P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

STOP BUMPING INTO MY BOAT!

You might have the most luxurious, well-tuned car on the freeway this Thursday. Firing beautifully on all cylinders. But if you and the cars around you keep bumping into each other, you’ll soon like the owner of a reject car from “Rent-a-Dent.” It’s the same way in Christianity.

You can call her a deluded maverick or you can call her a lonely voice of courage. But one thing’s for sure: you can’t call Barbara Lee a chicken. Back in September, 2001, in the wake of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, the United States Congress convened in special session to vote authorization for President Bush to use military force against Osama bin Laden and the al Queda network. And with 535 senators and representatives, the vote was almost unanimous. Notice I said “almost.” Because Representative Lee from Oakland, California voted no. All by herself, she cast a nay vote. And congressional scorekeepers were quick to point out that Ms. Lee was one of only five people back in 1998 to vote against bombing Iraq. A year later she went to the well all by herself again to vote against dropping bombs on Yugoslavia during the Slobodan Milosevic reign of terror. After this latest Lone Ranger action and a torrent of threats, Barbara Lee had to have a cordon of protection by the Capitol Police.

It’s kind of nice when every single American congressperson stands on the steps of the Capitol and sings “God Bless America” in powerful unison, isn’t it? Or when Christians of all denominations get together and join forces for the National Day of Prayer in May or National Bible Week in November. But why doesn’t it happen more often? In terms of the Body of Christ and denominations, it’s not like we have a Barbara Lee voting no all by herself. No, in the Christian faith, it’d be more like where all 535 people we send to Congress vote their own way every single time . . . with no unity whatsoever. No bills passed, no legislation approved, no positive changes accomplished, because these 535 people can’t even stitch together a coalition of two.

We’re here in the very challenging book of Ephesians, and really, chapter four seems to be the most hard-hitting passage thus far. Verse three is actually a brief, simple-sounding passage.

“Make every effort,” Paul writes, “to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

That’s the New International Version, and the text notes add this:

“It is the heavy responsibility of Christians to keep that unity from being disturbed.”

Which brings us for a moment to our radio title for this week of programs. It’s all “Ephesians,” of course, but here in chapter four, we went with this: “So Many Listings in the Yellow Pages.” And in the little ad blurb we used for some of our denominational papers and church bulletins, let me quote our inventive bit of copy:

“‘Adventist’ comes very early in the Pacific Bell phone book. But then there’s ‘Baptist’ — Southern and American — and ‘Congregational’ and then ‘Disciples of Christ’ . . . and going right on down to ‘Zen Buddhism.’ And yet, here in Ephesians 4, Paul writes with passion about the body of Christ being built up ‘until we all reach unity in the faith.’”

What do you think about that? It really is stunning to look in the Yellow Pages if you’re in a strange town, waking up in a strange motel bed, and looking for a familiar church to go worship in. From the A’s to the Z’s, there are many options. And I’m talking about Christian options. True, they all have John 3:16, and maybe they all sing “The Old Rugged Cross” and have a half-hour sermon based on a book called Holy Bible, but beyond that there is a great deal of variety, and not always of the kind that you could say still fits under the “Unity Umbrella.”

Well, friend, here in the year 2004 I can’t solve Congress’s voting patterns and I can’t fix the reality that there are many denominations in the Yellow Pages. You and I have to plant ourselves in churches where we agree with the core teachings, and we can’t paper over what we feel are important issues. But at the same time, we CAN continue to focus on the fact that the Bible teaches unity. It teaches praying for unity. It teaches studying for unity. And it teaches striving for unity.

Way back in the 1940s, C. S. Lewis released his signature work, Mere Christianity, which we often use on this broadcast. And he uses two very interesting illustrations which I think work well here in Ephesians 4. The first one is of a flotilla of ships, all sailing together toward a certain destination. Now, he’s thinking of individuals, part of a church or perhaps of human society. But you can picture all of these little sailboats out on the treacherous seas, and they’re all trying to get to the same harbor of safety. So far so good.

But there are a couple of things that can go wrong. In fact, let me quote from the passage.

“One is when human individuals drift apart from one another,” he writes, “or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual — when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order.”

Did you follow that? And we can apply this concept to ourselves as individual Christians and also as individual denominations. We don’t want to be constantly bumping into each other, undercutting each other, attacking each other, stealing sheep from each other (as the saying goes), feuding publicly in the papers and on the tabloid talk shows. And we also don’t want to be leaky and broken-down within ourselves. Friend, I don’t want my Adventist denomination to be at war with your Baptist Church or with your Methodist family. What a terrible thing when that happens, and someone in my faith community questions the sincerity of someone in yours, or casts aspersions on the validity of your Statement of Faith. And I also want to make sure, helping as I can, that my own church or denomination is itself whole. “Seaworthy,” as Lewis would describe it, with the rudders in the right place and the sails trimmed just right and the lines not tangled up. When there IS confusion on board the decks of my ship, I want to help quickly clear it away, don’t I?

This essay by Lewis points out that these two goals — individual seaworthiness and corporate smooth sailing — are inextricably woven together.

“If the ships keep on having collisions,” he writes, “they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions. Or, if you like, think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.”

If you’ve played in a high school band, you know all about that, don’t you?

Let me suggest that we need to care a whole lot, not about two things, but three. We’ve been sharing some wonderful insights from the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries for Ephesians, and the authors of that book give us a new Greek word to think about. Here it is: Spoudazontes. It gets translated in the Bible as “endeavoring” — Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace — but that’s really not strong enough, say the scholars. Better would be “giving diligence” or the New English Bible’s “spare no effort.” But to do what?

First of all, to make sure our own boat is leak-free and riding the waves well. We need to look at our own lives and say: “Am I with Christ? Am I living in a healthy Christian relationship?” And then ask the same question about our home church and home denomination. Are things well there? Is the boat seaworthy? Or has the church sprung a leak? If so, how can we help?

Secondly, are we sailing in concert with the other boats? Are we doing all we can to pursue common Christian goals? Are we praying for the church across the street and making sure we don’t bump into them or fasten those spiky attack weapons to our chariot wheels the way the villain did in Ben-Hur when he was always trying to undo his opponent? In other words, are we seeking success and seaworthiness for the entire Christian flotilla?

And here’s the third point. C. S. Lewis makes it this way:

“We have not asked where the fleet is trying to get TO, or what piece of music the band is trying to play. The instruments might be all in tune and might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and actually played nothing but Dead Marches. And however well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta.”

So are we — each one of us, and our churches — all tuned up, all ready to come in on ONE, and all playing the same song? By the way, might I suggest “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”?