GRADUATION ADDRESS AT
AYO NI CELESTIAL SEMINARY
LAGOS, 1989 (?)Reading: Eph 4:1-16
Our gather today in the name of Jesus Christ is a visible demonstration of his living Church. The Father's eternal plan is to gather into his Church by the end of time all his chosen ones, "from Abel the just one to the last of the elect" (Lumen Gentium, n. 2). He prepared this Church by forming a people in the Old Testament and brought it into being by sending his Son, "the firstborn of many brothers". Lifted up from the earth - by his cross and resurrection - he draws all men to himself (cf. Jn 12:32). On Pentecost he sent his Spirit to continue invisibly but powerfully his own presence among us.
1. Therefore Paul appeals to us to hold fast to our unity with Christ in the Church: "I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you." Even though he could command his readers, he prefers to appeal to their love for him as a friend in need, who is suffering imprisonment for their sake (cf. 2 Cor 1:6; Eph 3:13) and for the sake of the Lord. "Lead a life worthy of the vocation to which you were called." God himself calls us "from darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Pet 2:4). This is why we must "Lead a life acceptable to him in all its aspects (Col 1:10), "behaving in a way that is worthy of the gospel" (Phil 1:27).
2. "With all humility" (cf. Phil 2:3; Jn 4:6): This excludes pride, which is the desire to lord it over others and be subject to no one. It causes strife in society and take away peace. "And gentleness": This excludes anger, which moves people to offend their neighbours by words or deeds and stirs up trouble. "And with patience" (cf. Jam 1:4; Heb 10:36): This excludes arrogance, which is the inability to put up with the inconveniences that others cause us or try to put in our way. "Support each other in love": This excludes fanaticism, whereby people try to correct everything according to their own view, without regard to the proper time and place, and thereby cause confusion in society. Love moves us to put up with others' shortcomings, not from neglect or connivance or because we fear to spoil a friendship, but because we mercifully wait for a good opportunity to make a correction (cf. Gal 6:2; Rom 15:1).
3. "Take care to preserve the unity of the Spirit". This is the aim of Paul's exhortation. This unity is for good, not a conspiracy of evil. Jesus prayed, "May they be one as we are one" (Jn 17:11). How is unity guaranteed? "By the peace that bond you together." Love is certainly a bond of friendship, but it presupposes peace which, in turn, presupposes justice. Peace is nothing other than a calmness resulting from everything being in its proper place.
4. "There is one Body," which is the Church, made up of all its members, and "one Spirit," the Holy Spirit who gives the Church its life; this one Spirit could also refer to the harmony that prevails among those who are one in faith and love. "Just as one hope is the goal of your calling." The reason for our unity is that we are going to the same eternal reward which we will share together (cf. Heb 3:1; 1 Cor 1:26; 1 Pet 3:10; Rev 19:9). So we should be companions on the way.
5. The unity of the Church is not physical but, as in civil society, is a bond between a multitude of distinct members. The unity of a country is shown through a single head of state, a single body of laws, a single flag and a single common good. "There is one Lord," Jesus, who is the head of the Church (cf. 1 Cor 8:6); so there should be no rival loyalties. "One faith": This is the law of the Church (Rm 3:27), since we are to believe in the same teachings and behave according to the same norms. "One baptism": this is the flag or sign of becoming a member of the Church, and the first of the sacraments. Our baptism is one because whoever the minister may be, it is Christ who makes our baptism effective by giving us the Holy Spirit (Jn 1:33). We are also baptized in the name of the same Trinity. Baptism is also one because it cannot be repeated. Even if we sin or fall from the faith and return we can only go through repentance and reconciliation, because the character or sign of baptism remains indelible on our soul (cf. Heb 6:4; Rm 6:4).
6. "And one God and Father of all": God himself is the common good and goal of the Church (1 Cor 15:24), who will be our complete happiness when we see him face to face. His is s"over all" by the greatness of his divinity, "through all" by his power (cf. Lk 10:22) and "in all" by his grace. It can also be said that the Father is over all, the Son through all, and the Spirit in all.
