A man whose opinion I trust stopped by the office this week. As promised, I dropped what I was doing and gave him my full attention. He said, “It’s been a good series so far, but all you’ve talked about is people with diverse gifts working together. When you said, “Unity without uniformity” I was expecting to hear about diverse opinions, not diverse individuals. How do we have unity when we don’t agree?”
That’s a great question, so let’s ignore it for a second and do an experiment. The experiment works like this: using today’s text, take out the word love and replace it with my name. Ready?
Rob is patient. Rob is kind. Rob does not envy. He is not boastful or proud. Rob is not rude or self seeking. Rob is not easily angered. He keeps no record of wrongs. Rob does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Rob always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Rob. Never. Fails.
What’s so funny? I’ve been doing this experiment for nine years, and in nine years no one has ever believed me! Fine. Laugh away, but someday, someone is going to believe me. And when I meet that person, I’m going to introduce them to my wife so she can knock some sense into them. There is only one human who fits this bill, and it’s not me. We keep looking for an adjective to describe love, but it never works because love is not a what. It’s a who.
Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy. He is not boastful or proud. Jesus is not rude or self seeking. Jesus is not easily angered. He keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Jesus. Never. Fails.
"Oboe and Metronome" by Tony Newell via Flickr on a Creative Commons License
Suddenly, it’s not so funny. My love is a joke. God’s love is reality. That’s the source of our unity. Have you ever hear an orchestra tune? It always starts with one instrument, always the same one. Anyone know? Right, the oboe. Do you know why? Because it’s the only instrument that can’t be tuned. When they are all are in tune with the one, they are automatically in tune with each other. The church is never closer to unity than when it’s members are in tune with God’s love, as exemplified by Jesus.
But we take unity too far. Suppose I play the oboe. It all starts great. Everyone’s listening to me. Everyone’s in tune. Then we start playing. I read my notes. I know my part, and I can hear that other people are playing it wrong. Their notes don’t match my music. I’m running around the orchestra yelling, “You’re playing it wrong. You’re playing it wrong!” Do you get the joke? The only one in the entire orchestra who’s doing it wrong is me.
Hear this. God’s love is bigger than our heads, like a symphony is bigger than an oboe. We can’t understand it all. We barely understand our own part. Ask any musician and they’ll tell you. We don’t get it. We get glimpses. We get moments. And the only way we get them, is by practicing diligently, performing gracefully, and listening carefully.
So, everyone should just believe whatever they want and mind their own business, right? No. Vehemently, NO. True tolerance requires and opinion. Actually, it requires two. If there are two of us and only one opinion, what is there to tolerate? But if I know I’m right, and you stubbornly refuse to admit that you’re wrong, and I don’t proceed to pound the stupid out of you, that’s tolerance.
To misquote Jesus, “What good is it if you tolerate those who tolerate you? Even the pagans do that!” Tolerance is the bare minimum. We are called to unity. I don’t care what your stance is on any of the divisive issues of the day, my stance toward you doesn’t change. Actually, that’s not true. I do care. I care very much where you stand on the divisive issues of the day. I care so much it hurts, but my stand toward you still doesn’t change. I’m to love you with God’s love.
God’s love doesn’t hold a sign that says, “God hates fags.” God’s love doesn’t scream, “Baby killer” into the face of a sixteen year old girl. God’s love doesn’t blow people up and call it suicide. We feel it just as strongly. We are just as convinced. But God’s love finds another way.
There is a sense in which tolerance is destructive to fellowship, because fellowship isn’t us agreeing to disagree. True fellowship is us both tuning our hearts to the reality of God’s love, and living in the friction and tension that creates. Because it’s exactly that friction and tension that will slowly grind the rough edges off our hearts.
This side of heaven, we will never have one church. The best we can hope for is a unity without uniformity, a unity of believers whose only certainty is that they don’t have a lock on God’s love, a fierce people who refuse to settle for either the bland uniformity of the “one right answer” or the equally bland uniformity of the lowest common denominator.
You’ve heard about them. They are patient, and kind. They do not envy, or boast. They are not arrogant. They are not rude, or self-seeking. They are slow to anger and keep no record of wrongs. They do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. They always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere. And they do not quit.
Is that us? Some days. I guess we need more practice.
Benediction: It’s God’s symphony. Everybody plays. Some of us just don’t play in tune. Today, we hear in part, like listening through a tinny radio. Someday, we’ll hear it all. For some, it will be the final proof that life is not the solo we demanded, as even our strident discord is gathered into a larger harmony that owes none of it’s beauty to us. We will be confronted with a song we have spent our life refusing to learn. We will not know how to play, and we will weep. But some of us will recognize the tune, because we’ll hear our tiny part in the mix. The little notes that we practiced and played so long will finally make sense as part of the larger whole. And we will join the song.
