First, Paul says, "Watch carefully." I certainly have a new appreciation for those words after the wreck. When you have driven for 40 years without a wreck, as I had, you begin to assume you can drive your way out of any dangerous situation.
"Hurry Sickness is defined as a "modern malady caused by rushing about: a compulsion to do everything quickly, or a chronic feeling of being short of time, attributed to the fast pace of modern life and causing symptoms such as anxiety and insomnia" (Encarta - Dictionary).
Paul sums up that very idea in verse 8 when he says, "For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."Notice that this reference does not say, "You were IN darkness" but rather "You WERE darkness." Jesus put the idea this way in Luke 11:34.
See, if I found the most perfect greeting card that managed to say everything I wanted to say and expressed it in a beautiful, classy, funny way . . . it wouldn't mean one single bit unless Mark could look back over the last 15 years of his life and ALREADY KNOW WHAT I MEANT.
Because the Church consists of flawed and sinful people like us, there will always be disputes, disagreements and differences of opinion in the Church. It's not a sin to disagree! It's not ungodly to hold a position different from your neighbor, or your friends, or your spouse, or your pastor.
As the Apostle uses it, "grace" means "gift." And gift which never turns into possession. Nothing we can commandeer, take control of. It is perpetual gift. Like life itself. Hard to accept that, bathed as we are in a culture that exalts the autonomous individual.
Christians don't always get along. Catholics are at odds with Lutherans, Baptists struggle with Presbyterians, Episcopalians fight with everybody. And that's just between denominations; many congregations have factions that divide people over petty issues in their church. Paul says it shouldn't be this way.
To stand tall as people of faith like the giant Redwood trees, we need to be "intertwined with others in the faith"--and to include people who are different from ourselves. And hopefully, we will see the forest through the trees by seeing ourselves as a small, but vital part of a much larger faith community.
Robert Frost says "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." The message of Ephesians is a big AMEN! Are there still divisions that we experience in the church today? Unquestionably. Is there any real reason for them to continue? Paul says NO. Is it really possible? Experience says YES.
In 1961, J. B. Phillips published a little book entitled, Your God is Too Small. He could just as well have written, Your view of Christ is too narrow. We think of Jesus as one of us and that his kingdom looks something like a slice of Americana, only bigger.