7/19/2026 - “Still Uniting” - Rev. Anthony Spearhart

So, over the past few weeks, we've been opening up the pastor's playbook together.

We began by listening for the voice of the God who is still speaking.

We talked about extravagant welcome and the truth that welcome is never something a church finishes, it's something that a church practices.

We gathered around a table that comes with extensions, making room and again and again, because no matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here.

Last week we talked about collaboration, community, and covenant.

We remembered that the church is not strengthened by retreating into our own corners or insisting on doing everything alone.

The world does not only need a church that knows the song, the world needs a church that's willing to play it.

And we're not finished with this playbook yet.

There are stories still to tell, there are gifts still to discover, and there is still imagination to awaken, awe to encounter, and the table around which we gather.

But today's play stands right in the middle of all of those.

Because every play we've named, every play that's still ahead, depends on our willingness to belong to one another, and then to carry that belonging beyond ourselves.

It depends on our willingness to be united, and our willingness to keep uniting.

That is more than this morning's theme.

It's part of the name that we carry, the united church of Christ.

Sometimes we say a name so often that we stop hearing what it asks of us.

United Church of Christ.

And today I want to pay attention to that first word, united.

Because we were not named the uniform Church of Christ.

We were not named the identical church of Christ.

And we were certainly not named the church where everybody agrees about everything.

Because even Jesus had 12 disciples, and they could not make it through a supper without arguing.

We are the united church of Christ.

And there's a difference between being united and being uniform.

And when I look at this poster here, showing the streams that form the United Church of Christ, I don't just see lines on a page.

I imagine people.

I imagine people arriving in Cleveland in 1957 carrying churches that had shaped them, carrying hymns that had shaped them, carrying different ways of worshiping and organizing themselves, different understandings of authority, different memories of where they had come from, and different convictions about what the church should be.

And because they were church people, I'm sure they also carried strong opinions about which hymnal was best, how long worship ought to last, and whether the coffee was strong enough.

Some things in the church really are timeless.

They came from congregational, Christian, evangelical, and reformed traditions.

And there was another stream flowing into that history as well, the Afro-Christian Convention.

But for far too long, the United Church of Christ did not fully recognize or honor that fifth stream.

Its presence and contributions were pushed to the margins of our denominational story.

Only recently did the wider church formally name what had been there all along and apologize for rewriting our history in a way that failed to honor it.

The Afro-Christian stream was not added to our story later.

It was always a part of the river.

We simply failed for far too long to name it.

And perhaps this is where the image of the streams becomes more than beautiful, because not every stream was fully seen.

Not every person was allowed to bring the fullness of who they were into our understanding of what it meant to be united.

And I cannot hear that story without thinking about another story for a long time was not fully welcomed in our understanding of who belonged in the church.

The stories and lives of the LGBT community.

Both of these stories, people who love the church, people who serve the church, people who sang its hymns, taught its children, prayed its prayers, cared for its members, and carried out its ministry.

And yet many were told that some part of who they were had to remain outside of the tent.

Some were invited to belong only if they remained silent.

Some were welcomed only if they did not ask the church to truly see them.

Some were told directly or indirectly that unity depended upon their conformity.

And that is not unity, it's erasure.

The beauty of being united is not that people learn how to disappear into the crowd.

The beauty is that people can bring the truth of who they are and still be held within the covenant.

And being a united and uniting church means that when we get that wrong, we do not hide behind our good intentions.

We apologize.

We tell the truth.

We listen to those who are harmed.

We make repair where we can, and we vow to do better.

Not because an apology erases the wound, not because one statement repairs a history of exclusion, but because reconciliation without accountability is only another form of avoidance.

A church that is still uniting must also be a church that is still repenting, still learning, still widening the tents, still making sure the welcome we proclaim is the welcome people actually experience.

And that is the story written into our name.

Not that we became the same, but that different people carrying different histories, convictions, customs, gifts, and wounds dared to belong to something wider than themselves.

And that is the beauty of being united.

Unity would not be especially remarkable if we were already identical.

There's no great spiritual achievement in getting along only with people who think like us, worship like us, vote like us, and see the world exactly as we do.

