Unity in a Fearful World (Sermon 9.26.25)

A couple of years ago, I worked for a summer as a hospital chaplain in a very large, and very busy university hospital. 

As I entered a patient’s room,  I would always get a flutter of nervousness—Is this the right room? What was their name? Their condition? Outside their door, I would silently prepare myself for whatever our conversation might hold. 

On one particular visit, those butterflies followed me in. I’d been paged to this room—which usually meant the patient’s need was urgent. But as we exchanged introductions, my nerves eased, and I asked my usual opening question: What prompted you to request a chaplain today?

To my surprise, he completely sidestepped my question and launched into a rant about transgender people.

They are pushing stuff on our kids! We need to do something about these people!

Immediately, my nervousness turned into fear.

I felt that hot rush of panic as my pulse quickened, my chest tightened, and my thoughts began to race. I was not ready to have this conversation. And I certainly wasn’t ready to have a conversation about my pronouns, or my siblings’ transition, or all my beautiful and wonderful trans and gender-nonconforming friends. 

No—I wanted to run away! Or maybe just throw facts at him, argue, convince him he was wrong. But even in my fear, even in that rush of fight-or-flight, I knew I had a responsibility in that moment.

I was a chaplain. And I was his chaplain. 

I reminded myself that he had put in a special request for this visit. He wanted to talk to someone. Not just anyone, but a chaplain. 

And so, as I calmed my breath, and as he continued his culture war diatribe, I listened for something deeper. 

Fear is a protective intuition. It is the mind-body trying to keep us safe. And while fear is not fundamentally bad, our nervous systems can get out of whack. Fear can isolate us as individuals, and fracture our communities. 

It’s no wonder the Bible so frequently urges us not to fear. To take heart and to trust that God’s in control. 

Right now, it seems like we live in a world soaked in fear. Fear for what tomorrow’s headlines might bring. Fear of our political enemies. Fear that Christianity is being misrepresented. Fear that our current divisions are irreconcilable. Fear that violence will erupt again—in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our public squares. 

Maybe you’ve felt it this week as you watched the news. Or sat around the dinner table. Maybe you asked yourself, or God, what kind of world will our children inherit? 

And as leaders in the local church, we all know that this fear can seep into our congregations, exacerbating old conflicts or initiating new debates. Souring relationships and tearing at those bonds of love. 

We need the message of Colossians chapter three just as much as the ancient church. 

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Bear with each other. 

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And above all -- put on love. Love which binds us all together in perfect unity. 

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, because in Christ, we are a new Creation.  In Christ, we are each members of one body. 

Back in that hospital room, I listened for something deeper. 

I noticed his body—weathered by age, disease, and poverty. 

I noticed what was unspoken. Underneath the frustration, I heard his disempowerment. Underneath the anger, I heard his fear. 

And as I listened, I began to take hold of the truth that in this moment, he was not a threat to me or anyone else. My fear was my brain trying to protect me, thank you, brain. But I was in fact safe… And that sitting before was a man who needed compassion. And in this moment, I could extend that to him. 

As he paused his tirade to take a breath, I gently but firmly interrupted him. I told him we did not agree on this issue. I had my suspicions that trans people were not the real reason this man had sought spiritual care. There had to be something more going on. So after a short back and forth, I redirected the conversation. 

I asked him, “So what is going on with you? You requested a chaplain, and you just happened to get me. We happen not to agree on this issue. But I am here for you. So, tell me, what prompted you to request a visit from a chaplain today?” 

As our conversation progressed, he eventually told me about the loss of his mother, his unresolved grief, his financial struggles, the deferred doctor's visits that had landed him in the hospital, his fear that God wasn’t listening. 

Our meeting ended in prayer. Our hands clasped together. Tears and laughter marked our final moments together.  

As I was making my exit, he stopped me and told me that he was grateful I had been willing to talk to him about our disagreements. He said, people didn’t talk to him like that very often. That my words might make him think differently. 

I don’t know if that made him stop fearing things he did not understand, cultural changes he felt left out of, or the people who challenged his understanding of the world, but I have faith that our conversation redirected his trajectory in some small way.

I have faith, because I know that conversation redirected the course of my own life.

History reveals many instances of human beings seeking unity through uniformity. As Hanna Reichel has recently written, the Nazis often spoke of the “collective body of the people," idealizing unity in organic, biological, racialized images and portraying any threat to that unity as “parasites” or “diseases” of the body. In opposition to Nazi ideology, the ecumenical movement, including the Confessing Church, insisted that real community was not natural but supernatural. 

As one prominent ecumenical movement leader wrote, “Jesus Christ is the One who is Savior of all humankind, the Lord of Lords, in whom all things hold together.” So, regardless of our cultural, political, and even theological differences--we are part of “one fellowship which transcends all frontiers.”

Unity is, therefore, both a gift and an obligation for the church of Jesus Christ. God’s Spirit works to bind us to one another, and yet simultaneously, we must earnestly live into this reality.

My encounter in that hospital room reminds me daily of the gift and task of our unity in Jesus Christ. 

For it is God’s gift of Grace which drew together a fearful and hurting man, and a fearful and hurting chaplain, in a hospital room—and wrapped them in compassion and gentleness, patience, and mercy. And it was God’s Love which bound us together, as Colossians says, in “the perfect bond of unity.” In that holy space, fear loosened its grip, and we witnessed one another not as strangers, but as members of one body. As Christ alive in one another. 

Thanks be to God! 

Preached by Rev. Delaney Piper at the September 2025 Meeting of the Presbytery of Wyoming. Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church, Casper, WY. 9.26.25.