July 24, 2024

We don’t have to agree. We don’t have to enjoy the same things. We don’t have to denounce the same things.

Some like to turn up the heat on foods which they eat. [Spicy wings for me, please, but not inferno hot.] Others prefer mild. We may not vote for the same political candidates. Or drive the same automobiles. [Although the preponderance of black, gray, and white cars leaves me… bored.] Some of us are Chicago Cubs fans. Others cheer for the St. Louis Cardinals or Cincinnati Reds. Some sleep in late. Others awake early.

Some of us like singing from the hymnal. [I enjoy singing the bass line in a hymn.] Some of us prefer praise music. [I rejoice in the voices and the instruments in our band.] Some of us like silence in the worship service’s time of Silent Prayer. Others desire a light musical melody underneath the time of silence. Some feel at home with a theology of substitutionary atonement. Others prefer a theology of at-one-ment.

Many of these scenarios are primarily the product of dualistic, or either/or, thinking; up/down, us/them, there/here, right/left, over/under, for/against. It is a stark way of seeing things. We are, each of us, complex beings – human beings each made imago dei, or made in the image of God. I believe God is not a God of either/or. God is a God of both/and. It is out of difference and distinction and complexity which the full beauty and potential of Creation can be realized.

Paul writes to the church in Rome, “For I am convinced … [nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And, church is a place for that love to be expressed and for the fullness of differences to dwell in community. We are, in the words of vicar Samuel Wells, “a community that models what good might look like,” not in spite of our differences, but because of those differences.

Rev. Eric