We
believe that our smallness can never diminish God’s vastness; that our
frailties can never overcome God’s will for wholeness; that our sin can never
crush God’s power for new life even in the face of death. We believe, and in this belief, we need one
another, as a choir needs every voice and every part for the harmony to be
complete. An Affirmation of Christian Unity
When was the last time you felt your full humanness in the
presence of God’s inexhaustibility? I
bristle a bit at the word “smallness” in the above creed. Part of this is because of my own ego. I don’t want to be small. We have negative connotations of small, which
is too bad. Because there is holiness in
all that is seen and unseen. God is
there in the bug crawling along the carpet.
God is in the atom we cannot see, and we know that the atom is in
us and has been here since the beginning of time. God is there in the mystery of the stars
above and the depths of seas we have yet to explore. Suddenly, I do feel a bit small. I will never travel to space; I get motion
sick in a car that goes too fast, let alone a rocket! I will never dive to the deepest part of the
ocean; I don’t even like swimming in my pool.
Maybe it is holy for me to name and notice that I am not the center of
the universe. Perhaps it is holy to
remember my own fragility. The creeds proclaim
and propose that vulnerability is essential for community. Recall moments of community from this past
week, whether that was with one other person or a whole group. How did that group help, and how did that
group hurt? Maybe you felt you couldn’t speak up or say what was on your mind, or maybe you shared too much (I often fall into the latter category). Just as a choir seeks to bring/blend voices
for sound, so too, our lives seek prayerfully to do the same. In our world, it can feel like not only are
we on different pages of the music, but we aren’t even in the same venue when
we sing! We can feel like we are singing
from different pieces of music altogether.
We can feel like others are blaring and blasting sounds that send
shivers down our spine. To come back to
center, to return to the One who is composing and conducting ~ God at the heart
of all the music of our lives. Ponder
ways that you can relish and rejoice in smallness and share your voice as part
of the unfolding larger choir of God.
What does that mean in your life?
How will you participate in singing out, not to overpower, but to
cooperate and conspire? May this
invitation move within us today and in the days to come. Amen.
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