13 We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to drink.
Reflection
There’s an old joke about a spiritual seeker who goes to a hot dog vendor on the street in New York City. When he gets to the front of the line, the hot dog guy says, “So, what do you want?” The man thinks about it for a minute, then says, “Can you make me one with everything?”
One with everything.
That’s the goal of the spiritual life.
One with God.
One with each other.
One with ourselves.
One with nature.
One with everything both good and bad that happens in our lives.
The promise of the early Church was ONE-ness. Whether you were a Jew or a Gentile, whether you were slave or free, whether you were male or female, the promise was that all could be ONE in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
We are called by the ONE name and led by the ONE Spirit. In the first decades of the Christian faith, this was the ultimate proof that God had made all people equally worthy of salvation: all received the same Spirit. When it was reported that Gentiles were receiving the baptism of the Spirit, the Church began to realize that something new was happening – that barriers that had formerly kept people apart were coming down.
The promise of salvation is also the promise of ONE-ness – that we can live at peace with ourselves, with God, and with each other, by the power of the Spirit who dwells in us.
by Joe Monahan
For Pondering & Prayer
Why does oneness feel so elusive? I mean, consider even your closest relationships. How difficult is it to achieve oneness with just one other person? What does oneness demand of us?
Prayer: Father, Son, Spirit, our deepest desire is to be one with you and with the people around us: to be known, understood, and loved. We pray that today we might experience that oneness – even if it’s for a fleeting moment – with someone in our lives, just as you have oneness in each other. Amen.
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