Unity of Union

(Read 1 Corinthians  12:20-27)

When it comes to the biggest challenge the whole world is currently facing, that should be its own unity. Each nation, indeed, has its own conflict with its neighboring countries. One good example is the North and South Korea where decades of conflicts are continuously suffered by two nations.  For whatever reason, it is a very long story. Well, it seems to be an ordinary day in our present times. Conflicts are arising everywhere! Arab nation vs. Jews nation, Administration Party vs. Opposition Party, Employee vs. Employer, Church vs. Church, Friend vs. Friend, Parents vs. Children, Husband vs. Wife, and even Self vs. Self.

We are not going to discuss how to achieve unity for the whole world as we cannot reach them all. Rather, we will simply start to whom we can stretch forth our arms to achieve it. The bible tells us and given us many instances of how unity is achieved and what it causes to our relationships with all the people around us. We will start with the basic unit of a community, the family. Indeed, we will start with people who started a family --- the Husband and the Wife.

The moment they get married, it's a contract of union between the two loving couple, vested with the authority to be ordained as husband and wife. If you are living together and not married, then you are not a legal husband and wife, rather you are called partners. In contrary with legal and moral matters, I will leave it to you as this is customary. Union of a husband and wife has lots of complications as the rule of laws of each nation. We want to simply refer to "the couple" as the legal husband (male) and wife (female) only for the sake of this blog.

When lady accepted the love of a man, from being boy/girl-friend relationship, to fiancee relationship, to husband-wife relationship, the union of two hearts are also being developed closer and closer until they become one. That is where their unity comes the moment the lady and the man finally say "Yes, I do" to each other in front of their wedding ceremony. At least, for the very first time the whole people around them witnessed their agreement to live together for the rest of their lives. Isn't it romantic?

Your union will bear the journey to strengthen, improve, develop and maintain your unity as family couple will immediately follow after you sign your marriage contract. There is no turning back. It is either you make it or you break it. There will be challenges to keep your union, those don't exempt the present marriage law where divorce is allowed, the vices available just right after the neighborhood, the work and career ambitions, your individual characters and many more. These are challenges to your marriage alone, how about your journey along within your marriage?

In 1 Cor 12:20-27, Paul encourage each member of the church to be united with others. And that each member have important part to play and contribute. In verses 20-21, So now there are many members, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you," nor in turn can the head say to the foot, "I do not need you." Like a body, every organ function according to what they are designed or called for. The eyes are meant to see, the ears are for hearing, the nose to smell and to breath, and many more. Each is responsible for every task that has assigned to it. Maybe some are visible and always recognize, some are working unknowingly from public but it doesn't mean that it has no importance at all. In the same way in a family, each member play a very important role. At the very start of marriage, the husband and wife shares these responsibilities between themselves and when they started to have kids, it is being delegated to them as well.

Weaknesses and strengths, both exists in each member of the family. For a couple, as the theory has proven that opposite attracts, each individual has the differences and uniqueness. But that is the very reason why we are compatible to one another despite of oppositions of our characters, our attitudes, our capabilities, and our failures. We compliment with each other, looking for what we cannot do or bear, filling up the emptiness in our lives. This is where the contrast results to a beautiful love story, after all these differences joined together and played. It is like notes in the music sheet, though are being played in different tunes, they produce a wonderful song. A song that is great which touches our emotions, our lives, and our spirit. This is simply because the unity of each notes despite of the differences in tunes gives the rhythm, melody, and music.

Arrogance vs. Acceptance. In marriage, it is very common that each is proud of what they have contributed to it and what they still can give. Sometimes, each of us have forgotten that they are talking to themselves alone as if our spouses are not our own body. We overemphasize ourselves in the family forgetting that we are part of it. We often keep on reminding our spouses that we are the head of the family, we are achieving heights in our career, we are smarter and having better decision making, and the list goes on. Mostly we don't just overemphasize it, moreover, we compare it to our less dominant spouses. You are not the head of this family, you are not doing great in your worthless job, you are always having failures in your decisions, you are just a mess and I DON'T NEED YOU! We are continuously telling these proudly things to win something else with our spouses and left nothing but degrading arrogance in their ear. Where is the Love between spouses' lips? Where is the acceptance that both has agreed from the first day of our marriage.

In verse 22 says "on the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential." God has accepted us despite of continuous sinful acts of men, and so as to the couples, that we should keep on accepting each other's faults, indifferences, failures, and weaknesses. We all fall short to the glory of God and not worthy of His mercy, indeed. But God loves the church, therefore, He offered Jesus to redeem it. God wants every family to accept one another in unity. He is not asking us to be uniformed, he just want us to simply be united. Acceptance is the initial step. Accept that one is the head of the family, the other is the light of the family; the one gives the financial support, the other gives hands-on care and emotional support to the family; the one give great ideas in decision-making, the other one contributes to the decision for consideration; and so on and on. Acceptance is simply the key to avoid any conflicts to arise in the family, therefore start to destroy any arrogance to live continuously within your family. 

Individually vs. Family. As individual, we always wanted to compete with our peers or with the others. We hunger for superiority over the others even inside the family's house. Husband or Wife longs to be respected simply because they are superior. Corrections is often prohibited resulting to self destruction rather than reconstruction of what faults we knew. Because we are human and like the other creatures of the world, we need to survive. But God is calling for the unity to value each other no matter what we are capable of. God requires us, indeed, to share of our greater capacity to the lesser able member of a family. Example in general are: a husband's physical strength  can lend a hand to the wife in doing strenuous works requiring physical strength, a wife cooks a good meal for the family to enjoy to feed the hungers, kids (though they do not know) soothes the parents tiring day when they see their sweet  hugs and kisses, and many more. Our bigger self, therefore,  must fill-up the scarcities of the others in the same case.

As the passage in verses 23-24 says "and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our unpresentable members are clothed with dignity, but our presentable members do not need this..." The right-handed man painter, though he mostly uses his right hand to create his masterpiece as it holds the paintbrush, there is always a left hand that holds the palette where he mixes his paint colours. The left hand job could be tiring, steady, still as it often moved which may suffer from stiff and unrecognized by the body itself. The right hand does the actual masterpiece like mixing of colours, applying the colours to the canvass, etc. But in the end, the praises and honours are received by master's hands regardless which side of the hands (either from left or right hand) did it as it comes from the same person. This what Paul exemplifies as verses 24-25 continue "... Instead, God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another."

The family is known to what the family member has contributed to one another. If the elder son graduated on his university study with flying colours, the parents are praised as well for nurturing the child growth and their influences to their child probably. If the husbands were promoted, the whole family are very glad and rejoicing though they are not the one promoted. Because whatever part of the body feel, the whole body will feel the same. In verse 26 tells us that "If one member suffers, everyone suffers with it. If a member is honoured, all rejoice with it." Therefore, desire to give honour to each other and to the whole family rather than to give them sufferings. Be united as the Lord has commanded us, for that also gives honour to Him, our Saviour, who redeem us to be part of His Body (the church) as He is the Head of the church (the body).

God bless everyone!!!