Unity Without Uniformity

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, December 7th, 2025:
Second Sunday of Advent

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Romans
15.4-9

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,

“Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles,
    and sing praises to your name.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

My first thought after reading this passage was, “Wow, the more things change, the more they stay the same.” The diverse Church in Rome was fighting about stuff. All kinds of stuff. Unsurprisingly, early Christians weren’t just a bunch of dudes we see in icons, with halos floating around their heads, all holding hands and rejoicing over perfectly aligned theology. The early Church was a mess of different people with different baggage, trying to follow Jesus and often annoying each other in the process. So, you know… us, basically.

Today’s universal Church still finds Herself divided, and not just between “the world” and the faithful, but within her own walls. We divide ourselves over liturgy, ministry, and preaching. We judge based on who is on what side of those lines. But Saint Paul’s words, “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you,” were the remedy then, and they’re just as necessary now.

What struck me most, digging into the Greek, is that “welcome” here means something deeper, to receive fully. Not to tolerate. Not to nod politely and retreat into judgment. But to receive wild, inconvenient, messy people fully. The way Christ receives us.

That command hit me personally, because for a long time I didn’t think I could be received by the Church. I assumed I had to become someone totally different, someone cleaner, softer, shinier, to be welcome here. But I didn’t. God received me fully, and then so did His people. No makeovers required.

But sometimes I forget this, or maybe some part of me hasn’t fully embraced it, because I still struggle at times to receive others. Not the ones you’d expect, not the obvious messes, or the publicly sinful, or the jagged-edged. It’s the polished, well-adjusted, spiritually stable types. The kind of people you’d expect to show up in a 1950s advertisement for the nuclear family. It’s so foreign to me that I tense up. Some ancient reflex in me whispers, They belong here, you don’t. And suddenly I’m guarding my heart instead of welcoming theirs. It’s frustrating, because it says more about me than about them. 

So now, I try to notice what makes me annoyed and ask: What parts of myself am I rejecting? What wounds am I protecting? What assumptions do I need to hand over to God for healing in this life? I can’t carry them into the next. It becomes both a terrifying and beautiful experience.

Saint Teresa of Avila wrote in The Interior Castle, “It is a great evil for a soul to be alone in the midst of such dangers. I would not want a soul to be alone in this battle.” We weren’t made to do this alone. And we weren’t made to do it only with people who look like us, sin like us, or heal like us. Unity doesn’t mean uniformity. It means standing together, with all our strangeness, all our shadows, all our differences, and still saying, “Welcome.” Just like Christ did.




​Madison Gorham

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