Unity Among God's People

Jim:

Exodus 1:6-22
Reading the account contained in Exodus one understands why minority groups and marginalized people have found comfort in what it says. Verse 12 reads, “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.” All of us would like to see ourselves in the role of the children of Israel in this passage, but what oppresses most of us is our own sinfulness, our own poor choices. We fit well into our culture and move easily within our society. On the other hand, who are the ones who suffer neglect in our own communities? Who are the lonely and hungry? Who are the outcasts. It is impossible for most of us to read the Exodus account as oppressed people in those terms. But there are those for whom this account provides hope and it is they whom we should seek to help and to support, lest we become more like the Egyptians.

1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Paul’s words to the church in Corinth appeal for unity among all God’s people. In verse 13 we find, “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” Clearly, if all of us were to live as common members of the body of Christ the risk of oppression and marginalization would be significantly reduced. Unfortunately we are all too quick to find ways to divide and separate ourselves one from another. Paul reminds us that though we are different in some ways, we share a common purpose according to the will of God, and that common purpose should be more than enough to bind us together in harmony and love.

Mark 8:27-9:1
8:35 offers one of those paradoxes for which the Christian faith is well known. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” If we live for today, if we strive for what we can accumulate for ourselves in worldly goods, then we’ve missed the point. Comfort in this life is not a priority for the gospel. In fact, if we must choose between comfort now and the hope and expectation of the coming kingdom, Jesus strongly urges us to choose the kingdom. This is a unifying element to the faith as well. If we allow our distinctions to divide us in this life we are choosing the present as our focus. But if we seek unity and a common bond, then we are setting our coarse for the coming kingdom and the will of God.