From the Pulpit: May we all be one

There’s so much in this world we can be divided about, isn’t there? I have been wrestling with this, like I imagine many of you have been, too. 

Especially in recent years, we too quickly put ourselves in rival groups, each convinced of our own righteousness and unwilling to consider that we might have gotten it wrong. We start to build an identity on what we are against. And that requires us to do some sobering reflecting on how we, as people of faith, speak about others. 

The Gospels tell a different story about belonging. Jesus did not gather people around shared enemies or rigid group loyalty. Instead, he crossed boundaries – ethnic, moral, and social – to call people into a new kind of community. His sharpest words were not aimed at outsiders, but at insiders who used religion to draw lines of exclusion. “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’” Jesus taught, “but I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

There are too many messages from this world that thrive on fear and simplified narratives: us versus them, pure versus corrupt. Faith in Jesus challenges this instinct. At the center of Christianity is the confession that all people fall short and all stand in need of grace. That belief leaves little room for moral superiority. When Christians forget this, replacing humility with hostility, the cross becomes a banner for a tribe rather than a bridge to reconciliation.

In a polarized age, Christians face a choice. They can mirror the examples of revenge and violence of the world, or they can bear witness to another way – one marked by patience, listening, and costly compassion. The early church grew not through cultural dominance, but through a countercultural love that refused to reduce people to labels.

If faith in Jesus means anything in today’s divided climate, it must mean resisting the pull of tribalism and remembering that our deepest identity is not found in a side, but in a Savior who prayed that his followers “may all be one.”