“Therefore, given the conjunction and unity in the holy Trinity, who would dare to separate the Son from the Father or the Holy Spirit from either the Son or the Father? Or who would be so bold as to suggest that the Trinity is a combination of different natures, so that the Son would have a different substance from the Father? And who would argue that the Spirit is alien to the Son? If anyone asks how it can be that when the Spirit is in us, the Son is said to be in us too, and when the Son is in us, the Father is said to be in us too, or how a Trinity can signify unity, so that when it is said that there is one God in us, this one God is a Trinity- if anyone, I say, should ask this sort of thing- let him first divide brightness from light and wisdom from the wise person, and then he will be able to explain how this can be. But if these things are impossible, how much more daring and absurd must it be to attempt the same in the case of God? The truth is that divinity is not communicated by arguments but by faith. It is not linked to reason but to godliness.”
The blessed persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost each retain their own “personhood”, but they are ever one in nature and purpose and being. So it ought to be with us who are named as the blood bought Church of Jesus Christ. We maintain our own personalities and vocations and hair color. But because Jesus died and rose again, and because we have believed that he is the Christ, the Son of God, and that God the Father has raised him from the dead; because we have asked for and received his forgiveness- we are united in a common family called his Church, and we are bound to share one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. We are called to exhibit all of the signs of visible unity and cooperation as the family of God. We are called to be unified in our individuality even as the Holy and Blessed Trinity is unified although retaining the individuality of the three persons. All of us who will receive Holy Communion today have been cleansed of our sins as we have followed Him in the obedience of Holy Baptism. We have been signed with the Blessed Cross and marked as Christ’s own forever. We have been ontologically changed from what we were because of our own sin and selfishness into what God originally designed us to be. We are redeemed and restored to the fullness of fellowship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son, in the power of the Holy Ghost.
And that means that we have to get along and love one another. Jesus prayed for such unity in his high priestly prayer in John 17: 20-21 , when he said “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Isaiah 11:13 speaks of a time when “The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.” In 52:8 he says of the leaders of God’s people, Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice, with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.” Jeremiah expands this vision of unity among God’s people in Chapter 50, verse 4 when he proclaims, In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping; they shall go, and seek the Lord their God.” Jesus himself declares how he proactively seeks to bring together all of us who are among the elect of God in John 10:16. “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” St. Paul might well have been speaking to us directly when he wrote to our brothers and sisters in Ephesus (2:13-14) “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us…”
How does that unity express itself in your life today? Have you forgiven the other members of our parish for those things that they did in those difficult days of the past? And are you willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and another chance when you work with them in the garden or at the altar or on some committee of the parish? If you haven’t, and if you’re not, then don’t take communion today, because it will jeopardize your soul. Have you determined in your heart to be kind and caring to everyone here today? Are you willing to forgo judging and accept as your brother or sister in Christ everyone who stands and confesses the Faith in the Nicene Creed and asks for forgiveness when we say the general confession today? If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t take Communion today.
But if you are willing to forgive, and to try to work together, and to set aside your dislikes of someone for the sake of God so that the world will see the love of God manifested among us, then come to this altar and receive the blessed body and blood of Jesus today, and he will give us strength to do those things, and to have those attitudes that we cannot quite manage on our own. It is hard to forgive. It is even harder to work next to someone who we believe wronged us and continues to wrong us. But if they come to this place today and proclaim publicly that Jesus is the Christ and that God has raised him from the dead; if they confess their sins to God and repent; if they receive the life changing sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus, then they are on the same road we are on, and someday, some way, the blessed Holy Spirit will awaken their conscience to see the error of their ways, just as he will awaken our consciences to see the error of our ways, and reconciliation will occur, and friendship and brotherhood will be restored, and the world will look upon us and say as they said of those early Christians, “Behold how they love one another.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.
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