That's not unity, that's similarity.

The wonder of unity is that we come together as different people.

Different voices remain different voices, different stories remaining different stories.

Different streams still carry the waters of the places from which they came.

But they join one another.

They began moving together.

And together they became something that no single stream could become alone.

Unity is not conformity.

Conformity says there is room for you once you become like us.

Where unity says, bring the fullness of who you are and let us discover what God can create among us.

Unity says that with a large contingency of Michigan State fans can call a pastor who is most likely because of their marching band and his husband attending there is most likely to be rooting for Ohio State.

And that is okay.

Our general minister and president, the Reverend Dr.

Karen George Thompson, has used the image of a big tent as the United Church of Christ considers the diversity within our denomination.

And I love that image.

Because the beauty of a big tent is not that everyone beneath it becomes the same.

A tent does not erase the differences.

It creates a shared space in which difference can remain together.

Under a big tent, there can be many stories, many traditions, many understandings, many questions, and many ways of naming what faithfulness looks like.

Now, of course, putting everyone beneath one tent does not guarantee agreement.

Sometimes it only means that we are now disagreeing in closer proximity.

But perhaps, perhaps, that is the holy work to be done.

Unity is not proven when people who already agree gather together.

Unity becomes visible when different people choose covenant without demanding conformity.

Now, a big tent still needs its poles.

It still needs its anchors, it needs commitment strong enough to hold when the wind begins to blow.

Now for us, these anchors include our extravagant welcome.

They include justice, the dignity of every person, and under our covenant to treat one another with love.

But within those commitments there must still be room.

And our hope is not only that a bigger tent makes room for more people, our hope is that the difference beneath it makes us stronger together.

Because each story, each gift, each perspective, and each stream brings something the rest of us could not carry alone.

Next year, the United Church of Christ will mark 70 years as a denomination.

And in 2028, General Synod will return to Cleveland, the city where the UCC was formed, to celebrate that history and look toward what comes next.

But I hope we do not return merely to admire where the streams once met or where they began.

My hope is that we ask where the Spirit is still drawing streams together now.

Are we only celebrating that some churches united once?

Or are we still uniting?

Now that question takes us to the prayer of Jesus in John's gospel.

Holy God, protect them in your name so that they may be one as we are one.

And later, I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.

Jesus offers this prayer when everything is about to come apart.

He has shared a final meal with his friends, he's washed their feet, he's commanded them to love one another, and for now he is preparing them for life without his physical presence among them.

By the next day he will be arrested and crucified.

The disciples will scatter fear and grief, will test the bonds between them.

And standing on the edge of fracture, Jesus prays that they may be one.

Not that they may become identical, not that every difference will disappear, but that they will remain bound together in love.

John's gospel was written decades later for a Christian community facing its own questions about identity, belonging, conflict, and separation.

So when that community heard Jesus pray that they may all be one, they did not hear a pleasant religious slogan.

They heard a prayer spoken directly into the difficulty of their own life together.

Jesus does not pray for unity because unity is easy.

Jesus prays for unity because division is real.

And notice why he prays for it, so that the world may believe.

Their unity is not only for their own comforts.

The way they remain connected through difference is meant to reveal something about the still-speaking God.

The streams are not brought together nearly so that they can admire the river.

They are brought together so the water can keep moving outward.

So the first half of today's play is united.

United describes the covenant we share here at Lakeview and across the wider church.

It does not mean that we interpret every scripture in the same way, come from the same background, or carry the same questions.

It means that by the grace of God we have been drawn into relationship.

I do not have to become you.

You do not have to become me, but we can choose to belong to one another.

That is covenant.

Covenant is not agreement without exception, covenant is relationship with responsibility.

It is the promise that even when we disagree, we will remember that the person across from us is still a beloved child of God.

We will still listen before dismissing.

We will become curious before becoming defensive.

We will speak honestly without forgetting kindness.

Covenant does not mean we will never irritate one another.

If anything, covenant guarantees that we will remain close enough to have the opportunity to.

But the beauty of unity is not the differences disappear.

