Nine miles south of where you now sit, on the

northwest quadrant of Monument Circle at the heart of

the City of Indianapolis, there is a bronze plaque that

reads, “On this site stood The Second Presbyterian

Church, organized 1838, Henry Ward Beecher, first

pastor.” Now, if you didn’t know where it was or that it

was there at all, you are not likely to find that bronze

plaque. And yet, that plaque says something about

you, gathered here on the same street in the same city

nearly two centuries later. In 1840, when this fledging

congregation and its 27-year-old pastor moved into its

first building, our city of 2,700 residents was less than

two decades old. A work in progress. And since the

earliest days, you (we) have been part of that progress.

Second Presbyterian Church is, as it ever has been, a

church for the city of Indianapolis.

Fast forward. In 1988, under the leadership of another

of Second’s former pastors, Mayor Bill Hudnut, the

city of 750,000 residents adopted as its official slogan:

“Crossroads of America.” The phrase reflected high—

and to many, unrealistic—ambition. It referred not only

to the junction of four interstate highways, but also

to the growth and spirit of optimism that marked the

moment. A crossroads. A convening. A meeting place.

A hub of activity.

Or, a crossroads: the point at which a crucial decision,

with far-reaching consequences, must be made. The

tricky truth about that kind of crossroads is that we

recognize it only in retrospect. Looking back, we can

mark the impact—for good or ill—of a choice made at a

critical moment. But it is difficult to see it in real time.

When the Apostle Paul wrote letters to congregations

across the Greco-Roman world, he knew that the

Christian movement was at a kind of crossroads.

The course set by these early churches would indeed

have far-reaching consequences. Now, Paul could not

have imagined the scale, that we would be reading his

mail these millennia later, but he did grasp the weight of

the moment. His letters convey a deep sense of urgency

and importance. He writes to churches at crossroads

both geographic and spiritual.

I am convinced that we too stand at a crossroads. One

of the gifts of this congregation that drew me to you six

years ago is our role at the intersection of discipleship

and citizenship. A church for the city. The crossroads

of personal faith and public discourse. In our very first

conversation, another legendary Second Church pastor,

Bill Enright, told me that Second’s superpower is the

capacity to convene. A crossroads. In our time, this

capacity is both consequential and deeply challenging.

The choice we make now will reverberate into an

unknown future. We are a people at the crossroads.

And so, I suggest it is a good time to turn to Paul’s

letters. For four Sundays, we’re contemplating

correspondence conveyed to a congregation at a crucial

crossroads, and I suspect we’ll see ourselves reflected

in these ancient words.

So, off to Corinth we go. Not many years before writing

the words we just heard, Paul arrived in the city with a

message and a passion for sharing it. There, he preached

the gospel, baptized a few families (he doesn’t seem to

recall exactly how many families), launched a community

of Christ followers among urbane Gentiles. It was a sign

for Paul of the power and movement of God that these

former pagans heard and believed the gospel, that they

were transformed and then united into the one body of

Christ, people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives

joined by one common creed: Jesus Christ is Lord.

But then Paul went away, and Apollos, an eloquent

Alexandrian orator, was called to be pastor of First

Church Corinth. Paul had not been gone long when

he heard from his dear friend Chloe, a leader of

the Corinthian church. Her report was, for Paul,

devastating. The church, still not fully formed, had

fallen into fractured factions. Instead of gathering

for worship and meals as one community, affinity

groups had formed. The Corinthians had devolved

into personality-driven discipleship. I belong to Paul; I

belong to Peter; I belong to Apollos.

Paul, frustrated and anxious for the church’s future,

drafts a letter. He moves quickly past the customary

pleasantries, and in verse ten of chapter one, he gets

straight to the point. “I appeal to you. I implore you. I ask

of you. I command you. For the sake of Jesus Christ, be

in agreement.” Paul’s words are so crystal clear because

he knows that division in the community of faith directly

undermines our central mission. Whether the city is

Corinth or Indianapolis, we cannot be a church for the

city when we are against each other.

Paul urges the Corinthians to be united, but I want to

be clear. The unity Paul describes is not synonymous

with uniformity. From the outset, faithful Christian

communities have had no interest in drumming out

difference or insisting on lockstep like-mindedness.

