More Binds Us To One Another Than Divides Us

             There is a universal statement in the Christian faith, that we are all ‘children of God’.  That God created us, cares for us, sustains us (even as we sinfully work so hard to undermine that creation).  Then we get particular, in Jesus Christ, in our belief in Him as our Lord and Savior.  This, with the indwelling Holy Spirit is how the Christian faith distinguishes a Triune presence of God as a foundation of our faith.

            Among the resources of the ministry that I have recently gone through, I found interfaith resources obtained at the time when I was doing interfaith chaplaincy with our local police department and interfaith spiritual care in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.  And while the names change and the sources of religious inspiration differ, the root needs and aspirations of the people do not.

            In other words, the need for the love, caring, rescue, healing, and grace from a Source more powerful than ourselves is a constant in its expression across different faiths.  I do not say this because I am a ‘universalist’, that all religious expression somehow leads to the same God.  I say this because it underpins the universality of the human experience, the universality that we are all children of God. 

            All humans can suffer.  All humans need love.  All humans are worthy beings.  All humans are God’s children.  As a Christian, I believe that is where I need to begin.  We live in a time where we more quickly begin in what divides us, for how ‘those’ people are different from us.  Too often, those divisions are meant to designate who is ‘wrong’ in opposition to who is ‘right’ (which is usually us).

            But in a time where there are more than ten thousand presumed dead in Libya, where a war continues to rage in Ukraine, where we continue to watch Lee plowing north, Margot out beyond it, and another gearing up to take up the mantle of a named storm, where there is so much need in the world, the need to come together is more powerful now than ever.

            We are all God’s children.  If we embrace that truth in love and compassion, across our faiths and beliefs, we will do so much better.

Pastor Pete