Transcript
May I speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Earlier in our worship, we prayed a short prayer. And this prayer changes every Sunday being shaped by the church calendar. Some Sundays when our minds are full and the world is noisy, we might slip past it. But then there are days like today when the prayer really speaks. That prayer is the collect of the day and you can find it on page two of the bulletin.
Now, I’ll admit it’s pronounced collect, not collect like the verb. But if you’ve been saying it differently, you’re on to something because that’s exactly what it does. It collects us. It gathers up the main themes of the day. Yes. But more than that, it collects us into one voice, one hope, one prayer. Maybe it’s the coffee lover in me, but I like to say that the colleague of the day is the espresso shot of our worship. It’s short and strong, and when we really savor it, it wakes us up. So, let’s hear it again or follow along in the bulletin and listen for a phrase that stands out to you.
Here it is again. Oh God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor. Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart and united to one another with pure affection.
So, what stood out to you? Maybe the line about loving God and neighbor. After all, after all, that’s what it’s all about as Jesus taught. Maybe you caught that bold line, being devoted to God with our whole heart, which is no small prayer in a world tugging at us from every direction. But the line that really speaks to me is this. We pray to be united to one another with pure affection. United with pure affection.
That kind of Christian affection, that kind of unity feels especially needed right now because here we are a few days after the 4th of July. A time to remember gratitude, those hard one freedoms, a country we love, and the people whose courage made both possible. But we also know not everyone experiences the day the same way. We live in a country founded on incredible ideals and promises waiting to be fulfilled. For some, the 4th of July feels like freedom. For others, freedom feels out of reach. As a veteran, in my own experience, I know what it is to love this country and to long still for what it might yet become more just, more true. And this national holiday meant to unite can reveal once more just how divided, how fractured our nation has become.
But here’s what I believe with my whole heart. That this is the kind of moment the church is meant for. You see, being the church doesn’t ask us to erase our differences. It doesn’t require us to think alike, to vote alike, or to agree on everything. But like the collect of the day, we are called to be united to one another with pure affection. A fierce spiritshaped affection that binds us to one another as Christ has bound himself to us. The kind of affection that looks someone in the eye with the love of Jesus and says, “I see you.” Not just red or blue, not just profile or politics or partisanship, but I see you as an image of God.
In a week of stars and stripes, when so many wonder what still holds us together as a people, here is our witness as the body of Christ. Grace holds us. Love holds us. Jesus holds us. Yes, we are called to have those hard conversations as the church about what it really means to love God and our neighbor. And no, we won’t always agree. But the foundation of our faith we return to again and again is love, is grace, is Jesus.
So, how might we practice that kind of Christian affection we’ve prayed for this morning? Could it look like pausing before we speak? It’s hard to do. Or asking someone how they’re really doing and staying long enough to hear the truth. It might mean choosing compassion instead of that comeback, something most of us have been tempted by at one point or another. Sometimes being united in affection means staying when it would be easier to walk away. And in those moments, we become living signs that the kingdom of God is near.
But perhaps the clearest expression of that Christian affection, the place where we live it most visibly, is here at the Lord’s table, where we kneel or stand shouldertosh shoulder. Not because we agree on everything, but because we are hungry. Hungry for a love that feeds when the headlines can’t reach. Here at the Lord’s table, by the Spirit’s grace, the divisions that weigh on the world lose their grip. Here, no longer strangers, but friends.
And so as the fireworks now fade, as the flags are gently folded, as the questions about who we are as a nation continue, may today’s collect for us be more than words. May it be a prayer that steadies us that we may be united to one another with pure affection. that the world might glimpse it through us that they may see and know Jesus by our love.
I invite us then to pray the collect of the day once more as a quiet act of faith and a prayer of the church for such a time as this. Let us pray. Oh God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor. Grant that the grace of your Holy Spirit that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart and united to one another with pure affection through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. May it be so.