons themselves, and by no planned actors. But what would happen when the act came to an end she could not think, unless those two went up into the forest and away into the sounds that they had heard, into the medley of which the only unity was the life of the great poetry that made it, and was sufficient unity. – Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell