Living together, Serving together

One of the things that always excite me about the decadal All India Congress on Church in Mission is the unity of the church in Jesus Christ that is so visibly demonstrated here. It is so exciting and encouraging to see different denominations with varying doctrines, methods of church governance and even some fairly divergent opinions on many issues come together to debate and discuss and fellowship and from Christian world views by listening to the lord and to each other. This is a great strength of the church and demonstrates that it is possible for people to come to agreement with each other by coming together in a spirit of humility.

Look at the two great apostles, Peter and Paul. In their lifetime Peter and Paul did not work so closely together. Peter was called directly by Jesus and given "the keys of the kingdom" (Matthew 16:16-18). He is portrayed in icons carrying the keys. Paul, on the other hand, probably never met Jesus face to face. Once a persecutor of the church, his conversion came about through a vision on the road to Damascus. His inspiration and his style of presenting the gospel came from visions and charismatic experiences. Peter and Paul were so different that Peter was surnamed the Apostle of the Jews and Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles. Paul once had a public disagreement with Peter on whether Jewish Christians could eat together with Gentile Christians. (Galatians 2).

If Peter and Paul did not agree in life, they did agree in death. Both suffered the same kind of death, martyrdom, in the same city, Rome, at about the same time, 64-67 a.d. The early church recognized Peter and Paul as the two pillars of the church of Christ. This is depicted in an ancient icon with Peter on the right and Paul on the left, each extending a hand with which they bear up the church. By placing two of them together in one icon, united in lifting up the church, the church is sending a message to all her children that they all likewise should be united, in spite of individual and local differences, in building up the one church of God.

In the early church there was a tendency to splinter into various factions, each faction claiming to follow the leadership of one of the chief apostles or missionaries. This was one of the reasons why Paul wrote the first letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were breaking up into followers of Paul, followers of Peter, and followers of Apollos. Paul reminds them strongly that these human leaders are all equally servants of the one Christ. Christ, therefore, should be their focus and not the human leaders.

So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

If division among believers was a problem in the days of Paul, it is even more so today. Like the Christians of Corinth, Christians today are divided, variously recognizing the absolute authority of John Calvin, John Wesley or John Paul. We are like the weak fingers of Linus that cannot embrace one another and unite into a formidable punch. Disunity of Christians is a scandal that weakens the Christian witness to the world. How can Christian churches preach love and unity, forgiveness and reconciliation to the world when they themselves are living in disunity, unable to forgive and reconcile themselves?

Even within the walls of the same church, there are visible cracks of disunity. Today, the faithful are quick to label themselves either as conservatives or liberals. Conservatives, who often identify with the institutional authority of Peter, wage war against liberals; and liberals, who identify with the charismatic vision of Paul, wage war against conservatives. By combining the feasts of the apostles Peter and Paul, the church is inviting all her children to look beyond the conservative-liberal divide and discover a deeper level of unity in Christ. The church of Christ needs the rock of Peter's institutional leadership as well as the vitality of Paul's charismatic vision. Christian unity, like the unity of Peter and Paul, is not a unity in uniformity but a unity in diversity. Today the church reminds us that, even though as individuals and local communities some will prefer the style of Peter and others that of Paul, we should not let that divide us since we are all, first and foremost, followers of the one Lord Jesus Christ and children of one Father, God.