True Unity
Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
Did you perhaps pickup on a common thread in today’s lessons –
on the importance of unity in forming community? This unity of
which we read is not a forced type of conformity but rather is built on
relationship that strengthens each person in the group and makes it
possible for the individual AND the group to grow and develop.
This is a unity, formed not by an imposed will, but by love for one
another, faith in God, and hope for the future.
From the Psalms to the Acts of the Apostles; from John’s epistle to John’s gospel, unity in faith appears as a primary issue.
We find a pattern, established early on in Genesis, of separating and
uniting. Adam and Eve are untied in God’s presence but opt for
independence and their sons are soon at enmity with one another.
God calls Abraham to leave Ur and become the father of a great
people. But we are immediately faced with the distrust and envy
that infects his grandchildren – Esau and Jacob.
Ultimately, God’s people are delivered from bondage in Egypt only to
find themselves put upon by various tribes in the land of Canaan.
When they come together, they are able to resist the advances of those
who would destroy them and push them out of the land of promise.
But they invariably go their “own ways” – “doing what is right in their
own eyes” is the way it is put…
They ask for a king so they might become a great nation – and so they
do, under Saul, David, and finally Solomon. But the cost of
imposed unity is too great and they find themselves divided once again
after Solomon passes from the scene.
Time and again, the people of God are called to come together as one
family but somehow manage always to find and focus on their
differences, dividing themselves from one another.
The 133rd Psalm falls near the end of the Songs of Ascents (Psalm
120-134). As a whole, these psalms create an image of a people
coming together from a wide range of place, economic status, interest,
and background to become one in their worship of God at his Holy Temple.
Jesus is recorded in the Gospel of Mark as having said, while teaching
about the impending defeat of evil by the turning of evil against
itself, that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
It is not surprising then that unity in faith and hope is the goal to
which Jesus calls the disciples when he gives a ‘new’ commandment –
that we love one another.
After all, unity must be based on love – mustn’t it?
Well, fact is we hear in the opening words of this morning’s Gospel
that the disciples were together, in unity – behind locked doors for
fear of what might become of them.
While the fine details of those first hours and days after the
crucifixion and resurrection seem awkwardly inconsistent between
differing accounts, there was clearly a sense of fear and grief that
gripped these closest followers. I think we sometimes forget that
they were for the most part, young adults, perhaps a smattering of late
teens. They had no standing in the community; many undoubtedly
were at enmity with their own family for having followed this radical
rabbi.
I think that perhaps some of the strongest bonds – not necessarily the
most productive or helpful but strong – can come from a common
fear. Fear is certainly used to try to form political unity – we
see plenty of evidence of that every election year. It is a real
emotion but those caught in its grip can be manipulated and closed in
on themselves. Tribalism is as often about closing off a group
from the dangers of the outside without realizing that what closes us
off keeps us from growing and expanding our own sense of being.
An oft-cited experiment was performed in the mid-20th century in which
a class was given a test. A card was shown to each student.
On the card were three lines; one obviously shorter than the other
two. In a prearranged setup, nine of ten students were instructed
to select one of the longer lines as being the short one. When
the card reached the tenth – and unsuspecting - student, in almost half
the cases, they too selected a longer line as shorter so as not to risk
rejection by the group. The power of fear to unify is strong
indeed.
We engage in letting fear control us when we lock ourselves into our
predetermined ideas, ideas often fed to us by the fear of others.
Fear is one of the greatest problems in
life. A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in
conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted, and
aggressive. It dares not move away from its own patterns of
thinking and this breeds hypocrisy. Until we are free from fear,
we may climb the highest mountain, invent every kind of God, but we
will remain in darkness. – On Fear, Jidda Krishnamurti
On Tuesday, there was a news article on the wires reporting that
in southwestern Afghanistan, an area controlled by Taleban – extremist
Sunni Muslims who seem content to enforce the peaceful religion by
means of intimidation – a couple attempting to elope by crossing into
Iran were caught, returned to their home village, and shot to
death. Unfortunately, this is not unique to a particular form of
Islam.
Religious wars, forced conversions, killing in the name of Christ – or
Vishnu – or God; zealots of every stripe – Hindu, Christian, Muslim,
Jewish – have abused religious ideas, twisting them by fear to satisfy
their own political agendas and attempt to unify one group by turning
them against another.
How are we to be freed from the kind of debilitating fear that tends to
harm us and those around us, that tends to stymie our growth as humans
and leads to conflict, hate, judgmentalism, and rejection? The
answer of Easter is love – love that overcomes death, even death on a
cross.
We don’t reject our fear; we allow God to transform it. We
embrace our doubts, our fears, our dark places and ask that the light
of Christ might shine into those places. As his love illumines
our path, or in the words again of the Psalmist: “Thy word is a lamp
unto my feet, a light unto my path.”
Thomas is not with the disciples behind closed doors when Jesus comes
the first time. Perhaps Thomas was not as fearful; perhaps his
fear drove him into isolation from even his closest friends. It
can do that you know.
But in the end, it is as Renee Miller says (Challenging Your Belief System on www.explorefaith.org ):
God is much larger than our human concepts can
ever define. When we are willing to go deep down within and challenge
what we have known and believed, we find in the swirl of chaos the God
beyond all conceptions. As the poet Ranier Maria Rilke said,
“deep in the darkness is God.” When we overcome our fear of
encountering that darkness, we find what our hearts long for, what our
minds can only barely grasp, what our soul only dimly imagines.
Stepping outside of what you know in order to glimpse what
you do not know does not necessarily lead you to a point of forsaking
your religious convictions. Rather, stepping out is a sign that
you are on the search for God—God’s self. Your soul is longing to
know God without any pretense, without easy answers, without the
superficiality to which religious systems sometimes fall prey.
Whenever you search for God alone—God will be found.
Thus, when Jesus appears to the disciples, they are
relieved. Love can breech locked doors; love can break down the
barriers created by fear. When he breathes on them with the gift
of the Holy Spirit, they emerge as a new group of people, transformed
in power and, having cast off their mantle of fear, they are emboldened
to claim their place in the wider community, a place of transformation,
healing, hope, and, yes, unity.
Thomas, insisting that he must see for himself, that he must experience
the risen Christ if he is to believe, receives that for which he
seeks. In fulfilling the covenant of reconciliation, the apostles
are again in unity – they are now priests in the highest sense, bearing
witness to the power and presence of the Risen Christ. They have
become one in “fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus
Christ.” Their “joy is complete.”
That is true unity; unity of love with liberty to explore, to accept
the different, to “show forth in our lives what we profess by our
faith.”
Amen.
The Rev. John Dryden Burton
St. James Episcopal Church
Eureka Springs
EASTER II
19 April, 2009