The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. In the final three verses of our epistle reading this morning, St. Paul uses the word one seven times.

! There is one body and one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all. Paul is telling us what holds the church together. It's not a common nationality or a shared culture or agreement about affairs of this world. The church is one because she belongs to the one God who has joined to the one Lord by the one Holy Spirit. Now, this unity reaches across differences that usually separate people. Christians come from different nations and different circumstances. Not all of us have the same education, customs, political opinions, or place in society. Yet, a Christian on the other side of the world whom we've never even met is joined to us in Christ more deeply than someone who shares our background and opinions but doesn't share our faith. Both of us have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

Ghost. Both confess Christ as Lord and look for his coming again. Our unity in Christ is much, much deeper, much deeper than any earthly bond. That unity, however, has a specific context.

St. Paul speaks of one faith as well as one baptism. The church is united by truth that she has received from Christ and handed down from the apostles. That is why the creed belongs to the church's worship.

When we confess the creed, we are not offering our own opinions about God. We are joining our voices to the faith of the church. This also means that the divisions among Christians are real and they're painful. We're not united in visible communion as the apostolic church was meant to be.

Serious disagreements about doctrine, about the sacraments, and the authority of the church remain with us. We shouldn't pretend that these differences don't matter and we cannot heal them by setting the truth aside. Christian unity must be the unity in the faith once delivered to the saints.

Yet we also shouldn't be comfortable with what separates us. Our Lord prayed that his disciples would be one.

Christian divisions should lead us to repentance and to prayer because pride and human sin have deepened them. We long for a unity that is both visible and faithful, not unity achieved by compromise.

But unity that is grounded in the truth of Christ. However, St. Paul does not allow us to speak only about divisions beyond our own parish. The work of preserving unity begins with each one of us.

Ephesians 4, 1 through 3 says, Paul doesn't tell us to create the unity of the spirit. The Holy Ghost has already given the church that unity. Our calling is to keep it. And keeping it requires more than just reciting the creed.

Paul speaks of lowliness, gentleness, long-suffering, and bearing with one another in love. These virtues are tested by the people that are closest to us.

It's easy to speak of loving Christians throughout the world, but it's harder to remain patient with someone who has offended us or tried our patience.

Every parish is made up of people with different personalities and quirks. Sometimes we may say things too quickly. And sometimes we hold grudges because we would rather be proven right than reconcile with our brother or sister.

But we must remember that the person we find difficult has been called by the same Lord and washed in the same baptism. If we belong to Christ, then we also belong to one another.

Bearing or accepting one another does not mean that we ignore sin or treat doctrinal truth as optional.

We are not called to affirm sin, but we are called to be charitable. And charity often requires correction and forgiveness.

It does not remove the need for repentance. But even correction must be governed by the desire to restore a brother or sister rather than defeating them as an enemy.

The unity of the spirit is not kept through pride. Even when pride has convinced itself that it is defending the truth. This is why today's collect is so fitting.

We ask God that his grace may always prevent and follow us and make us continually to be given to all good works. In the older language of the prayer book, prevent simply means to go before.

God's grace must begin the work and his grace must remain with us as we carry it out. He brought us into Christ through holy baptism.

He must also give us the humility and patience by which we live together as Christ's body. The unity St. Paul describes is not merely an idea we confess.

It's the life of Christ shared by his members. We were brought into that life through one baptism. And in the Holy Eucharist, the one Lord feeds his one body with his own precious body and blood.

Even though we all have different backgrounds, we all have different temperaments, and we all have different opinions, we all kneel together because we belong to Christ.

And in him, we belong to one another. The grace we receive must then become visible in the patience, gentleness, and love with which we bear one another's burdens.

So let us hold fast to the one faith, guard the unity of the Spirit, and bear with one another in love. God's grace has gone before us.

By that same grace, may the life of our parish show others that we are one body in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.