There is a story
about a Baptist church in Kentucky some years ago that had a disagreement,
which led to a split. Half the
congregation left to begin a new church and the other half stayed behind to
continue with the existing church.
The new church needed a name, and those who remained in the original
church decided they should have a new name as well. I don’t know if they were aware of the irony in the choice
of the new names. One congregation
adopted the name Harmony Baptist Church and the other became Unity Baptist
Church.
Lest we laugh too quickly we should remember
that it is particularly ironic that, in
Disciples of Christ churches, we are part of a faith tradition that grew out of
a desire to lessen the fractured nature of the American church but which in
turn contributed three more groups to the numerous denominations that populate
American faith.
Why is it so hard to find unity and a sense of
oneness? Why do some churches have
such a hard time managing their differences? Why do some churches have such contentious
disagreements? Why are the times
in which we live so contentious, with so much disagreement and so much anger
and so much division? Well, the
simple answer is, that’s human nature.
Humanity has always suffered the ill effects of division and
contentiousness.
This morning we continue our four-part series
of messages titled Music of the Heart,
with each message based on a song.
This morning’s message is titled One
and is based on the song of the same name by the band U2. I love the music of U2. They have written a lot of classic
songs and one of the things I love about their music is the spiritual element that
is such a strong part of so many of their songs. They are very open about their Christian faith and it comes
through in many of their songs.
The Scripture text for today comes from John’s
gospel, where Jesus prays for his disciples, just before his arrest, and at the
heart of that prayer is his desire that the disciples be one.
John 17:11, 20-23
–
11 Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they
may be one, even as we are one.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me
through their word,
21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you,
that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have
sent me.
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be
one even as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that
the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
I imagine that the lack of unity must grieve
the heart of God, so let’s talk about unity. First, I want to say that –
1.
Unity is not uniformity.
A sense of oneness is at the heart
of our Scripture text for the day.
Near the end of John’s gospel is this long passage – one of the longest
passages of the words of Jesus in all the Gospels – in which Jesus expresses
many hopes, including that of bringing a sense of unity and oneness among his
followers.
In terms
of living up to that desire, we have not done very well, have we?
A good
deal of the problem, I believe, is our inability to live with diversity. Quite frankly, we don’t do very well
when it comes to tolerating our differences, especially our differences in
opinions. In our present political
and social context, it has become even more difficult to find any common ground
or to find even the common decency to talk kindly to one another. It seems to me, and I suspect many of
you would agree, that we have devolved into a group of competing camps that
seem only able to shout at one another.
One of my favorite lines in the song One is this – we’re one but we’re not the same. I really like that line. In fact, I love that line, because it reminds us that unity
is not uniformity. We are not the
same, and you know what? That’s
perfectly okay! I can’t imagine
what a world would be like in which we were all the same; if we all looked the
same, talked the same, thought the same, and acted the same. But so often we want everyone to be the
same. The desire for uniformity is
so powerful among humanity. When I
was in high school I sewed a patch onto my blue jeans. Back in the 70s that’s what we did – we
sewed patches onto our jeans. My
jeans looked a bit like the bumpers on some cars. You know those cars that have bumper stickers everywhere? That’s how my jeans looked – patches
everywhere, with different messages.
One of the patches said I’m a
nonconformist! Do you know why
I had that patch on my jeans?
Because everybody else had that patch on their jeans! There’s a lot of irony in expressing
our nonconformity through conformity!
So many churches struggle to live with diversity that they fall prey
to the temptation to enforce uniformity, which does little more than reduce
honesty and authenticity and reduces open and healthy communication. When I was finishing seminary I had an
interview with a church and I was very excited about the potential
opportunity. The second question I
was asked ended the interview. One
of the members of the committee asked me a question and I followed up their
question with one of my own. The
committee member, I will never forget, looked at me and said, it’s a simple question. It’s a yes or no answer. If you can’t answer with a yes or no
this interview is over. And
that was it. There was no veering
away from a strict uniformity in theological viewpoint. I don’t mind when people ask me
questions about what I believe, but I don’t like it if those questions are
asked to see if I believe “correctly.”
There is actually a move in some churches now
to ask their members to sign an agreement that they will hold to very specific
doctrinal viewpoints and interpretations of Scripture. I can guarantee you will never find
such a movement in our church! That
some people insist on uniformity – even insisting upon it – is very hard for me
to understand?
Some people make the mistake of believing that
uniformity is what brings about church unity, but it does not. Read I Corinthians 12:4-31. It is a passage in which Paul writes
about unity and he uses the analogy that the church – the body of Christ – is
like a physical body. Some people
are like the eye, others are like the hand, still others are like the ear, and
so on. In that analogy Paul makes
a fascinating point, as he writes that unity is not agreement, but each person
using their spiritual gift for the benefit of the church. It is the variety – the diversity – of
people that actually brings about unity, because the church needs a variety of
gifts, as well as a variety of perspectives, and ideas. Sometimes I call people in the
congregation and ask them to do certain things or to help me with certain
things because I don’t have a clue about how to do them. Imagine if we were all the same – what
would we do? Several years ago we
had to replace the fire alarm panel in the foyer. Mike Coleman chairs our Administration Committee and it is
amazing to me the store of knowledge he has about all things technical. Mike is an engineer, so he has the
engineer kind of mind. As we
talked about that panel in a meeting Mike was kind of wondering out loud about
some of technical aspects of that piece of equipment and said we needed to know
the factory default code to the panel to be able to program it. And he said something along the lines
of this – that particular part usually
comes from the factory programmed with such and such default code. Now, on a good day I can spell default, so I looked at Mike and asked, why would anyone know that? And Mike looked back at me with a
puzzled look as if to say, why wouldn’t
everyone know it? Thank
goodness he knew that information, as it sure simplified things for us, because
I didn’t have a clue.
