Unity

by: Adam Stout

Owen was an orphaned baby hippo. When an earthquake in the Indian Ocean killed Owen’s mother, he was taken to a nature park for safekeeping. Owen was placed in Mzee’s pen as a temporary home. But Mzee wasn’t another hippo. Mzee was a 130-year-old tortoise. Owen began to follow Mzee around. And Mzee, rather than shrug off this young, foreign mammal, befriended him. What a pair: a mammal and reptile, hanging out together and acting like family!

It would have been just as unlikely to see Jews and Gentiles living as family. Jews and Gentiles were like water and oil; they didn’t mix. No one had heard of Jews and Gentiles coming to worship God together or having fellowship in the church. It simply wasn’t done. But when God brought Jews and Gentiles together in loving relationship, people took notice.

And people take notice today. When God’s people are segregated by race, age, social standing, or economic status, they look like the rest of the world. But when they cross lines and come together in unity, they fulfill Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that God would make us one. What can draw these “hippos” and “tortoises” together? Christians know that it is not our own power but the power of the Holy Spirit. Are we allowing the Spirit to forge new, diverse relationships in our lives?