Hello, Christians. Come close, let’s chat. Agnostics, Jewish siblings, Pagans and Muslims; and other faith traditions and spirituality holders, you’re welcome to read along. 

Siblings in faith, we have an issue of communication. We have an issue of attentiveness to our faith, and the core tenets. You may recall that the head of the Christian Church is Jesus Christ — he who came to teach, changed a world and challenged an empire, was killed by the state, and then rose again in triumph.

You may recall that Jesus, when asked to indicate what the most important commandment is, said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. Love one another as I have loved you.” The words of Jesus are often highlighted red in the printed scriptures to underscore their importance. 

Yet, we tend to fixate on the things that separate us. Walls, borders, boundaries, interpretations and claims to nationalism that simply aren’t within the teachings of Jesus. In fact, when claiming allegiance to the state over the faith, they are arguably against the very thing that Jesus himself says is most important.

I understand the longing to belong, and the ease by which connecting on perceived threat can invite community. But I think we can do better. I think we can do better in our community, in our lives and in our politics. We are communicating with a willingness to prove each other wrong, rather than see the places where we overlap. We are putting the idolatry of money and power over the Christ charge of loving the least of these.

There are local churches in nearly every one of our towns doing the work of mercy and justice, and inviting connection across difference. When we are able to attend to the places where we have the opportunity of overlap, rather than the fiction of our separateness, something in us settles. We remember what faith we follow.

That’s why I want to point you toward something happening later this month. On Sunday, Sept. 27, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the pulpit once held by Martin Luther King Jr., will preach at the 10 a.m. worship service closing the Southern New England Conference’s annual meeting at the DCU Center in Worcester. The service is open to the public, and it will also be livestreamed for anyone who can’t be in the room. Visit sneucc-reg.brtapp.com/2026AMWorship to register.

I don’t point you there because Warnock is a senator. I point you there because he is, first, a pastor, and because the meeting’s theme this year, “The Ties That Bind,” is the very thing I’m trying to name above. We are bound to one another, regardless of whether we act like it. The question is whether we’ll live like people who know it.

Come if you can. Watch if you can’t. Either way, come close. Let’s read and chat.

The Rev. Chris Davies is the executive minister of programs and initiatives at the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ. She lives in western Massachusetts and witnesses hope in action at churches across the region and beyond. Learn more at findhopenow.org, or connect with Davies at RevDrChrisDavies.com.