In today’s video message, General Minister and President, Rev. Terri Hord Owens offers a short reflection on unity in this election season.
“We must remember that our love for all humanity is one of the ways that we reflect and express God’s limitless love for us all. When we walk away from the table we give up any opportunity for true unity which is the hard work of being on the road together working towards that vision of what the world will look like, how the world can be transformed if we all know the limitless love of God as revealed by Jesus Christ.”
Rev. Terri Hord Owens: Hello Disciples, this is your General Minister and President, Terri Hord Owens. This week I want to reflect on what we really mean as disciples when we talk about unity. Our Arizona region is holding a regional assembly using the theme Prophetic Unity and just a week ago I was invited by Christian Churches Together an ecumenical group of which Disciples are a founding denomination to speak from the perspective of Mainline Protestantism about what Jesus calls the churches to do in the midst of increasing polarization in our society.
I hope you realize that unity is not just something we can throw around flippantly. It’s not easy work. Unity is not a form of human agreement. It is not unanimity. It is as one of our theologians has often said a gift of God that we simply need to live into. We may not agree on which candidate to vote for or which policies we think arE best for this country but we must move forward and each one of us exercise our right to vote to help make those decisions. Whether you live in the U.S or Canada it’s your right to make those decisions and there is nothing antithetical to Christianity about your exercising that right to vote.
What we have to do is remember that as people of the table people who are called to the Lord’s table and people who say that we welcome all to the Lord’s table we have to stay at the table. Just because we disagree on issue X or issue Y we are all Christians who confess that Jesus is the Christ the son of the Living God. We must remember that our love for all of humanity is one of the ways in which we reflect and express God’s Limitless love for us all. When we walk away from the table we give up any opportunity for true unity which is the hard work of being on the road together working towards that vision of what the world will look like how the world can be transformed if we all know the limitless love of God as revealed by Jesus Christ.
So I hope that you will get into those voting booths and cast your ballots this November if early voting has started do that work to ensure that everyone has access to that process. Just as we all believe that everyone should have access to the Lord’s table and let’s ensure that our conversation and our working together is not only just but humane that we walk into a vision of unity that’s not cheap. That’s not bounded just because we all agree on point x or point Y but that’s defined by our willingness and our commitment to stay at the table to do the hard work and to be the church that we say we are in this season when unity can seem so far afield when it can seem so hard to reach remember God has already given it. Let’s just walk into it and be the church we say we are remember God loves you and so do I.