The beauty is that difference is held within a love strong enough to keep us connected.

We are called to keep uniting, because our calling is not only to be just united.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

And then Paul continues, God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

Now Paul is not writing to a congregation where everything is peaceful.

His relationship with the church in Corinth had been strained.

There has been conflicts, mistrust, criticism, and hurt.

So when Paul speaks about reconciliation, he is not offering a pleasant idea from a safe distance.

He's writing from inside a fractured relationship, and he needs reconciliation.

The Corinthians need reconciliation because their life together depends on it.

Reconciliation does not mean pretending nothing happened.

It does not mean returning to the way things were when the way things were caused harm.

It may require, however, confession, repentance, apology, repair, boundaries, and a new way of relating.

Paul does not say everything returns to the old arrangement.

Paul says there is a new creation.

And this brings us right back to where we were last week, with collaboration, community, and covenants being not separate plays from one another.

They are how a uniting church lives.

Collaboration teaches us that we do not have to do everything alone.

Community reminds us that faith is not something we carry privately, and covenant gives us a way to remain in relationship even when agreement is incomplete.

And perhaps one of the hardest places to practice this is within the church itself.

Because words can quickly become walls, like progressive, conservative, liberal, traditional.

These words can become shortcuts, and human beings love shortcuts, especially when the shortcuts allow us to decide when someone is without enduring the inconvenience of actually knowing them.

Now Lakeview is in many ways a progressive congregation.

We have made clear commitments to extravagant welcome, inclusion, justice, and the dignity of every person.

However, we should not retreat from those commitments.

Those are poles holding up our tent.

But conviction without welcome can become another kind of closed door.

Extravagant welcome cannot mean that only people who already agree with us are welcome here.

Because that's not welcome.

A person is not a project, a relationship is not a strategy.

And we can be honest about who we are without demanding that every person use the same labels, reach the same conclusions, or stand in the same place on every issue.

Now that does not mean that every behavior is acceptable.

Harmful speech does not become harmless simply because someone calls it a belief.

A welcoming community still needs boundaries and accountability.

We can hold strong convictions without turning them into an entrance exam.

And we can disagree without reducing one another to enemies.

A uniting church does not abandon its values and does not turn people into its projects.

It keeps the lines of extravagant welcome open because we believe God can hold us together without making us the same.

Now that brings us to the word in today's title of the sermon that matters most.

Still.

Still uniting.

Nearly 70 years after those streams met in Cleveland, the river is still moving.

They are still streams, there are still streams we failed to see.

Still people standing at the edge wondering where there's truly room for them.

Still wounds requiring truth and apology, still relationships waiting for someone to make the first move.

But still does not have to sound like failure.

It can also sound like faithfulness.

We are still here, still listening, still learning, still apologizing when we get it wrong, still vowing to do better, still holding our convictions and still keeping the welcome open.

Still believing relationship is possible even when agreement is not.

So today, think of one line you were attempted to treat like a wall.

One person you might have reduced to a label.

One story we have failed to hear.

One conversation we have already decided is impossible.

Now you do not have to surrender your convictions, you do not have to excuse harm.

But perhaps this week you can take one faithful step.

Listen before answering.

Ask a question before assuming.

Speak truth without using it as a weapon.

And apologize when we get it wrong.

Make room without attaching a hidden condition.

And let us lengthen the rope.

Make room for one honest conversation beneath the tents, because this is what a uniting church does.

It does not stand behind beside the river, admiring the place where the streams once met.

It keeps moving.

It flows toward the lonely, toward the wounded, toward the person who thinks differently, toward the person who has been told there is no place for them.

Toward a world that has nearly forgotten how to belong to one another.

Because Jesus is still praying that they may all be one.

God is still reconciling.

The Spirit is still drawing the streams together.

And now the river reaches us.

So here is today's play.

Step into the currents.

Keep the lines of extravagant welcome old and open.

Hold your convictions with courage.

And let us vow to do better.

Do not settle for having been united once.

Be the church that is still listening, still learning, still repairing, still reaching, still reconciling, still uniting, and still speaking.

Amen.

And Amen.