Unity is about reconciliation, humility, patience, and laughter.

It’s about sifting through all the “extras” to find what is essential.

It’s about making enough room at the table for tax collectors and zealots, prostitutes and Pharisees, Arminians and Calvinists, Republicans and Democrats, barbecue chicken and mashed potatoes.

The above is from the Rachel Held Evans’ blog post for the Rally to Restore Unity, which kicks off today. It is not the hope expressed only by a rally such as this (which is much needed) but the hope expressed by ecumenical movements in general. For example, in the largest ecumenical network, the World Council of Churches, member churches seek to

promote their common witness in work for mission and evangelism; engage in Christian service by serving human need, breaking down barriers between people, seeking justice and peace, and upholding the integrity of creation; and foster renewal in unity, worship, mission and service.

All of this sounds really good, right?

The ecumenical movement, a desire to be one as expressed by Jesus himself (John 17:21), is a vocation worthy of one’s life (as it was for Jesus). It is a movement, historically articulated, that seeks to unite followers of Jesus around those things we can all hopefully rally around: mission, service, seeking justice and peace, care of creation, revival, etc. During this Rally to Restore Unity I believe we seek to unite ourselves around grander visions of how the Bible can be viewed and read or a more expansive view of God’s grace or Jesus’ call to serve the poor and homeless or, if all else fails, love. Love wins, right?

All of this sounds good. Right up until the moment we discover that my sense of justice is not your sense of justice. It sounds good right up until we realize that one person’s commitment to feed the hungry is trumped by your commitment to save their soul. It sounds good right up until that point where we discover (or admit) that the peace we think we have achieved is held together by a thin strand called ‘tolerance,’ or in other words, I’ll repress what I really think and feel for the sake of unity.

And what about love? Not long ago I listened to a sermon titled “Pulling Them Out of the Fire” by a Baptist preacher down the road from where I used to pastor. I learned in this sermon that the test of one’s devotion to another is not just how loud you yell but how well you discern and react to the numerous people around you that are bound for hell. I read a blog today reminding me that the best way to love the gay person is to remind them they are an abomination before God and that they need to repent. Yet another person will tell me that love is about accepting the other as they are, making no demands and trying not to offend. With this cacophony of love in the air, “Love Wins” begins to sound synonymous with another slogan: To the victor go the spoils.

Prior to this morning, however, I was happy to think that the best way to achieve unity with others was to find that common denominator, that golden thread, that runs through us all. Then I read Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans, and heard the German-speaking pastor call all of the above Kuhscheiße (Google it).

It turns out I was only half right. There is a common thread that runs through us all but it is not any “religious, moral or intellectual experience.” Love is not the tie that binds us all together, nor are our progressive attempts to better know ourselves and others, a triumph Barth says is the “Pharisaism of humility taking the place of the Pharisaism of self-righteousness.”

Riffing off of Romans 3:22-24, Barth recognizes that all of our attempts to gather around the table over issues of justice, peace, mission, or even love are all grand adventures at missing the point because ultimately all of these attempts end up excluding others. Any move to rally the troops around a positive, righteous notion on our part will inevitably erect barriers which is in direct conflict with the mission of Jesus Christ.

Barth writes,

“There is no positive possession of men which is sufficient to provide a foundation for human solidarity; for every positive possession – religious temperament, moral consciousness, humanitarianism – already contains within itself the seed of disruption of society. These positive factors are productive of difference, since they distinguish men from one another” (Epistle to the Romans, pg. 100-01).

We are now prepared to hear what the “tie that binds” truly is. I’m convinced that any Rally to Restore Unity or any World Council of Churches or any ecumenical move will ultimately fail at making us one when they depend on the “positive” contributions each party brings to the table. Barth concludes instead, “Genuine fellowship is grounded upon a negative: it is grounded upon what men lack.”

Barth claims that it is only when we recognize that we are all sinners – we are all condemned – that we can perceive that we are brothers and sisters.

This is the doctrine of total depravity articulated in a way I had never imagined it before. Not as a means to be made more mindful and grateful of the cure found in Christ (John Wesley), nor as a means to scare us to conversion or justify God’s wrath towards us (Jonathan Edwards). Rather, Barth articulates our total depravity as the unifying table from which we can all appeal to God for mercy (Rom. 11:32).

I have to agree with him. The only thing that truly unites us is the thing we so often don’t want to admit. I’m bad, your bad, but that ain’t so bad. Or, as my kids would say,

You’re a Poopy-Head. But So Am I

At this Rally to Restore Unity, and indeed, in all our daily rallies of life, we are all just beggars looking for food. If we truly knew this, if we daily confessed this, how might that change how we approach and deal with our fellow beggars who find their food in ways we do not?