Unity

A thing Jesus did not say:  "Come follow me.  Until you hear me say something or see me do something you disagree with."
Cheryl Mound is a member of the United Church Women of the United Church of Canada.  I don't know her.  But I read her devotional.  She was up on January 2, 2012 in "These Days" (a quarterly devotional magazine produced by the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation).  I read Cheryl's words on January 2 and have been returning to them regularly since.
"God calls us to live in a faith community as Jesus did.  We are not meant to walk alone or to avoid debate among ourselves.  Others are there to travel with us on the journey.  When we walk with others, God walks with us.  As this year unfolds, let us take opportunities to live as God intends."
In that brief paragraph something came together for me that for whatever reason had been jumbled up to that point.  Yes, God is relational within God's own being - an idea we try to put words to when we talk about the Trinity.  And, yes, God created us to be in relationship with God and with one another.  And I think these ideas have always been core ideas for me.  But never so vividly or concretely.
We live in a divisive time in the denomination I'm a part of (the Presbyterian Church USA) and in the larger world - our present political climate could be exhibit A.  And somehow, division came to seem not only possible, but in some instances preferable.  As though the highest value we could aspire to would be some sort of imagined purity - we will walk only with those who agree with us at every point.  There is an allure to this.  Purity isn't a bad thing.  It's almost certainly preferable to impurity.
There are though, I believe, multiple problems with this approach to our relationships - the main problem being if we keep it up we won't have any relationships. Really.  We will either at one point or another find a reason to part ways with nearly everyone OR we will learn to never say what we really think, feel, believe in our heart of hearts so as not to lose contact with those about whom we care.  The former is a progressive winnowing process.  The latter is a progressive dishonesty process.
I am thinking that Cheryl Mound has it right. We are not meant to walk alone.  And we are not meant to avoid debate among ourselves.  We are meant to walk in relationship and to honestly share what we believe about God and faith and matters of importance.  We are also meant to listen to others as they walk with us and share about God and faith and matters of importance from the place where they live.  And we are meant to have conversation, dialogue and debate about those things.  And in that conversation the other may learn and we may learn and we may both find ourselves in someplace we had not imagined and would never have visited on our own.
I cannot categorically state that there are not instances when the healthiest thing for a person or group of people to do is to part company with another person or group of people.  However, with a great nudge from Cheryl Mound I'm increasingly likely to say that working at the relationship with tenacity and perseverance and faith even when (and perhaps even more so) it's a challenge is the healthiest alternative available.