Unity is such a wonderful concept, isn’t it? It sounds admirable and certainly is something we should all not only long for but work toward. The problem is this. Unity is costly. Jesus told those gathered to count the cost. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to...

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of...

I have always admired the mobility of God’s people in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. When I was a younger woman, I considered moving to Europe to pursue a career as an opera singer. I had visited several countries during my College years and had become enamored of, first, the way Europeans treated me as a Black woman, and second, the sheer number of opportunities open to a singer. This desire was heightened when, in the 1980s, I started traveling back and forth to Switzerland and France to...