now open your arms / pick up your head / & open your eyes
A sermon on Jesus' radicalizing of theology:
We chose the name Unity because it was what God has done among us. Isn’t it? God took both our congregations and made us one out of them. God did this through collaboration. And God did this through combustion, too.
But, through it all, God was with us. God was walking alongside us. God was leading us. God was uniting us.
We also chose the name Unity because it’s our hope and prayer that God would continue to work unity among us, too. Isn’t it? As far as God has carried us, we all know there is still more unifying to be done. There are bonds to deepen. AND there are new friendships to form, too. Aren’t there?
Plus, there’s the ardent desire that God wouldn’t just unite us with one another. We all long for this unity to grow. Don’t we? The church is not a self-satisfied, exclusive social club. Is it? No, the church, if it is true to its inception, is a community that is always reaching out.
Paradoxically, what makes a Christian community a community that is Christian is that it has no definite form! You can never say this is who comprises the church’s membership. Can you? Christ doesn’t close the church’s rolls! Therefore, the church’s composition is never fixed! And, in fact, it’s that very amorphousness that constitutes the church’s distinctive makeup!
Ultimately, unity isn’t just a name! Is it? No, unity is our aspiration! And still, unity is more! Unity is our raison d’être! Unity is our very reason for existence itself!
And what a grand one it is, too. Our ambition is for unity! Our ambition is to be a place where everyone HAS a place! Our ambition is that great yearning of all humanity, the yearning for peace and harmony!
Unity. Yeah. That’s what we’re about. Unity.
…But, as inspiring as that is, and it is inspiring, the real glory is that, for us at least, unity isn’t just a purpose. Is it? No, unity is what God is doing! Unity has theological underpinnings!
And that’s why this is also true: both of our heritages gesture toward unity! Check this out! Unity is what the Trinity is! And unity is what faith is made of, too! Let me say that again. Unity is what the Trinity is! And unity is what faith is made of, too!
I know those are unusual sentences. But the astonishing assertions of Christianity force us to bend the rules of grammar here. In truth, it’s the very peculiarity of those sentences that conveys their theological truth! Unity is what the Trinity is! And unity is what faith is made of, too!
Unity, as it turns out, is one of the most theologically loaded terms there is! After all, what else is fellowship, if not the delight in those bonds of Christian unity? What else is mission, if not that ever-widening circle of unity between God and God’s people? What else is the forgiveness of sins, if not the reestablishment of unity between God and God’s wayward creatures? What else is that most intimate language, prayer, if not stepping out on that unity and beseeching God for more of it? And what else is this, the divine service, if not that sacred pull of unity between God, God’s people, and the rest of creation, too?!?
In fact, unity, as we’ve said, is the very nature of God Thyself! Unity is what the holy Trinity is! God is not a separate Father, and a separate Son, and a separate Holy Spirit. No, the holy Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit united! Three persons in one! The Trinity is that holy unity between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
And this unity goes even deeper! Unity goes to the very heart of Christ himself! Jesus Christ is fully GOD and FULLY human, too! Jesus is NOT part human and PART God. No, Jesus is human and God FULLY united! And that is why Christ is our rebirth back into a restored existence in union with God, too!
But that’s not all! Unity is also what the Holy Spirit is, too! The Holy Spirit is the bond of unity BETWEEN the Father and the Son itself! The lovely theological word is perichoresis! As in, the choreography! The Holy Spirit, then, is the spirit of that eternal dance between the Father and the Son! And in the Holy Spirit you were sealed in at your baptism; you get to join that party and get down yourself!
Unity, finally, isn’t just a notion. And it’s not just an aspiration, either. Is it? No, unity is the very essence of God! AND unity is the very essence of the community of God’s people, too! You didn’t know you were choosing such a rich and profound THEOLOGICAL word when you chose Unity. Did you?
…But what if we didn’t? What if unity WASN’T our idea? What if unity was God’s idea? The truth is, the evidence is there. Isn’t it?
We did all sorts of things to identify a name. And none of them were very satisfying. Were they? And then, one day, Unity just floated to the surface.
Who knows where it came from? But one day, the name Unity was tossed around. And it just sort of stuck! Didn’t it?
Without a whole lot of folderol, Unity got put out there to the congregation. And somehow, our congregation, which I’ve often compared to a herd of cats, miraculously coalesced around the name Unity! Didn’t we? It was just right. Wasn’t it? Unity.
This is how unity ALWAYS happens, too! At least, that’s how it goes for God’s people. Oh sure, unity is always an aspiration of the church. But when is actually happens, the only logical explanation is that God up and done it!
And that’s a good thing, too. Unity may be a little word, but it’s a big concept. Isn’t it? Unity is too grandiose for us.
We can’t pull off unity by ourselves. Can we? No, we cannot. Unity doesn’t come naturally to us.
Unity is hard. It’s hard to have with others. And it goes without saying that unity is hard to have with God. Why, unity is so hard for us that it’s even challenging to have with ourselves! Isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I spend more time than I care to admit being at odds with myself!
Unity, every time it happens, is nothing less than a miracle! Yes, Unity may be our namesake. But unless God, the power of unity itself, forms the bond, we will never have any lasting or meaningful unity. Will we? And Christ himself says as much in today’s Scripture, too!
…In today’s Scripture, a scribe, a religious scholar, comes up to Jesus and asks him a straightforward question. What is the most important commandment? This was a common question. Given all the laws, there was a natural desire to identify the most important ones to filter all the others through.
