By Rev. Gracie Millard, Associate Pastor, Trietsch Memorial United Methodist Church
Communities accomplish amazing things together! We rally around families in crisis with meal trains and carpools, we clean up our neighborhoods of debris after a storm, and we raise money for our neighbor going through cancer treatment. But it’s safe to say right now we’re experiencing division left and right in our community. We say to ourselves, “It’s a shame that people can’t see the bigger picture.” (Because it’s nearly impossible for us to admit that we contributed to the division, too!) They disagreed with us, after all. If only they would listen. If only they would understand. If only I could change their mind!
In this time of division, I can’t help but think of the times unity is emphasized throughout Scripture. The one that has stuck out to me is in one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church: “I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10). In that one verse, that’s four different ways of saying, “Stop fighting!” It’s hard for us to have one mind when we’re so focused on changing someone else’s.
Unity seems impossible with all the ways we are divided, but it is nonetheless what Christians are called to. The reality is, we have the most important thing in common: our love of Jesus Christ. Our love for Jesus compels us to love our neighbors. Paul says in the same letter: “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).
The Body of Christ is one, it simply cannot be divided. Some of us are United Methodist, some of us are Baptist, some of us believe this about Scripture, some believe that about women in ministry, but believe it or not, we all share the same Spirit of God, and there’s nothing that can change that. Let’s stop trying to change each others’ minds (because we won’t, and that’s not actually what we’re called to do) and start changing the way we think about each other: as one body with the same goal of offering hope to a world that desperately needs it. Enough of the divisions—we have work to do!
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