Church and Spirit #4

Our newly arrived Australian should not only look for the central place of Jesus ruling through Scripture, she should also look for a church which is united by the Spirit.

Ephesians 4.2-3 
2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Let’s think back to the body metaphor for a moment. The image of the church being a body teaches us that Jesus is our head, our leader. But it also teaches us that as a church we are all connected. We each have the same Holy Spirit dwelling in each of us. To extend Paul’s image we could say that if Jesus is the head then the Spirit is like the central nervous system, coordinating all the parts of the body so that they work in unison. And one of the symptoms of a properly functioning church body is whether we are maintaining peace within our relationships:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

I remember hearing a story about a church undergoing a building project, and this church ended up divided over the issue of where to put the port-a-loos for the workmen. One party within the church thought that the port-a-loos should be out the front where the workmen could access them; the other group thought it was just too ugly to have the toilets out the front and they wanted them out the back. This dispute divided the parish council for up to six months. People left the church over that matter and it became really quite tragic in the end. In a spiritual church issues such as where to put the port-a-loos should never reach that stage – that’s the very opposite of living at peace – and if we recognize that the Holy Spirit is in each of us, then it should be a top priority to demonstrate that unity in our relationships with one another.

And Paul knows that this will take some work. Have a look at verse two:

completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Maintaining the bond of peace will mean being patient with each other, it will mean overlooking those things which irritate us, that’s what it means to bear with one another in love. Sometimes it’s so easy to become frustrated with people: “That person over there, she’s always voicing her opinion. That guy is so unreliable. This woman only ever thinks of herself, and he is just plain rude…” But a Spiritual church will always seek to maintain the bond of peace, recognizing the unity which have: a unity given by the Holy Spirit, a unity which sees us bearing with one another in love and patience.

There’s a story about General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. The story is set at the end of the General’s life when he was due to make one final public appearance at the North American Salvation Army Convention. But when the time came for the General to give his address, he’d become ill and so he couldn't deliver his speech, so he sent a telegram instead. And so word spread that the General was sick, but that he’d sent one last telegram to the convention; a final message containing his last words to the movement which he had founded. And so on the last day of the convention the chairman opened up the telegram and read out the General’s final charge. The telegram contained just one word: Others. General Booth knew what a Spiritual church looked like. A Spiritual church is a church with is other-person centered. A church which is humble and gentle. A church which is patient. A church which bears with one another in love.

What should our new immigrant look for in a church? A church where disputes don’t drag on, and where forgiveness and reconciliation flow freely. What kind of Church should we be? A church which strives to be patient. A church where we have each determined to overlook the irritating habits of others; where personality faults are no barrier to fellowship. A church demonstrating the unity which the Spirit brings.

So a Spiritual church is ruled by Christ through his Spirit-authored word and it’s seeking to live out the unity created by the Spirit. However there’s one other thing we’ll say characterises the Spiritual church…