A Call to Unity in Divided Times

A Call to Unity in Divided Times, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Spacious Christianity, Spacious Hearts A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Psalm 133.

Are you tired of division and long for real connection? Join us this Sunday as we explore how we can bridge divides, embrace our shared humanity, and discover a path to genuine unity. Whether online or in-person, you’re welcome here.

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At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

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Keywords:

Unity, division, algorithms, ideology, respect, kindness, decency, shared humanity, love, community, values, compassion, grace, neighbor, God’s dream., presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

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You Alpine Welcome to worship at First Presbyterian. We, at First Presbyterian practice a spacious Christianity, which means, no matter where you are in your faith journey, you belong and there is space for you at the table, there is space for your doubts and questions. We believe doubts and questions are a gift that invite us into deeper conversations and a more authentic faith. We believe diversity is a strength. Every story is sacred and everybody matters. We do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We are so glad to connect with you in this way. We would also love to worship with you in person if you're ever in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings at 830 or 10am and never hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us or how we might support you. I hope you Enjoy this worship service. Welcome. Let us love. Comes the invitation from the beloved community, a community following Jesus so long that to find their whole beings by it, let us love little children. They encouraged each other as if this love was something that was yet unknown and needed to be practiced like a baby, carefully watching the footsteps of others until she finally discovers her own feet can move in this way, wobbly and imperfect, but still walking, still following in the way. Let us love little children, not in word or in speech, but as if our whole bodies are learning this new grace, let us be bold in learning this new movement, for we will falter and it won't be perfect, just as we are not perfect little Children, it will feel new and awkward, and it should, it should feel strange to twist and turn our bodies into love's possibility to learn how to love in the way of Christ, who is still trying to encourage us to love one another. Let this be what defines us now in this moment, not so that they will know that we are Christians, but so that we know who that God's love abides. God's love abides in Me. God's love abides in you. I am in you, and you are in me. And this changes everything that is our prayer right now that we will come to believe enough that God's love abides in us and Be so changed. O Christ, may it be so. O, Psalm 133 says, Behold how beautiful it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. That's God's dream for us, God's dream is not uniformity, but unity. I can't think of a more urgent holy task at the moment than to break down the barriers that divide us, to try to build bridges of understanding. Gandhi once said, The world is so tired of hate. Don't you agree that statement couldn't be more true. I recently read a story about a woman who was really struggling to reconcile her feelings toward her best friend, who was very publicly mourning the killing of Charlie Kirk, and she decided to meet her friend for coffee and to express how how sad she was that that her friend would think so highly of someone who Who said such horrible and hateful Things about about immigrants and black women and the LGBTQ plus community. And when she showed her friend all of the quotes and the videos that demonstrated why she believed Kirk's rhetoric was was so harmful, her friend said, what? The world. I've never seen any of that. And then she proceeded to show her the quotes and videos of Kirk that had come across her screens during the very same time. The images of Charlie Kirk the two women saw over several months couldn't have been more different. Each woman had been served a different portrait of the same man, and each was sure that theirs was was the real one, the right one, two realities, both utterly convincing, both incomplete. We know this is this is what is happening, right? The algorithms of Facebook and the talking heads on cable television that you choose to watch only feed you what they want you to see and believe. Algorithms decipher what information you're you're already ingesting and only send you the information that supports what you think you already know. Journalist and author David Brooks once said, America might not be as divided as it thinks it is. The loudest voices, the politicians, the one shouting at us through social media and cable television, they make it sound like we we live in two different worlds. But when you step away from the from the outrage, the algorithms, the noise, for a moment, and actually talk to your neighbors, listen to your neighbors, something remarkable happens. You start to realize we just we just might share far more in common than we imagined. Most people, Brooke said, are trying to do the the same basic things. Love their families, raise their kids, do honest work, be decent to others. Now, Brooks doesn't deny that there, there are real injustices and painful divisions, political, social, economical, relational divisions, but we tend to let those divisions become the whole story, the only story, the extremes and the headlines get all the attention, and we lose sight of shared life. You know, moments of mutual respect and and common ground. I mean, have you noticed that that everyday kindness and decency rarely make the news? The truth is, we're not as different as the headlines and the Facebook algorithms want us to believe I'm curious. I'm curious if we're being divided more than we're actually divided. Let me say that one more time. I'm curious if we're being divided more than we're actually divided. Do you remember the days before cable television, the days before Facebook, when we disagreed and voted differently but didn't revile each other, when we weren't mainlining a daily drip of memes and headlines designed to make us believe that those people are the dangerous, insufferable idiots and that we're the only sane ones left. Do you remember the days when you could actually have contempt for someone's ideas, but