We are fond of using the saying being on the same page. I will agree that it is important to
have agreement on some things, but not everything. We don’t need to be on the same page for everything. Imagine a one-page novel. It
was a dark and stormy night. The
winds howled and the rain raged.
Suddenly, the door blew open.
As Dave turned to face the open doorway, with rain pouring in, a flash
of lightening illuminated a figure that filled the doorway. Lightning flashed again, and Dave was
amazed as the light revealed the person to be…Sorry, I can’t tell you the
rest because it’s only one page and that’s the end of the page!
Here is a very important point about what
Scripture says about unity – it is not uniformity. Things might be simpler if we had more uniformity, but that
is obviously not God’s intent. The
sheer breadth and width of diversity within God’s creation is breathtaking!
2.
Unity is found in a common purpose.
I don’t know about you, but there are times I
wonder what it would be like to have the ability to travel back in time to
enjoy certain experiences. I would
love to have the ability to travel back in time to observe the disciples. They were a really interesting
mixture. I don’t believe Jesus did
anything by happenstance; I believe everything he did was for a very specific
reason, and that includes choosing a wildly diverse group of twelve
disciples. There is much I could
say about that this morning, but time constraints do not allow me so suffice it
to say this: for all the
differences between them – and there were very major differences – we don’t
read much about those differences in the gospels or get even much of a hint
about them. Only a few times do we
see the differences between them, and here is why, in my estimation – because
there was a common purpose that lifted them above their differences. Show me a church that is full of
conflict, dysfunction, and ill health and I will show you a church that either does
not know its purpose or has forgotten its purpose.
Unity of purpose is one of the great ways of
lifting our vision higher, and that is the problem with some churches – especially
unhealthy churches; they simply don’t set their sights high enough. When Jesus prayers over and over about
the oneness of his followers what he
is speaking of, I believe, is a unity of purpose, that we would have the same
purpose – the unity of purpose – that is demonstrated in the life and ministry
of Jesus. The purpose is to speak
of and to live the love of God.
Jesus spent every day – day in and day out –
for three years with his disciples.
Every day trying to plant into their hearts and minds the purpose of God
– to love one another, to be people of grace and forgiveness, to reach out to
those who are different than us, and to be a voice for the voiceless.
As different as the disciples were they shared
a common purpose that helped them to rise above their differences and to work
together to fulfill that purpose.
There were times that purpose was threatened by the differences. In the early church there was a great
deal of hesitation about welcoming the Gentiles who were pouring into the church. They didn’t think the same, they didn’t
dress the same, their backgrounds were very different, and some people, to put
it bluntly, didn’t want them in the church. Thanks goodness those people did not prevail. But there is always the danger of that
attitude taking over – “some” people are different, and we’re uncomfortable
around “those” people, so maybe we should welcome them into our fellowship.
3.
Being one is a testimony to the world about the power of God.
I find verse 21 to be somewhat unnerving. Did you notice the implication of what
Jesus prays in that verse? Listen
to it again –that they may all be one,
just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so
that the world may believe that you have sent me. Listen again to that last phrase – so that the world may believe that you have sent me. It sure sounds as though Jesus says the
world will believe – or disbelieve – in him depending upon our being one. That’s more than a little troubling,
isn’t it? Perhaps some of the
people who have turned away from the church have done so because they tired of
the contentiousness and division that fills some churches. Those of us who have spent a lot of
years in church have seen our share of such arguments. We’ve experienced the arguments over
the color of carpet, the design of a worship bulletin, and the style of music
used in worship. We all grow tired
of such arguments, don’t we?
Perhaps those who have turned away from the church simply had
enough.
Shouldn’t churches be different? Shouldn’t we, as the people of God,
remember that we are called to a higher standard and a way of living and
relating to one another that reflects God’s will that we be one? I
would like to think that churches would set a better example, but I am
sometimes disheartened at the amount of division in religious groups and
individual congregations. I fear
that instead of being an example to our culture, we are merely mimicking its
behavior, and much of that behavior is less than encouraging as it is divisive
and dismissive of people who are different in some way. I don’t know what Jesus would think
about the point at which we have arrived, but I don’t think it would bring him
any comfort or joy.
In the hyper-divided context in which we live, is their any hope of
creating a sense of unity around anything? I believe there is.
We don’t have to agree on every issue, but we can love one another. We don’t have to enforce a particular
doctrinal stance upon others, but we can love one another. We don’t have to look alike, act alike,
or believe alike, but we can love one another.
If we do so, we can certainly be one.
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