One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism
Ephesians 4:5
 
By now, we are knee-deep in Ephesians, and by now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that it is all about unity. The writer of Ephesians is trying to make sure that those in the early church understood how important it was to “make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  Ephesians 4:3

It’s a lesson the whole church could learn from and indeed the whole world.

The Olympics are also about unity. The symbol of those games has five intersecting rings to demonstrate the entire world coming together.
 
The five rings stand for the five continents. Now I was taught that there are seven continents, but for the Olympics, they are counting Europe, Asia, Africa, America (both South and North together) and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). I suppose Antarctica gets left off because no one really lives there, other than the penguins.

If it were up to me (which it is not), I would redo the logo with seven rings, maybe adding a purple and yellow one on the top of the five. But I suppose that’s not going to happen any time soon.  And even if more people wanted seven rings instead of five, it would take a long time to get used to the change.

So, for now, I’ll let the symbol work – a symbol of unity in the midst of wars and bloodshed and all the other things that are tearing the world apart.

And I’ll also keep the unity proclaimed in the Book of Ephesians, although we all know that the church has been anything but unified.

Symbols and ideals are always necessary. They call us to something more than we are, beg us to live in new ways, and at least for a moment, help us to consider a not yet realized but possible goal.

I pray for the peace and unity of the church. I pray for peace and unity for the current Olympic games in Paris. And I pray that all of us would find more ways to see what we have in common, rather than what divides us.

In Christ,

Pastor John D. Morris