God Nudges Us toward Unity from a Surprising Place
This little book isn’t the overflow of personal pastoral bliss. I don’t have a success story that others just have to hear. As I introduce this brief work, I have to confess that I’ve been under duress, a pretty hot mess, with slim success. I recently concluded my fortieth year of ministry, and feel much needier than when I started. Physical, spiritual, relational, and pastoral deficiencies have all colluded to prove that unless the Lord builds the house, there’s no point in picking up a hammer and saw (Ps. 127:1).
In addition to decades-long physical ailments that are intensifying with age, I have spent the last six years of my life serving a wonderfully diverse church in intensive cross- and multi-cultural ministry. This has involved hundreds of thought-provoking, mind-expanding, prejudice-revealing, assumption-dismantling, pride-abasing, and soul-enriching hours as I’ve listened to people who have vastly different perspectives from my own. All the while I’ve been trying to keep the peace—with not nearly as much success as I would like. I do thank God for many in my dear flock who have tried valiantly to press deeper into unity; though nearly all of us have found it a more difficult challenge than we could have ever imagined.
Irreconcilable Differences. The 2020 political and pandemic crises certainly didn’t help; unless you consider it help—as I actually do—that crises like these can floodlight our differences, bringing into the light how deep they truly are. External troubles do not create division so much as de-mask them; and that is good. It isn’t comfortable, but it is far better to know that we disagree and are divided than to maintain an illusion that we are not.
The truth is that while we all are very much the same, we are also very different. You and I have different personal histories and cultures. We have different church expectations; not to mention different preferred politics, traditions, styles, and personality-types. We respond to different sounds, dance to different beats, and deck out in different threads. And let’s face it: because we differ so deeply, agreement can seem nearly impossible. In fact, I’ve concluded that in many cases simple understanding, respect, and love may be the best we can do. Most agreement will happen only in heaven.
I’m sorry if that seems like weak faith. But all the differences between people have persuaded me that no matter how hard and humbly we try, there really are some perspectives we’re just not going to reconcile. These will often be over matters about which the Bible does not speak decisively, but about which we may nonetheless care very deeply. That being the case, understanding, respect, and love toward people with whom we disagree will turn out to be a pretty high bar after all. Reaching that will take all the faith we have!
Disagreements will also persist because—as an increasing number of observers have noted—we have radically different trusted sources of extra-biblical information. Christians share the Bible of course, which is inerrant and authoritative in all it teaches. And we may be thankful that Scripture offers us a shared body of revealed truth sufficiently clear to be understood by all who will read it carefully and study it deeply. So there is that.
But in case you haven’t noticed, Christians today have their ears tuned into a lot more than Genesis through Revelation. I wouldn’t know how to track the numbers, but I’d guess that for every one hour Christians spend in the Bible or under sound Bible teaching, there are dozens of hours spent absorbing information from other streams. News channels, radio talk shows, TV talking heads, advertisements, movies, music, blogs, social media in take, and water cooler conversations deluge us daily, flooding conflicting and often unbiblical information into our theology-morality reservoirs, effectively poisoning the waters. Add in that these opposite sources of information often flaunt a serious angry attitude and it’s no wonder we are drowning in a sea of fiercely argued irreconcilable opinions.
Competing and contradictory information sources result in utter confusion. What one person assumes to be facts, another assumes to be propaganda. What seems like obvious “logical” and “critical thinking” to me will seem naïve, delusional, party-line, ignorant, or even maliciously prejudiced to someone else. From where we all are sitting—and with the combined information, misinformation, and disinformation we all are processing (from whatever antagonistic sources we all are trusting) it seems that agreement is all but impossible.
So the question confronting churches that care about deep unity in diversity is whether we will choose to let peace rule our relationships (Col. 3:15), even if we cannot achieve the agreement closure for which we all long. Can we disagree without quarreling? This was as pressing a question in New Testament days as it is today.
No Place to Call Home—and No Table to Share. My church’s crisis has been further fueled by external circumstances. During the recent pandemic our young church plant had no place to meet for a full year. Without a place to call home, our community life was nearly all virtual. Our only in-person experience was a four-month stretch of outdoor Sunday gatherings in a parking lot on a noisy street where we couldn’t even hear each other sing.
Through no fault of our own, we, like countless churches, had to make do as best we could. I wonder—and I do so with a trembling and tearful heart—whether I could have done more. I don’t know. But I do know that these adverse external circumstances took a toll on our unity.
A Surprising and Needed Help. Having no place to call home meant we had only occasional table fellowship. We rarely even had a table to share—and almost never had one up close and personal. By table fellowship, I do not mean hospitality and shared meals (although those are of immense value). I mean Holy Communion, the Jesus-ordained simple Communion meal to which all his saints are invited (Matt. 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:14–21; 1 Cor. 11:23–26).
That Communion is a point of great controversy among those who profess faith in Christ shows how clever the enemy is. Somehow he has managed to ignite intense Christian conflict over something that is meant to bring joy and peace, and which blesses us in so many ways. But this book is not about our sacramental wars. Instead, I want to highlight the peace-producing emphasis Communion is meant to have, which I think we desperately need and upon which I think we can all agree.
The point of this book is that habitual preparation for and participation in Holy Communion is a peace-making exercise. Among other purposes, Holy Communion is meant to lead to healthier relationships.
I have come to believe that the Lord’s Supper is not only a sweet reminder of the covenantal love of Jesus, but it is also a sacred call to relational peace. Disunity worsens when we fail to pursue a consistent thoughtful practice of biblical Communion. Put positively, I believe peace is enhanced by a consistent up-near-and-personal Communion habit, even while tested by great relational, political, racial, and cultural upheaval. There is help toward unity in a surprising place—a place at the table.
Adapted from The Communion Truce: How Holy Communion Addresses Our Unholy Conflicts by Tim Shorey (© 2023). Published by Gospel-Centered Discipleship. Used by permission.
Tim Shorey is married to Gayline, his wife of 44 years, and has six grown children and 14 grandchildren. After over forty years of pastoral ministry, he recently retired from Risen Hope Church, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Among his books are Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk; 30/30 Hindsight: 30 Reflections on a 30-Year Headache; and his recently released, award-winning An ABC Prayer to Jesus: Praise for Hearts Both Young and Old. To find out more, visit timothyshorey.com.