...you had one job

We all are one in mission, we all are one in call,

our varied gifts united by Christ, the Lord of all.

A single great commission compels us from above

to plan and work together that all may know Christ’s love.

---Rusty Edwards, 1985

You had one job. If you take out your preferred google device and type these words into the search bar, you will be treated to a veritable feast of flops, a buffet of buffoonery, a truckload of troubles. Go ahead...I'll wait. ‘You had one job’ is social media shorthand for ‘Wow, could you have done worse at the thing you were supposed to be in charge of?’

There are school crossings with ‘school’ misspelled. Toilet seats installed upside down. Roadkill painted under the yellow stripe in the middle of the highway. A Back to School sale sign highlighting a wine display. Steps to nowhere. Left Turn Only centered perfectly…under a right turn arrow. Someone gets distracted, and a perfectly good start turns off all wrong. Not because anyone meant it to, but because some other shiny object charmed instead.

You know, the church (the big one, the church universal), the Body of Christ, does lots of things, in lots of places, in lots of ways, for lots of reasons. And lots of those things make the world better, make the church better, make our hearts better, even. But sisters and brothers. We have one job. Jesus told and showed us what it was, over and over, and folks thought it was important enough to remember, to write down later. Love each other. Love your enemies. Love your neighbors. Love by doing. Love straight through your fear. Love sacrificially. Love unendingly. Love. Love. Love.

Do not be deterred. We have one job.

...us and them

In Christ there is no east or west --- he breaks all barriers down;

By Christ redeemed, by Christ possessed, in Christ we live as one.

---Michael Perry, c.1979

US and THEM.

 In all the conflicts in the history of the world, there have only been two sides. Sharks and Jets, cats and dogs, Auburn and Alabama, Protestants and Catholics, Democrats and Republicans --- us…and them.

If we believe, really believe in Christ’s power to break down barriers, us and them is no more. It has no place in our world, or in our vocabularies. The same Christ that redeems us, that buys us back from the world; the same Christ that possesses us, directing our thoughts and actions; that same Christ destroys the walls we build between us and them.

In Christ we live as one.

...remade, for good

We are called to be God’s people, showing by our lives his grace,

one in heart and one in spirit, sign of hope for all the race.

Let us show how he has changed us and remade us as his own;

let us share our lives together as we shall around his throne.

---Thomas A. Jackson, 1973

In a new year’s effort to loosen the grip of the 24-hour news cycle on my attention (and life), I have been watching (less contentious) house-flipping and home renovation shows on HGTV and DIY networks. These are the shows where homeowners or professional renovators take tired, dated houses and turn them into places anyone would be proud to call home. The renovators have one goal in mind—to ‘flip’ the home for a hefty profit if they are professionals, to create a cozy family gathering place if they are handy homeowners.

In this hymn, Thomas Jackson imagines God as our re-modeler, creating something ‘one’ out of something scattered, disparate. In this wordplay, God is recreating us as a home, as a family, as a reflection and a sign.

In his work 1939 ‘Life Together’, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.

God has remade us, for this life together, forever, for good.

...are we God's people?

We are God’s people, the chosen of the Lord,

born of his Spirit, established by his Word;

our cornerstone is Christ alone, and strong in him we stand:

O let us live transparently, and walk heart to heart and hand in hand.

---Bryan Jeffrey Leech, 1976

Bryan Jeffrey Leech presents, in this text, a beautiful vision of what the family of God can be. The ideal presented to us here is one worth aiming for, a glimpse of what heaven might be like. So much truth is bound up in the last line of this first verse: “Let us live transparently, and walk heart to heart and hand in hand.” The combination of these three aspirations would invigorate any church, and are worthy goals.

To walk heart to heart is to act with unity of motivation (different from a uniformity of action), to be guided by a similar vision of Christ’s call to love the world for his sake. To walk hand in hand is to meet others where they are, and to journey with them as we all grow in faith, without leaving anyone behind.

Ah, but how then would we live transparently? This would require the courage and trust to believe that others were capable of dealing with knowing your life --- your failures and fears, your hopes and dreams, your darknesses and your shinings --- and accepting you with love.

Can we dare to bare that much of ourselves? Can we care for others who do the same? Are we God’s people, or are we not?

...all I want

O come, Desire of nations, 
bind all peoples in one heart and mind;
bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
fill all the world with heaven's peace.
Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
---Latin hymn, c. 1710

Desire. As I word-process these words, Mariah Carey's voice is singing to me out of my iPad Pandora channel: "Make my wish come true...all I want for Christmas is you." The scuttlebutt on Facebook is that DietPepsi drinkers really, really, really want their aspartame back. In 1946, Don Gardner just wanted teeth---at least, that's what his holiday hit, "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" said! All Steve Martin wanted in The Jerk was "this ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine, and the chair." And if you watch the ads around holiday time, folks really want vacuums (watch as the vacuum commercials magically disappear into a 10-month black hole on Dec. 26!). Surely this can't mean no one vacuums except between Thanksgiving and Christmas (I mean, no one but me)?

Imagine, though, what God's desire for God's own creation might be, what God's intent for this humanity (created in God's own image) might be. Imagine one people. Imagine working together to solve humanity's issues with the good of the littlest, the lost, and the least in mind. Imagine setting envy aside; moving beyond grasping at resources like shoppers in the flat screen aisle at a Black Friday sale; giving up our right to hold grudges.

Imagine that world. And then put on your work gloves---there are walls to tear down, and bridges to build. Because God is not a stand-around-and-watch-it-happen kind of God. God is a grab-a-hammer-there-are-plenty-of-nails kind of God. And I want in on building that world.

O come, Desire of nations, 
bind all peoples in one heart and mind.