One body. One spirit. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. One God. This seems pretty clear to me. We, in the Christian tradition are bound together in one. I might even go so far as to say we are bound to all children of One God, whether they call that one God Allah, or YHWH. One God. One body. One Faith. Of course, people who aren’t Christian aren’t united in one baptism. But I’m reminded of a saying from Episcopal Bishop John Spong, who wrote, “God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don't think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God.”
Perhaps I ascribe to a liberal bent of what God is, but I genuinely believe the best we can do is create a framework to contain the uncontainable, and understand the incomprehensible. I genuinely believe God is God. One God. One Spirit. One Body, regardless of how we have contextualized our understanding of God. I cannot know my understanding of God is right, any more than a devout, loving Muslim or Jew can know their understanding of God is right. It wouldn’t bother me if loving Jews thought I had it all wrong, but I certainly wouldn’t begin to suggest they do either. I know my understanding is right for me, and today, that’s all I need.
But even holding aside the issue of different faiths, I’d argue within our Christian faith, we struggle with being one Body, and understanding One Lord. Different denominations worship differently. Some are comfortable to me, some are not. But again, I don’t think one is right, or more right. One just speaks to my soul more, because of my human lived experience.
Beyond worship style, we Christians have deep divisions that I feel keep us from actually being One Body. If I genuinely believe we are one body, and that there is one God, I cannot concurrently say anything that puts conditions or caveats on that. We are all one body, if we all believe in X or Y. There is one God, and if you don’t ascribe to my understanding of that God, you aren’t in my understanding of One Body. Who are we to decide who’s in or out?
There is a human need for belonging. We create systems around us and treasure our sense of one-ness with others in that system. But by definition, a group not only defines who’s in, it defines who’s out. I think we do this for prehistoric safety. We were safe in our caves with our people, but we weren’t so safe when we left our group, or when strangers came to our group.
Maybe that’s what creates such deeply held beliefs about and held by Christians. I’ve been in groups with loving, liberal Christians who had horrible things to say about the 1%. I’ve been at places with loving, conservative Christians who had horrible things to say about LGBTQ. But if, as Christians, we believe in One God, One Body, and One Spirit, I don’t understand how loving Christians can define their God as excluding or not loving anyone.
This morning, I’m thinking about wealth, sexual preference, worship style and politics. Today, I want to think about One God, that includes and loves all. If I’m a part of that One Body, I want to do everything I can to assure that all members of the One Body know there is One God. There’s room at the table for us all.
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