not have contempt for the person holding those ideas when you could actually say, you know, that may be the most stupid idea that I have ever heard. Let's go have lunch and talk about it. A shift has taken place where ideology has now taken center stage. Ideology has become our idol. Ideological agreement and sameness has become more important. Important than moral depth. What you believe seems to carry more weight these days than how you love. The Psalmist said, How beautiful it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity. Now, unity is different than uniformity. Unity is recognizing our shared humanity, recognizing that we are all. We are all children of God, and that we belong to one another. We're connected to one another. It's being willing to sit at the same table, even when we don't share the same opinions. You don't have to think alike to love alike. The challenge of our faith in these perilous times isn't debating our ideology about Jesus, but whether we're actually willing to love like Jesus. The challenge of our faith isn't isn't how much we love Jesus, it's whether we're willing to learn how to love the one we consider to be Judas. Do you remember Jesus held the feet of Judas in his hands, tenderly washing his feet, knowing that Judas would betray him. And then Jesus looked at his followers and said, Love one another as I have loved you, Love one another, just like that. Unity never means sameness. It means making love visible in our differences. Let me share a story about a community that that lived that truth, a community built not on ideology, but a community actually built and centered on values like like, respect, kindness, decency. There's a cafe in a small town in rural Minnesota, and they turned an old house with with this wide wooden porch, into a cafe. And the little locals simply called it, called this place, this cafe, the porch. And every morning, the same group would gather. You know those small cafes and small towns where the same group of people gathered each day, and in this cafe, a retired teacher who votes blue in every election, a farmer who never misses a Sunday or a Wednesday night at the evangelical church, a young barista with a Rainbow pin on her apron and an old Vietnam vet who mostly comes for the coffee and the company, they disagree about almost everything, politics, religion, climate change, even sports. The only thing they agree upon is their dislike of the Green Bay Packers. Conversations would often get heated, but they kept coming back. Why? Because they made a quiet, almost unspoken covenant. The porch is a place of respect. I mean, you can speak honestly and openly, but you can't ridicule, you can argue, but you can't demean or demonize. They don't gather because they agree. They gather because they value one another. Over the years that that little porch has become a sacred space. When the teacher's husband died, the farmer showed up with food, when the vet's grandson came out as gay, the barista was the first to hug him and listen and answer his questions. When someone got sick, they passed the hat, took turns bringing meals. Their unity wasn't ideological. It was moral, relational, spiritual. It was built on the conviction that our shared humanity is far more important than our shared opinions. That's the kind of community. Psalm 133 is imagining the kind of community that God dreams for us, not a community that thinks alike, but one that dwells together in respect, kindness, Grace, where the oil of blessing runs down, not because we're the same, but because we've chosen to honor the image of God in one another. You know, when we turn down the when we turn down the volume of outrage and turn toward one another, we just might realize the person across the table or across the ideological divide or across the political aisle, we just might realize that person isn't our enemy, they're our neighbor, made in the image of God, just like us. Now, I'm not trying to be Pollyanna and ignore injustices or pretend that differences and divides in this country aren't excruciatingly painful. I'm wanting to remind us that where we are most broken is where God's oil of grace runs the deepest. So maybe the work of the church today, our work as a church trying to embody a spacious Christianity, is to remind the world that you don't have to think alike to love alike, to remind the world what's still true, that we belong to one another, that compassion is stronger than contempt, that kindness and basic decency matters, that our shared humanity runs deeper than our opinions, and that unity not uniformity. Unity, is still possible. I offer this prayer. Behold. How beautiful, how beautiful. How beautiful it is when brothers and sisters learn to live together in unity, it is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard on the beard of Aaron running down on the collar of his robes. May we be a people who desire unity, not in spite of our differences, but because learning to love one another in the midst of our differences is God's dream for us and our best hope, may God's healing grace flow into the crevices of our divides, flowing over our stubborn and jagged edges. May the fragrance of our regard and respect for one another rise like incense, where our shared humanity runs deeper than our opinions. May the oil of divine compassion and grace anoint and moisten the driest places in our hearts, especially those marked by fear and alienation and woundedness, and may we with humility and courage, engage one another, engage our neighbors, not as threats. But as children of God, bearing the image of God, may it be so, has friends go in the peace and love of Christ, and May the love that you bring into this world, the respect, the kindness, the decency you bring into this world. May it bring peace to others and peace to our land. May it be so. Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this worship service. If you would like to make a donation helping make these broadcasts possible or support them many ways. First, Presbyterian seeks to serve our community. You can make a financial gift online@bendfp.org every week, we hear from someone thanking us for the gift of these broadcasts and what a difference they make. Your support makes that possible. Our church is committed to reach beyond our walls, bringing hope where there is despair and love where it is needed the most. Your generous support helps us to be generous in love. Go to our website, bend fp.org, and click on the link. Give online. Your support is really appreciated and makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks again. I hope to see you next week. You