Unity and Love

...life for evermore.

 - From Psalm 133

"Life for evermore." This is the blessing that God bestows. At a certain place and time. Under certain conditions. And what are these?

Well it all starts with "when brethren live together in unity."

The Psalmist exults: "How good and pleasant it is!"

Yep. Think about it. Think about a time when you were working together with your mom and dad, and siblings, on some project. Maybe getting your house ready for a Christmas party. Maybe starting off that first day on a family vacation. Do you remember the last trip your family all took, together? I do! Summer, 1972, to Texas.

Think of a team you once worked with, in your day job. You just knew you were a high performance team. You all worked together so well. Everybody loved the boss . . . nobody backtalked to her, or gossiped about her. It was so wonderful . . . and it was over way too soon.

In the summer of 1980 I helped roof the Shamrock, Texas, Advent Christian Church, in record-breaking heat. It was miserable, sweaty, gritty work. But we had such a great time! I may have wished it would end, at the time. But my memories of it are only positive, only filled with joy.

We love, love, love when we are in a group that works well together. Hard work becomes thrilling. The process becomes more notable than the end-product. I am constantly aware of this, in managing several on-line discussion groups. With all due modesty, I use an iron fist to control any comments that may derail the goodwill among us.

But in this era of severe division, I frequently promote a no-quarter attitude, that the Church must remain unified. I get ridiculed and mocked for suggesting this. People insist that if I am silent, then I am consenting to evil. But I have not been silent.

They say they are tired of all my kumbaya talk about listening and serving others. But unconditional love is what is missing, and it is the hardest love of all! 

It is not about false tolerance. Not about compromise. Not about shying away from what's wrong.

It's about calling people to a much higher pinnacle than anything they've ever been on. When one's highest principles have been attained and protected from all threats, there remains a higher pinnacle yet: The one where you get above the strife and look down, and risk being harpooned by the angry throngs of people.

Scripture is chock-full of references to God's passionate desire that we be unified. World religions, and philosophies echo that sentiment. 

No qualifiers. No if, ands, or buts. No conditions! Be unified! And then I have no doubt, that even the most disparate group of people, where the members are committed to one another, can solve any problem; any problem - - - even the ones tearing America apart right now. 

The Church could take the lead in solving our problems. But it won't solve anything if it lets political parties, universities, the Press, Hollywood, and pop culture tear it apart.

Every family has its characters: it's clowns, it's problems, it's rogues, it's criminals. There is a particularly difficult aunt that died years ago, that left in her wake of multiple marriages and dysfunctional child-rearing, a host of unresolved problems. Drug abuse. Serial divorce. Even suicide. 

But a certain niece of this woman, in the middle of a discussion about the aunt, finally ended the discussion with: "Well I don't care. She's family and I love her."

From out of that comes healing. Not the drawing of lines. Not ganging up. Not a continuation of reciting all of the aunt's failures and foibles. That solves nothing. 

"I don't care . . . I love her." That's it. That's healing. That's what would have prevented the whole mess, in the first place. 

Unity and love are almost exactly the same thing.