7. Paul has shown how Church unity should prevail over arguments drawn from selfishness. He goes on to show how it should prevail within the diversity of gifts that each of us has. "On each one of us God's favour (or charism) has been bestowed." Everyone of us has a share in God's grace and love, for our own benefit and the service of others. "From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace" (Jn 1:16). But this grace is not given to all equally and uniformly, but "in whatever way Christ allotted it" (cf. Rm 12:6). This difference is not from Oria destiny or by chance, or from our own merit, but from Christ's choice in measuring out his grace. Only he has received "the Spirit without reserve" (Jn 3:34); all others receive it in a limited way (cf. Rm 12:3; 1 Cor 3:8; Mt 25:15). It is up to Christ to give or not to give, to give more or less and to give one grace rather than another, although he offers to al the basic gift of his love.
8. To illustrate what he said, Paul quotes from Psalm 68:18: "He went up to the heights and took captives;" then, instead of the original "He received gifts from men," Paul says, "He gave gifts to humanity." This is a freedom of interpretation that Paul inherited from the Jewish rabbis. They applied the passage to Moses who went up Mt. Sinai and came down with the gift of the Law. Christ ascended not alone, but took and continues to take with him a multitude of people who once were slaves of sin and Satan but now are liberated to become "slaves of uprightness" (Rm 6:18); cf. Lk 5:10). As God, he distributes gifts (2 Pet 1:14), but as man, as the Psalm original says, he receives gifts: "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me" (Mt 25:40).
9. "When it says, 'he went up,' it must mean that he had gone down to the deepest levels of the earth." In contrast to Moses, Jesus first descended from heaven, the Word of God taking on a human nature, before he returned to his Father. His descent was to this world, where he took on the form of a servant (Phil 2:7), but also to the underworld, Sheol of the Old Testament (cf. Nm 16:33), where the dead were kept waiting until Jesus would lead those of them who were worthy into the presence of God (cf. 1 Pet 3:19).
10. "The one who went down is none other than the one who went up." The Word and Son of God who came down to take on a human nature is the same Jesus and Son of Man who ascended to immortal life (cf. Jn 3:13). Likewise we ourselves by humbly taking the last place will find ourselves exalted (cf. Lk 14:11). He went up "above all the heavens," physically symbolizing his spiritual ascendancy over "every principality, ruling force, power or sovereignty" (Eph 1:20). He went up "to fill all things": Through his gifts Jesus is present and active in all of us.
11. "And to some, his gift was that they should be apostles" (cf. Lk 6:13). The apostles are given the first place her and in 1 Cor 12:28. According to Markus Barth, (1) the term "apostle" is used in these passages and in Eph 2:20 & 3:5 in the narrow sense of the twelve apostles and Paul, who were still living (cf. also Acts 1:26; 2:37; Mt 10:2; Gal 1:1,17,19; 1 cor 9:1-2; 15:7; Rev 21:14). Elsewhere in the New Testament the term "apostle" is used in a wider sense: every witness of the resurrected Christ and anyone delegated by the Church for missionary work can bear the title of apostle (Rm 16:7; 2 Cor 8:23). The New Jerusalem Bible takes even the references in Eph and 1 Cor 12:28 in the wide sense of those sent to preach the gospel. (2)
It is unquestionable that the Twelve and Paul have an authority that no others have, because they not only had personal experience of the Lord, but also received a revelation of the divine mysteries which enabled them to express clearly and authoritatively what was still unclear before Jesus' resurrection. This teaching was handed down in the Church, and the successors of the apostles cannot add to it, although they can come to understand it more clearly with the guidance of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 14:26) as time goes on.
