One
Are you at one with Christ?
What a question to begin with, hey?
We love the thought of unity. That all may be one, we quote Jesus as saying. It's a central verse to the UCC.
Jesus gives a prerequisite for this kind of unity. We must be one with him, with Christ so that we might be one with God.
Real unity comes by way of Christ. He is the vehicle that brings us to unity in God.
Once arrived, we experience unity with others and with the world around us in God. Separated from God, there can be no unity. In God, connected to God, is where unity happens. That’s what Jesus is saying here.
But ultimate unity in God begins with our oneness with Christ.
What does it mean to be at one with Christ?
Imagine two whole-body silhouettes of yourself and Christ. Two silhouettes each with defined lines and separated from one another. Imagine those silhouettes embracing. What happens? Two silhouettes become one silhouette. The lines of separation are no longer present in the whole-body silhouette.
That single whole-body silhouette has a name, folks - Christian. To be a Christian means to be at one with Christ.
There are a couple levels to this. The first level is your initial embrace of Christ, when you knew at-oneness with Christ. Maybe this happened through a conversion experience of some kind. Maybe this happened when you were confirmed. Maybe this happened simply by internally realizing your dependence of Christ and feeling the peace of his forgiving embrace. Whatever form it took, that first embrace of Christ meant your at-oneness with Christ.
But to maintain that at-oneness with Christ, growth must follow. It takes spiritual growth to keep holding on to Christ. Without spiritual growth and the spiritual strength that comes with it, we will soon lose our hold and begin separating from Christ. The silhouette will become fractured with gaps and separation instead of a singular unit.
In other words, oneness with Christ takes cultivating our connection to Christ.
Being a Christian isn’t a one and done type thing. To maintain our oneness and not lose that oneness requires continual cultivation, a cultivating of our relationship with Christ.
How? What are the tools for this work of cultivating spiritual growth and strength?
Communicating with Christ (prayer), sitting with Christ in meditation, reflecting on scripture, listening to the Spirit, worshipping, being present with other Christ-at-oners (in other words, attending church), and, what we’re going to do today, receive Communion.
Maybe you’ve heard this too, but I once heard a marriage counselor say, a key to a long marriage is to spend time remembering your story together. Indeed, for those in a long-term loving relationship, it’s crucial to remember your love, to remember your togetherness, to remember what brought you together, to remember your love story.
Well, Communion amounts to remembering our at-oneness with Christ, remembering Christ and our connection to him, remembering his love for us and our's for him, remembering our story as his church.
Can you imagine a close relationship without sharing a meal together? Good friends, close friends, eat together.
Communion is Christ and us dining together.
Now, with a shared meal, unless you eat out, someone must prepare the food, right?
Well, Christ prepares the bread and juice for us. We can imagine Jesus kneading the dough and pressing the grapes, baking the bread and boiling the juice, preparing what he’ll offer at the table.
Like many chefs will say, Jesus puts his heart and soul into preparing the meal. He prepares the meal with love, out of love, for love.
Then he says okay, let’s eat. He hands us the bread and juice, and says I put my heart and soul into this meal. So much so, the food is like a part of me.
Eat, drink, be merry. This is for all, for everyone, todos, todos, todos, all, all, all, as Pope Francis once said. Our togetherness means happiness.
This sacred, symbolic meal, this common union, helps us to recall and even renew our at-oneness with Christ. Not only us individually, but us collectively. We, the church, recall our oneness with Christ by sitting at the table and taking in the presence of Christ, reveling in the beauty of our connection to Christ and his way of love.
So, that’s what we’re going to do now. We come to the table of Christ and to the meal he had provided, to tarry awhile with Christ, united in a singular silhouette via our Communion.
What a question to begin with, hey?
We love the thought of unity. That all may be one, we quote Jesus as saying. It's a central verse to the UCC.
Jesus gives a prerequisite for this kind of unity. We must be one with him, with Christ so that we might be one with God.
Real unity comes by way of Christ. He is the vehicle that brings us to unity in God.
Once arrived, we experience unity with others and with the world around us in God. Separated from God, there can be no unity. In God, connected to God, is where unity happens. That’s what Jesus is saying here.
But ultimate unity in God begins with our oneness with Christ.
What does it mean to be at one with Christ?
That single whole-body silhouette has a name, folks - Christian. To be a Christian means to be at one with Christ.
There are a couple levels to this. The first level is your initial embrace of Christ, when you knew at-oneness with Christ. Maybe this happened through a conversion experience of some kind. Maybe this happened when you were confirmed. Maybe this happened simply by internally realizing your dependence of Christ and feeling the peace of his forgiving embrace. Whatever form it took, that first embrace of Christ meant your at-oneness with Christ.
But to maintain that at-oneness with Christ, growth must follow. It takes spiritual growth to keep holding on to Christ. Without spiritual growth and the spiritual strength that comes with it, we will soon lose our hold and begin separating from Christ. The silhouette will become fractured with gaps and separation instead of a singular unit.
In other words, oneness with Christ takes cultivating our connection to Christ.
Being a Christian isn’t a one and done type thing. To maintain our oneness and not lose that oneness requires continual cultivation, a cultivating of our relationship with Christ.
How? What are the tools for this work of cultivating spiritual growth and strength?
Communicating with Christ (prayer), sitting with Christ in meditation, reflecting on scripture, listening to the Spirit, worshipping, being present with other Christ-at-oners (in other words, attending church), and, what we’re going to do today, receive Communion.
Maybe you’ve heard this too, but I once heard a marriage counselor say, a key to a long marriage is to spend time remembering your story together. Indeed, for those in a long-term loving relationship, it’s crucial to remember your love, to remember your togetherness, to remember what brought you together, to remember your love story.
Well, Communion amounts to remembering our at-oneness with Christ, remembering Christ and our connection to him, remembering his love for us and our's for him, remembering our story as his church.
Can you imagine a close relationship without sharing a meal together? Good friends, close friends, eat together.
Communion is Christ and us dining together.
Now, with a shared meal, unless you eat out, someone must prepare the food, right?
Well, Christ prepares the bread and juice for us. We can imagine Jesus kneading the dough and pressing the grapes, baking the bread and boiling the juice, preparing what he’ll offer at the table.
Like many chefs will say, Jesus puts his heart and soul into preparing the meal. He prepares the meal with love, out of love, for love.
Then he says okay, let’s eat. He hands us the bread and juice, and says I put my heart and soul into this meal. So much so, the food is like a part of me.
Eat, drink, be merry. This is for all, for everyone, todos, todos, todos, all, all, all, as Pope Francis once said. Our togetherness means happiness.
This sacred, symbolic meal, this common union, helps us to recall and even renew our at-oneness with Christ. Not only us individually, but us collectively. We, the church, recall our oneness with Christ by sitting at the table and taking in the presence of Christ, reveling in the beauty of our connection to Christ and his way of love.
So, that’s what we’re going to do now. We come to the table of Christ and to the meal he had provided, to tarry awhile with Christ, united in a singular silhouette via our Communion.
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