In This Together
What do you feel about the phrase, “Take heart, we are in this together.”? If you are automatically comforted and bolstered, it is a posture of welcoming the benevolent alliance of others. If you push away a little, it shows resistance to help, perhaps because self-reliance has been so reinforced in our development. Both responses are understandable.
We have heard over the past four Sundays, teachings from our clergy that the Christian life cultivates the truth we are not in this journey alone. We are connected in real and powerful ways to God and our neighbor. Our spiritual base is love. The Creator moves us to the capacity to love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves. The Triune God, as a core eternal reality, is revealed to be social: one, in Essence, three Persons in a unity of love. The church is social: many members are unified into one body with Christ as the head. Jesus pulls us in, giving us eyes to look around at our fellow disciples so we can lean upon the Body of Christ and love one another.
Whatever you face, therefore, whatever gripping hardship, you are not in it alone. We are in it together. You are connected to the other, and you are connected to the ultimate Other. When in the grip of what threatens to undo you, it will call forth all your personal power; you must look also to the support of your faith community and the infinite might and wisdom of our loving God. Think of the hymn of the great Augustinian friar and reformer, Martin Luther. (A Mighty Fortress, Hymn 688, verse 3): “And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us; we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.” We have God’s help; look at this Sunday’s psalm:
3 He heals the brokenhearted *
and binds up their wounds.
4 He counts the number of the stars *
and calls them all by their names.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; *
there is no limit to his wisdom.
6 The Lord lifts up the lowly, *
but casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; *
make music to our God upon the harp.
—Psalm 147:3-7
Verse three reminds us God heals. Interestingly, “God heals” is the literal meaning of the name “Jesus”. When you are hurting, battered by the enemies and storms of life, God will nurse you back to wholeness. In this life, and ultimately in our death, our Risen Savior heals and puts us back together. Verse four shows where God sits, as the Prime Mover and Artist behind all that exists. God is the One with a name for every star, and the one who knows your name, and your heart.
Verse five shows that with God, might and wisdom are spun together. In the stories of the Judges in the Old Testament, the physical strength of Samson and the godly wisdom of Deborah point to the One who created and gifted them with unique abilities. Verse six shows us with God, fair is fair. Wickedness will not win. Our frailty will at length be met with the kindly, healing hand of the One in whom justice and mercy are perfectly interwoven.
Finally, verse seven is the image of our final destiny: exquisite, joyful worship of God. Making music is not on our minds when we are in the throes of worry. Fear is crippling. Pain presses us understandably to scrambling for survival. But you are headed toward eternal enjoyment—rapt adoration of God in perfect peace. In the security of God, we find our voices to sing.
To recap, you have a unique combination of skills and grit to fight through oppressive threats that come against you. You have a family of faith to come alongside you as you struggle. Most importantly, our life is in the hands of the omnipotent God. Our great Deliverer raised Christ from the dead and took away the sting of death. In this life, God is the One who secures us. Stepping through the gate of death, we will move into the embrace of Love.
Knowing our God is strong to deliver, let us offer a prayer from our service of Morning Prayer, A Collect for Peace (BCP, p. 99):
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom. Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
God rescues us as the psalm asserts: healing us, the brokenhearted, binding our wounds, and lifting us, the lowly. In the end, our hearts will be fully engaged in holiness to worship the Holy, not with literal harps probably, but with our voices and hearts, indeed, with all that is within us.