Irish Proverbs – Of Unity and Strength

“Ni ceart go cur le cheile” – “There is no strength without unity”

There is a scene in Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” where the evil villains, the Grasshoppers, are chilling under their sombrero hangout when Hopper, the gang’s ringleader, hears grumbling about going back to Ant Island to gather “The Offering” from the puny ants.  Hopper jumps over to the bar in typical grasshopper fashion, grabs a seed from their large seed dispenser at the Grasshopper bar and throws it at the complaining party.  He asks the guilty one if it hurt (it did not), throws another seed (“are you kidding” being the response) and then releases the whole bunch of heavy seeds onto the whiner, crushing him.  The moral of this story?  “There was that ant who stood up to me … if one ant stands up, they all might stand up”.

Just as that one seed did not hurt the grasshopper, so Flick (that one brave ant) did not stand a chance alone.  Yet, Hopper knew something profound: if those thousands of ants in that colony decided to stand together, as one, unified (which they finally did) then his evil reign of terror would end (which it did).

Unity is a powerful thing.  One strand of string is easily broken, but if you were to twist dozens of strings together into a rope, that string would suddenly be much more difficult to break.  One vote is hardly enough to swing an election (usually), but if you get a majority to vote the same way, as one unified voice, then democratic power can and does assert itself.  Yet, unity is not simply about numbers.  There might be thousands of soldiers fighting in a battle, but if those thousands are not fighting for a unified purpose or goal and do not fight as one, then they are easily dispatched.

Just as unity is vital for ants, strings, voters and warriors, it is so for followers of Jesus as well.  We are one body, in Christ.  The Church, Jesus’ Bride, is not made up of a bunch of self-autonomous parts.  We are joined and knit together, a unified, redeemed Body.  Yet, “unity” can be, and in our pluralisticly philosophical and cultural milieu, often is, misleading.  Believers in Christ cannot be unified with those who deny the insanely radical and thoroughly exclusive nature of Christ and the Cross.  Believers in Jesus cannot be unified with those who call Jesus a god but who do not ultimately bow their collective knee in abject submission to the Lamb.  Believers in the very Son of God cannot be united with those who deny the everlasting Love of Jesus and Grace of God.  Yet, with true believers and followers of Jesus, the Christian IS unified and this unity finds it strength not in the collective might of those unified but in the One who is the Great Unifier.  This unity and strength is for His Glory and for our Good.  It is not just strong, it is everlasting.