Part III of a five-part series.
With the spreading community, vocations and rites evolved to meet needs through practices inspired by God with the people consenting. In Frank Hawkins’ article on such early developments, Hawkins explains that we understand “that Church and ministry, by their virtue of their risen Lord, participate already in the eschatological reality of the Kingdom proclaimed by the gospel.” Hawkins goes on to say that this process is driven by “the desire to create and preserve unity through placing particular emphasis on the priority of the action of the Spirit.” These early developments are also with us today. Consider today’s ecumenical movement reflected in the World Council of Churches and interfaith dialogue that Anglicans are part of.
Here, Hawkins is picking up on the themes found in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 12. “…unity depends on more than the enthusiastic employment of the gifts of the Spirit. All such ‘charisms’ are indeed God-given, but there is also a God-given order in the assembly, and it is necessary to recognize, accept, and confirm particular charisms as well as giving particular priority to some.”
From our God-given charisms come the ordering of the baptized community’s shared life according to the Church’s teaching and preaching, such gifts that serve God and the common good of creation. The Letter to the Galatians 5:22-23 goes so far as to say that the gifts are recognized as fruits of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
And, writing from prison, Paul writes in the Letter to the Ephesians chapter four that “The gifts Christ gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”
The same chapter in Ephesians opens with the words so familiar to us that many Christian traditions recognize as opening the liturgy of Holy Baptism. “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” Notice how the wording situates the assembly in the eschaton that is God’s kingdom unfolding from the past to the here and now and forward. Why open the baptismal liturgy with these words? Perhaps the intent of these opening sentences at baptism is found in the next verse. “But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Such grace reminds us of God’s eminence and imminence.
