One People

"We the citizens of Singapore pledge ourselves as one united people .....". In the weeks leading to National Day, our national pledge was telecast over and over again. I thought the tele-clip on the national pledge was very well done. It was refreshing to be reminded of the words which I used to recite in my schooldays but had somewhat forgotten after I left school.

But I also have a tinge of sadness - that we need a national pledge to keep our people of different race, language and religion united. I suppose as a young nation built by immigrants from all over the world and their descendants, a pledge is a necessity to develop and reinforce our allegiance to the country that we call home.

In the larger family of God, people of different race, language and status are "one in Christ Jesus", being "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female" (Galatians 3:28). As children of God, we are brothers- and sisters-in-Christ, regardless of whether we are red or yellow, black or white. The people of God are united, not by a pledge, but by the seal of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:13, Ephesians 1:13-14).

The Apostle Paul aptly illustrates the unity in Christ with the body and its many parts (1 Cor 12:12, 14-26). The foot, ear, eye, nose, head, etc all belong to one body and have need of one another. "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it."

I particularly like a Peanuts cartoon which echoes Paul's illustration. In the cartoon, Snoopy calls attention to the whole “gang” (body) to go jogging and different body parts then claim attention/credit. The conversation among the body parts goes like this:

"Now, hear this!"
"Body components, attention! Okay, gang, we're all going jogging!"
"What's this? If the feet don't go, none of us goes!"
"Now, look here, feet! The rest of us wants to go jogging so let's get with it!"
"All right, feet .. on your feet!"
"You guys are always complaining .. we ears can hear you way up here!"
"Besides, it's us legs who really do the running ..."
"All I know is, running is hard on the back ... Backs should be home in bed ..."
"How about noses? I hate jokes about running noses!"
"Lips are made for kissing, not running ... We need more kissing ..."
"I'm hungry!"
"Ha! I knew the stomach would start complaining pretty soon! We arms never complain."
"That's a laugh! If it isn't bursitis, it's tennis elbow! We still say it's we feet who do all the work ..."
"You think it's easy being a finger?" "Ha! Just try being an elbow sometime!"
"How can the long-distance runner ever get lonely?"

"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ." (1 Cor 12:12)