Dr Marina Ngursangzeli Behera, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, reflects on Ephesians 4 and how Christ represents all of us.
Marina's reflection marks the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and comes as part of a suite of resources from our world mission partners for this Epiphany season. You can watch Marina on YouTube or read her reflection below.
One body, one spirit, one hope
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, my name is Marina Ngursangzeli Behera, and I'm a Presbyterian from Northeast India and for a little over eight years have been working at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, OCMS. I've been invited to reflect on the theme of the week: one body, one spirit, one hope, called to maintain unity in the bond of peace.
This theme is based on Ephesians chapter 4 verses 4 to 6:
"There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."
I experience some of what is called for in these verses at OCMS.
A global fellowship
Our community at OCMS is made up of people from many Christian traditions and backgrounds, a truly global fellowship. Many of our doctoral candidates would be called cross-cultural missionaries in the traditional sense. They live and work outside the cultures in which they were raised.
In such a context, the question we often grapple with are:
- How do we do theology in ways that are relevant to the place we find ourselves in?
- How does that place reshape the theology we have brought with us?
- And how do these theologies engage one another, African with British and British with those emerging from places such as the Philippines or Cambodia?
These questions cannot be answered from a single tradition or even a single location. It requires dialogue, and that dialogue only flourishes when we recognise that we are part of one body, animated by one spirit, held together in one home.
A time of meeting
Earlier, Christian unity was often discussed within large seemingly unified traditions. Church was here, mission was over there - yet mission itself has contributed to a beautifully mixed body of Christ, just as migration. Nowhere is this more evident than here in Oxford and its surroundings, where a multitude of denominations and expressions of faith coexist alongside people of other faiths. We no longer live in a time when mission is just about sending. We live in a time of meeting, of many expressions of Christian faith and practice, sharing the same space.
We confess we are one body, but we also know how easily confessional boundaries align with political ones, sometimes even becoming complicit in division or conflict, as we have seen in situations like in the Ukraine conflict.
Closer to home, even within our churches, we struggle with the differences in how faith is expressed. For some, worship must be loud and expressive. For others, it is silent, meditative. These are not just stylistic differences. They reflect different ways of life, different spiritual rhythms, different experiences of the world, and different dialects of faith. It is in this diversity that unity is most tested and most needed, so that the one body of Christ is a living witness to the environment.
How Christ represents us
I believe that too often we focus on how we represent Christ in our traditions, our theologies, and our worship style. Ephesians 4 can encourage us to reflect less on how we represent Christ and more on how Christ represents us. Christ does not represent only the ones who get it right or who worship the way we do.
Christ represents all of us: those who pray aloud, those who whisper, those who sing in other languages, and those who carry their faith quietly. And if we truly believe this, then unity is not something we manufacture, it is something we receive.
Grace has been given
As we continue to verse 7, in Ephesians 4, we read:
"But to each one of us, grace has been given, as Christ apportioned it."
In this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, may we remember we are one body, not because we always agree, but because we belong to the one who holds us all. May we make space not only for one another's fate, but for one another's lives. And may we let Christ represent us so that through our differences, the spirit may still speak peace. Thank you.
More like this
Find more reflections and collects from our world mission partners to use through Epiphany and beyond.