Jesus doesn’t answer in a straightforward way, though. Does he? No, he does not! Instead of giving one answer, Jesus gives two! What’s more, Jesus’ answer begins not with a commandment but a confession! The Lord is one.
This confession, on the lips of Jesus, is doing double duty. When Christianity and Judaism split, one of the accusations was that Christians failed to honor the strict monotheism of Judaism. Instead of worshipping one God, Christians worshipped two! By making Christ coequal with God, Christians introduced another God alongside the one and only God!
As Christians came to discover, though, Christ didn’t undermine God’s unity. On the contrary, Christ is the radical intensification of God’s unity! In Christ, God’s unity ceases to be a fixed and stable concept. Instead, in Christ, unity is what GOD does! Let me say that again: Unity is what GOD does!
God’s unity is not an idea. No, at its substance, God’s unity is an action! And in Christ, God is so singularly set upon this sacred action that it actually transpires! In Christ, God’s unity HAPPENS at long last!
In Christ, God’s unity occurs in time and space! In Christ, the divine unity enacts itself in history! In Christ, the divine unity happens so fully that it overflows itself! In Christ, God’s unity bursts through that great chasm between God’s perfect eternity and THIS broken and imperfect world!
Salvation is not just rescuing you from Sin and Death. No, salvation is restoring you to GOD—and so to righteousness and life, too! When the church declares the entire forgiveness of all your sins, the church is not merely spouting off some nice idea. NO, when the church declares the entire forgiveness of all your sins, the church is, on the authority of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, applying the unity of God thyself to YOU! Salvation, like unity, is not a pleasing notion. No, salvation is the very action of God’s unity itself happening to you!
That’s why Jesus’ answer, despite being anything but straightforward, is just right! Only Jesus could answer the question of which commandment is the greatest with a confession AND two commandments! After all, in Christ, it’s all united! But best of all, in Christ, this confession and command actually take place!
In Christ, God’s unity really happens TO you! In Christ, you are bonded WITH God! And in Christ, you are bonded with your neighbor, too! In Christ, loving God and loving neighbor go together like inhaling and exhaling!
…Unity, dear sisters and brothers in Christ, is what we’re all about! And it’s what God is making US into, too! But I know I dove deep into the theological waters here. And I’m sorry, too. But I just want to show that the scaffolding is all there!
We’re not making this up as we go! On the contrary, unity is what God IS doing amongst us! Unity is what we ARE! Unity is what God has given to us! And unity is what we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, get to share with each other and anyone else you darn well please, too!
Unity isn’t just a theological foundation. Is it? No, it’s our basis. In fact, unity is really the only thing we have. Isn’t it?
All this can fall by the wayside, and we’ll be alright. We already know that. Don’t we? But if we lose our bond—if we lose our bond with each other and our bond with God, if we lose that, we’ve lost it all. Haven’t we?
And I really mean it all, too! There’s no such thing as a solitary Christian. Is there? It’s in our communal worship that we’re actually MADE into Christians! And it’s in our fellowship that Christ has chosen to show up to us and get to work ON us over and over again! Isn’t it?
But this means there’s nothing left to do but to do God’s unity to you! Get ready because here it comes: In your baptism, your former life estranged FROM God has come to a decisive END once and for all! And NOW, you live and move and have your being in CHRIST himself!
Your life is now hidden IN Christ! You draw your breath this very instant from the one who is fully God and fully human! And this Christ, he isn’t just your life. No, he is also FOR you what he is in himself! Christ is YOUR very UNITY with God!
And Christ is also your unity with everyone else, too! In fact, Christ is even your unity with your very self! If God, in Christ, has seen fit to die for you, who are you to feel differently about yourself?!? And in this incredible unifying love, you are set free!
You can now extend this unity, or love, to anyone! You can extend it to that difficult coworker. You can extend it to that estranged friend. And you can even extend it to that loved one for whom affection has grown cold, too!
…And here’s the sweet part I alluded to way back at the beginning of the sermon: In faith, it’s all yours! Yes, Christ has already given you the goods. But it’s that faith the Holy Spirit gives you that’s bold enough to take up this blessed unity and put it to good use!
So what are you waiting for?! Get out there and try it out! You won’t believe just how good it can get! This blessed unity will make a modern mystic out of you yet! This sacred unity knows no bounds! And that’s the better part of most of the fun!
In Christ, you and I get to apply this miraculous unity to a world that appears to be tearing apart at the seams! Sure, we’re out of our depth here. But that’s the adventure! And the sheer thrill is witnessing the Holy Spirit working THROUGH us DESPITE us!
And there’s reason to expect it, too. Isn’t there? God’s already done it amongst us! Hasn’t God? So, what reason do you and I have to believe that God will stop? That’s a rhetorical question if you can’t tell. The answer, plainly, is none.
If God has done all this with us, just imagine what else God can do! Well, don’t JUST imagine it! Get out there and find out for yourself! Discover what happens! If Christ is to be trusted, and he is to be trusted, nothing less than the weal and wellbeing of life between his two advents is at stake.
Blessedly, we don’t have to figure this out on our own. The church offers us a roadmap! And one of the most direct routes is praise! In thanksgiving, we learn the groove of grace and footwork of faith!
Our hymn of the day is from that new hymnal, the purple one, All Creation Sings. The hymn number is 966. The tune is familiar, too. It comes from Holden Evening Prayer, the Magnificat. The hymn is Loaves Were Broken, Words Were Spoken. Hymn number 966. Let’s sing!
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