"Some were to be prophets." These are New Testament prophets, whose function was not merely to predict, as in the case of Agabus (Acts 11:28), but above all to apply the gospel to specific contemporary circumstances and to announce the coming of God's kingdom and the joys of the life to come (cf. Rev 1:3). This verse assumes that the Church at all times needs the witness of apostles and prophets. There is not the faintest hint that the charismatic character of Church ministries was restricted to apostolic times and was later to die out, as Calvin maintained when he tried to refute the Catholic doctrine that apostolic authority was handed on to the bishops and the pope. If Christianity were to become purely evangelical - that is, guided by the Bible alone - and not pentecostal, it would be no different from Islam, where prophecy is closed and any ongoing divine inspiration or divinely appointed teaching authority is absent. The Catholic and Aladura churches stand out in holding that the Spirit is alive and active in all the faithful and in a particular way in its appointed teachers and pastors. There are also prophets and visionaries in the Church today, but to the extent that they have a public role to play they are the more subject to the scrutiny and discernment of Church authorities. The main criterion of judgement is whether these prophesies are in harmony with the teachings of the Church received from Christ and the first apostles.
"Some were to be evangelists," that is, preachers of the gospel to new peoples. In 2 Tim 4:5 a bishop is exhorted to "do an evangelist's work." The task resembled and continued that of apostles, but seemingly on a narrower scale.
"Some were to be pastors and teachers." The principal role of a pastor is to teach the faith and the norms of good behaviour. The management of temporal affairs does not belong to a pastor but to deacons (Acts 6:2). In 1 Tim 3:2 and Titus 1:9 it is stipulated that a bishop must be "an apt teacher", "able to give instruction in sound doctrine". For the secondary function of administration see 1 Cor 12:28-29 & Rom 13:6-8.
The New Testament uses many different terms to describe functions and offices in the Church. Their meaning is not constant, and this reflects a development going on in different ways in the different local churches. Therefore we should not attempt to absolutize the meaning of these terms and transfer them to the present day, oblivious of the development they went through in New Testament times and afterwards in the Church.
By the time of Ignatius of Antioch at the end of the first century the offices of bishop, priest and deacon were clearly demarcated and these handled the functions of the various titles outlined in the New Testament. The Church was never fundamentalist in the sense of slavishly delineating offices to correspond with each and every New Testament title. Rather it was pragmatic, adapting to the evolving situation of an expanding Christianity, because it had the confidence of being guided by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables the Church to be progressive and not a slave of the past, yet it remains always faithful to Christ and discards nothing that Christ left it.
12. "To knit God's holy people together for the work of service." All have some service to do inside and outside the Church. This is "to build up the Body of Christ" by converting unbelievers and by bringing believers to maturity of faith and love.
13. "Until we all reach unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God." This unity will be perfect when we reach the next life where faith gives way to the vision of God. It begins here and now as we mature in faith and love. As his mystical body, the Church will "form the perfect Man". The word "man" is not meant to exclude women, but the state of childish immaturity (cf. 1 Cor 14:20; Gal 4:1). The Church will be "fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself." He is the head, and therefore the model of perfection for the rest of his mystical body.
14. The final threat to Church unity is unorthodox teaching. Against that Paul says, "Then we shall no longer be children" (cf. 1 Cor 13:11; 14:20) or "tossed one way and another, and carried hither and thither by every new gust of teaching." Wrong teaching originates in human ambition which does not scruple at using deceit to gain high posts. So Paul says: "at the mercy of all the tricks people play" (cf. 2 Cor 11:3). "Their unscrupulousness in deliberate deception" spreads error and entrenches it in a society or sect (cf. 2 Tim 3:13).
15. On the other hand, "if we live by truth and love," not just having but doing what is right (cf. 1 Tim 4:16; Jam 1:22; Rm 2:13), and doing it in love which gives any action its value (cf. 1 Cor 16:13; 13:3), "we shall grow completely into Christ" (cf. 1 Pet 2:2), that is, in every spiritual way (cf. 1 Cor 10:31; 11:2), "who is the head" of his Body, the Church.
16. "By whom the whole Body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength" - Here we realize that every part is necessary and honourable (cf. 1 Cor 12:16) - "for each individual part to work together according to its function." The Church is not its full self by simply being joined to Christ its head, but by its operation, just like a car is not its full self sitting in a garage, but when it is on the road. So faith and love must show themselves in action as each part of the Body contributes to the benefit of the whole. So "the body grows until it has built itself up in love" (cf. Eph 6:21; 1 Cor 3:9; 8:1).
1. Anchor Bible, I, p. 314, & II, p. 437.
2. Note b on Rm 1:1.