Ephesians 4:1-16: Unity as Action and the Goal of Our Growth

Sixteen verses of Paul usually offers a lot of fodder for sermons, Bible studies, or blogs.  In this particular passage, there are two things that really stand out to me.

Unity as Action:
It's easy to think of unity as something that either exists or doesn't exist, either we are united or we aren't.  While this may to be true to some extent, I think such a simplistic view masks the deeper reality of what it means to be unified.  We don't go from being united to disunited in a single move, but rather it is generally a series of moves that erodes our togetherness.  I came to this realization as I read the first three verse of Ephesians 4:
"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (italics mine)
I am not sure that I have ever thought of myself as being eager to maintain unity.  Usually unity becomes a casualty because of the very fact that we are not eager to maintain it.  It isn't that we dislike unity, but if we have to choose between having things our way and unity, unity seems to almost always lose out.
So how do we maintain unity?  An interesting example of what it means to maintain unity can be found in our own history as a nation.  In 1764, leaders from various American colonies began setting up committees of correspondence to establish a unified response to new British economic policies that many saw as oppressive.  The key here is the year, 1764.  That's six years before the Boston Massacre, and nine years before the Boston Tea Party.  It's also a full twelve years before American independence would be declared in 1776.  The early American patriots sought to establish and maintain unity long before they ever thought of declaring independence.  I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't spent years laying the groundwork that they did.  Could they have ever hoped to accomplish such a momentous task as successfully rebelling against the most power empire on earth?
It seems to me that the church has gotten into the practice of taking unity for granted.  Far from being eager to maintain it, we usually assume that it will just happen.  If we really want unity to be a reality in our churches and among our churches, we should take Paul's advice and show the same eagerness in maintaining our unity in Christ that we show in maintaining the physical things we make use of everyday, including our bodies.  The best way to think of unity is as an action, rather than as a state of being. 

The Goal of our Growth:
The other thing in this passage that really stands out is that Christ is the goal of our growth.  Paul puts it this way:
"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 (italics mine)
Have you ever seen a baby with a really big head?  Of course you have, they all have really big heads!  Well, they can't exactly hold those big ole' watermelons up on their own at first, it takes time.  In fact, one of the milestones in a babies growth is when their neck muscles develop to the extent that they can control their head.  It's a natural process.  No one asks why the head doesn't shrink to the size of the babies body, because we know that eventually the body will grow into the head.
From what I can tell, the same thing is happening here.  Christ doesn't decrease in His perfection or nature in order to meet us where we are as a body, rather, we as a body are to grow into Christ who is our head.  With the working of the Spirit, the process should be as natural as that of a baby slowly growing into the over-sized head it's born with.  Don't get me wrong, we will never be equal partners with Christ in this venture.  But that is precisely the point.  By making Christ the goal, God has ensured that our growth will be continuous.  We will never reach a point where we as the body are perfectly proportioned, but that shouldn't stop us from trying.  When Christ is our goal, then baptism is the beginning, not the end of our journey to Christ-likeness.

It's only sixteen verses, but within those sixteen verses we are commissioned in a project that will span our entire lives (and then some), for unity will never come easy, and we will never look completely like Christ.  But then again, that's what makes the effort worthwhile.