UNITY SUNDAY: Service and Foretaste

It is, hands down, my favorite Sunday morning of the entire year—the Sunday during the Martin Luther King, Jr weekend when Central gathers with folks from Fountain Baptist Church and Wallace Chapel AME Zion Church to praise God together. This year, the service will be on Sunday, January 15 at 10 am in the Sanctuary at Central—our only worship service of the day—and the music alone most years lifts my spirit to a place so holy, so joyous.

And I’ve reflected on why that is, and why it is that a holy joy like I experience on that Sunday is not a regular thing in my life. And I suppose it has something to do with reality. Reality is that racism—what has been called our nation’s “original sin”—is still very much in force in our country today. There’s no way for me to escape the realization that my life as a white person has been very different from the lives of people of color even though we went to school together and live in the same neighborhood and share the same profession. I didn’t ask for things to be this way, and so this is not a call to a guilt trip. However, it is a call to wake up to the reality of racism in our country—a reality that brings us all down, no matter our race.

The Bible is clear that God has made us all, and commands us to love each other without exception. Our diversity in color and culture and creed—this richness that God has created—is not something merely to be tolerated, but is something to be celebrated. Despite the deep stain of the reality of racism, God intends for us to be one, respecting each other no matter our differences, embracing each other.

And on that Sunday morning each year during the Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, when we gather to praise God together, it’s more than a mere worship service, it seems to me. It is a foretaste of the life to come under the Reign of God—a holy, joyous life. I hope that you will join us and taste it for yourself.

--Pastor Don Steele