On this World Communion day, we celebrate our oneness. All across the globe, Christians are gathering at tables just like the one we will gather at in a few moments. The bread may different, representative of their culture and context, but the symbolism is the same. As we gather at these tables and share in this holy, if simple feast, we acknowledge and give thanks that we are all woven together, bound together by your love and grace.

Yet, even as we proclaim and celebrate this unity, we are painfully aware that we live in a broken and hurting world, where what divides us so often feels more real and powerful than that which unites us. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing ever wider. Our rhetoric is becoming more hateful and hurtful. We divide into opposite camps and don’t even know how to talk to, much less work with, each other to build your beloved community here on earth.

To be united in love does NOT mean that we will always be united in our opinions, styles, or preferences. It does NOT mean that we will always agree on direction and decisions. It may mean that we do NOT even agree on the primary purpose and ultimate goals. BUT it DOES mean that we will work through those differences in ways that protects and honors the dignity of the other and their absolute right to have an opinion that differs from our own. It means that we will stay at the table and talk it through. As one of our hymns says: Many gifts, one Spirit. One love known in many ways. In our difference is blessing. From diversity we praise. 

On this world communion Sunday, it is may hope and prayer that God will give us new eyes for seeing one another, new hearts for caring about one another, and new hands to reach out to one another in love, even when, or maybe especially when, we do not agree or see eye to eye. 

In this way not only will we learn to live in more harmony with one another, but we will also be demonstrating to the world around us, and especially to our children and young people, that there is a better, kinder, more gentle way for us to live with one another and protect each one’s dignity.

As Christ’s body in the world, we are called to speak God’s word of hope to the hopeless, to be your voice for the voiceless and powerless, to comfort all those who are hurting and grieving. 

We are charged with building bridges that seek to form connections of care. 

Not walls, emotional or real, that create division, separation and suspicion, hostility and fear.

But to do this we need God to imbue us with a Spirit of courage and compassion for the work we are called to do, because while living in harmony with one another, united in love is definitely sacred and holy work, it is definitely not easy work. It is so much easier to go our separate ways and limit our contact and conversations to those we know agree with us and with whom we feel safe and comfortable. But this will never be the way to build God’s beloved community in our relationships, in our church, or in the world. 

We know that God’s love is wide enough to include all God’s beloved children. That is not in question, never has been. We also know that we are called and commissioned to embody that love in all that we say and all that we do. That’s what it means for us to be the Body of Christ in the world. That is not in question, either, and never has been.

The only question confronting us on this World Communion Sunday, and, in fact, every day, is if we have the faith and desire to live as one united in love to the glory of God. May God grant us the strength, the wisdom, the courage and the compassion to live into this great and sacred calling.

Amen.