Humans are curious creatures. Just as we struggle to get our minds around both the one-ness and the three-ness of the godhead, so we struggle to understand ourselves. We are alone with our thoughts, alone in our skins. We will face the judgment seat one at a time. But man was not made to be alone. The woman came forth from the man, even as all men come forth from a woman. Husband and wife are made one flesh. Our connectedness, however, doesn’t end there. God’s good promise is that He puts the solitary into families (Psalm 68:6). He makes of us, in our local churches, one body, and in the universal church yet again one body.
All this is a mystery too wonderful to grasp. Our calling, however, is less to understand the mystery, more to enter into it, and to live in light of it. When we lose our identity to the larger group, when we think we are in the kingdom because we are close with those who are, when we forget that He not only calls us but loves us by name, one at a time, we have lost sight of the fact that we are discreet souls.
Our greater danger, however, is when we lose sight of our we-ness. When our places of worship become spectacles, theaters we go to to take in, whether it be frothy entertainment or heady information, we forget that it is we who gather to worship the Triune God. When we fail to mourn with those who mourn, and dance with those who dance, in our families, in our communities, in our churches, we are cut off from the we-ness that we are. When we leave the widow and the orphan in their trouble, thinking ourselves secure, we manifest our insecurity.
Years ago a friend and sheep in my flock asked to meet with me for lunch. Over our burgers and fries he asked me this about the liturgy of our church, “RC, why don’t you trust us to pray?” Truth be told, most of the time I am asked a question I less formulate, more find the answer. That is, there is a file in my head made up of the answers to questions I am asked. I search for the file, and give the answer. I had no file for this question- it was a rare first time for a question. All I could do was give a question in answer- “What do you mean? Why do you think I don’t trust you to pray?” “Well,” my friend explained, “so many of the prayers in our service are read prayers. You know, because you’re afraid we might pray wrong.”
I explained to my friend that a lack of trust had nothing to do with it. Rather, we pray together so that WE might pray TOGETHER. I want on to suggest not only are we praying together, the saints of that body, but the prayers we read are the ancient prayers of the church, and so the we extends beyond our local assembly, to the saints around the world, and even to the souls of just men made perfect. We are together one body, redeemed by one Lord.
It is a glorious gospel truth that each of us is being remade into the image of the Son. It is also a glorious gospel truth that we are being knit together into the body of the Son. I pray for my I-ness, that I would daily see more our we-ness, to live in light of it, to be fed by it, and to serve the body.