And so, we decry the demonization of those deemed

“other” that disregards the divine image in all of us

and threatens the lives of neighbors. We celebrate

the beautiful breadth of the family of faith. In fact, we

aim to be the kind of place where people can argue

intensely about sports rivalries, political convictions,

even Biblical interpretation, and then enter this sacred

space and sit beside the very person with whom you

disagree and sing the hymns and pray the prayers and

pass the peace of Jesus Christ.

He is our peace. And our unity.

In the gospel of John, Jesus prays for his disciples.

He prays for protection. He prays for sanctification.

But above all, he prays for unity. Jesus prays that his

followers will be one, a prayer so central that he repeats

it four times in these few verses. That they may all

be one. You cannot read the prayer of Jesus and not

conclude that the unity of the church mattered to him.

I find it both instructive and challenging that Jesus did

not pray for us to be right, or happy, or prosperous, or

perfect. He prayed for unity.

Friends, we are most faithful and most fulfilled when

we are one. The church is not—must not be—a special

interest group, a political party, an exclusive club for

those who fit in or a weekly meeting of the likeminded.

Now, I don’t want to be naïve about this. At a crossroads

moment, it is hard work—hard work—to silence the siren

song of self-righteous superiority. It is tempting to join

the Corinthians. I belong to Christ. I belong to Christ,

but I’m not so sure about you. You see, the call to unity

demands humility.

One more thing. I read again this week about the

epidemic of loneliness that is so widespread among

us. Our carved-up tribalism inevitably exacerbates

this isolation. One statistic stood out: a Gallup survey

of weekly attendance at religious services. That

number—weekly attendance—fell to 21% of the U.S.

population last year. Richard Weissbourd, Director of

the Making Caring Common Project at Harvard, had

some interesting thoughts on the topic in March at the

Kennedy School of Government. Weissbourd said, “I’m

not suggesting that we should become more religious,

but I [do] want to suggest…that religious communities

are a place where adults engage kids, stand for moral

values, welcome big moral questions, [a place] where

there is a fusion of a moral life and a spiritual life…the

sense that you have obligations to your ancestors and

your descendants, where there is a structure for dealing

with grief and loss.” Later in the lecture, Weissbourd

continued, sounding a bit like a preacher, “I feel urgently

that we have to figure out how to reproduce those

aspects of religion in secular life.”

Well, with all due respect to the professor, I’d like

to suggest that there is something unique in the

formation of faith communities that will be difficult to

reproduce in secular life. We pursue the values and

virtues he celebrates not for their practicality but

because God created us for community. Our sense

that we have obligations to our ancestors and our

descendants, our insistence on engaging big moral

questions, come from our conviction that God calls us

to care for one another. And so, our unity is rooted in

something deeper than expedience.

Paul preached unity with roots beyond allegiance to

shared identity, partisan perspective, or human leader.

We belong to each other because we belong to God.

And so, perhaps the question is as simple as this: what

kind of community are we called to be? Which values

and convictions will guide us at this crossroads?

Of course, I acknowledge that the answers are

more complex than the questions. Our courage and

our commitment will be tested. In my experience,

staying together is more difficult than breaking apart.

Maintaining unity requires the hard work of compassion,

even love, for people whose positions disappoint,

sadden, even anger you. I think Jesus prayed so

fervently for the oneness of the church because he

knew how difficult it would be for us, how often we

succumb to forces of division.

But I ask you this. Has the strength of the Christian

witness, or the depth of your own faith, been increased

by movements that aim for perceived purity by exclusion

and subtraction? I for one am not moved by any

definition of community that excludes those unlike me.

More importantly, I do not believe the life of Jesus Christ

sanctions that model.

No, we are called to a unity born not of sameness but of

oneness. A community that values being together more

than being rigidly righteous. A crossroads. A meeting

place. A hub of activity. A crossroads. The point at which

a crucial decision must be made.

The city we serve needs our witness. The world is

watching. Jesus prayed that his followers would be one.

Our unity is the best proof that we got the point. Amen.