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THE
CHURCH IN THIS CITY
Chapter 5
COSTLY YET FREE
It’s easy enough for us to put our arms around each other and sing,
“We Are One In The Spirit,” or to sit in our fellowships and pretend
that
we have unity with the saints around the world. But when we begin spend-
ing time with each other, as we are bound to do if we’re going to get
on
with the job of spreading the gospel, when we start having some real
contact with saints in other parts of town, and when we begin to bring
our homes into the dimension of the kingdom of God, we quickly discover
that unity with brothers and sisters is much easier to sing about and
talk about than it is to live.
The Price
How can you live in unity with a professing believer who’s forever
trying to push you around? How can you work in unity with a brother who
always tries to make you carry the heavy end while he carries the light
end? How can you have unity with this superspiritual sister who is
constantly giving you that pained look as if she just took another
x—ray
of your soul, and found cancer? How can you have unity with a brother
who always manages to get a headache at the
last minute? Or this sister
who endlessly complains? Or this brother who is mercilessly critical?
Or that “walking Bible,” who has all the answers? Or Calamity Jane
who
wants to send you on an ambulance run every third day? When you have to
live at close quarters with brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ,
it isn’t exactly Paradise. To live in harmony with brothers and sisters
is a very costly thing, as our Lord makes clear in the following passage:
A dispute also arose among them, which of them
was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said
to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise
lordship over them, and those in authority over
them are called benefactors. But not so with you;
rather let the greatest among you become as the
youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For
which is the greater, one who sits at table, or
one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at
table? But I am among you as one who serves.....
Simon,
Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,
(plural), that he might sift you like wheat, but
I have prayed for you, (singular), that your
faith may not fail; and when you have turned
again, strengthen your brethren.”
Those men around Jesus weren’t as subtle as we are. We would never
think of coming out in the open and having a dispute about which of us
to prove which of us is the greatest. Our disharmony, strife, cynicism,
and suspicion of others, our ingratitude and our sullen moods are all
evidence of how much of this is going on in our hearts. The advice our
Lord gave these men is just as urgently needed by us. To live in unity
with brothers and sisters near and far is going to cost us three things
---three things which presumably went down with us into the waters of our
baptism and should never have surfaced again, but which are in glaring
evidence every day of our lives.
To live in harmony with brothers and sisters is going to cost us
our ego.
The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over
them; and those in authority over them are
called benefactors. But not so with you; rather
let
the greatest among you become as the youngest
and the leader as one who serves.
Instead of gunning for the top of the pile, or striving to stay
on top, (if that’s where we think we are), we now settle joyfully for
the bottom. If I’m on the bottom of the pile and walk up to someone
after fellowship and say, “Hello, my name is Fred,” and get the
Sphinx
response...”Who do you think you are?” how can I be crushed? I’m
already at the bottom. If I’ve really chosen the lowest room and offer
five people rides homes, and they’re all going out for coffee with
others, my joy in the Lord is still truly unshaken. If nobody appre-
ciates my testimony or notices my accomplishments, I’m still together
because, praise God, Jesus is with me down here in the lowest room.
If we are not willing to pay the price of really losing our ego
day-in-and-day-out, if we’re afraid to be the youngest, the
littlest,
the lowest in the actual knocks and wounds of living, then we really
aren’t serious about living in harmony with one another in Jesus
Christ.
To live in unity with brothers and sisters is going to cost us
our convenience.
For which is the greater, one who sits at table
or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits
at table? But I am among you as one who serves.
And one who serves never has anything at his own convenience. He’s
always on call. His plans are always being interrupted. He can be
roused in the middle of the night; torn away from the dinner table. His
shoes have just been kicked off in preparation for a rest when the phone
rings and he has to get into his shoes and go. Of course, Jesus calls
the shots. He tells us when to put on our shoes. He makes clear which
of five simultaneous calls we are to respond to. And he tells us when
to sit still and rest even if ten people are paging us. But when he
calls we cannot say, “Not tonight, Lord, I’m too tired.” “Not
this week,
Lord, I have a cold.”
The Christian who somehow manages never to go out of his way nor
to allow any disruptions in his plans is hardly likely to taste unity
in the Body or harmony in his home. In our fellowships there is often
an unspoken desire to keep things shallow, so that we won’t have to be
inconvenienced; to stay a certain distance from those people with
problems: getting involved with them will be just too disrupting.
But convenience is for Gentile kings and middle class vegetables.
Serving the Lord with gladness in the Body means learning to live a
life of interruption, learning to constantly be going out of your way—
with no one keeping track of all our heroic self—denial or appreciating
our service but the Lord himself. It means spending time doing things
for brothers and sisters who never even say thanks, and still to go on
rejoicing.
To live in unity with brothers and sisters is going to cost us
our heart.
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have
(all of) you that he might sift you like wheat,
but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your
faith may not fail; and when you are turned
again, strengthen your brethren.”
We do not strengthen our brothers and sisters by merely quoting
scriptures and giving them hug. It takes a heart that goes out of
itself and really starts to care. A heart that weeps, prays, pleads,
encourages. A heart that remembers when every one else forgets. Jesus
put his heart into praying for Peter. And Peter is to put his heart
into strengthening his brethren. And we are to put our hearts into
doing the same. How can our hearts be open to God and closed to each
other? How can our hearts be open to Jesus, yet cool to brothers in
Germantown or Hamtramck?
Why are we afraid to put our hearts into caring for our brothers?
Are we afraid our heart might get broken? What about our Master’s
broken heart? If we insist on hanging on to our little hearts and
protecting them from all bumps and scratches we shall never taste unity
in the Body.
A Price Already Paid
Unity in the Body is going to be costly, so costly that not one
of us could live this life if it
depended on us. Praise God that the
power to pay the price and walk this blessed road is imparted to us as
a gift from the Lord. Notice that the entire passage we’ve been look-
ing at in Luke 22, with its high demands, revolves around the
sustaining presence of Jesus.
“I am among you as one who serves...I appoint
you a kingdom... I have prayed for you that your
faith
may not fail...”
This changes everything. For it means that costly as the life of
unity may be, it comes to us free.
“I am the way. I enable you to do these difficult
things.
Come and get under the yoke with me and
I will teach you from within your own heart. Just
as surely as I am your salvation, just as surely
as I am your life, I am also your unity with
brothers and sisters. Let go of your ego and take
hold of me. Let go of your compulsive need for
convenience, and take hold of me. Let your heart
move out upon the stormy waters and rely on me,
and I will make you one with each other.”
Unity in the Body of Christ comes by the same hand that made us
part of the Body in the first place. We cannot bring it about. Only
Jesus can bring it about—--and he will. Just as surely as we partake
of the one loaf of his body and drink of the one cup which is his
blood, Jesus himself will give us each the power to be as the youngest,
to live as one who serves. He will enable us to put our
hearts into
strengthening our brothers and sisters, so that we can get on with the
work God has given us to do.
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