It is pentecost, the time in the church calendar when we remember how the disciples are fired up after the ascension to go out and do miraculous stuff by the giving of the Holy Spirit. 

It is a traditional time to consider unity.  This seems to take many forms, depending almost entirely on the individual.

There is a concept relating to solidarity - something I’ve discussed before.  So we might feel unified with those in the faith, those in our country.  Essentially this appears to be a feeling, we feel unified.

There is also a concept of spiritual unity, which we embrace by reflecting on all the theological ideas we hold in common.  But when it comes down to it, we don’t actually have a whole lot in common - most of us believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as God/Man and Messiah, but don’t agree on what that means or what we should then do with that information.  Then there is the lazy comment that we all ‘should’ believe in the Creed - ignoring the vast majority of Christians who have not held to some of the concepts expressed in the creeds over the centuries, nor should they because they’re rubbish.

Third, there is a concept of family unity - either in our blood families or our wider immediate religious circles, which seems to boil down to being nicer to the people we see once a week.

So is that it? Is that what it means to be unified? Honestly, I doubt it.  It isn’t normally too difficult to like the people we love or those who are like us.  It isn’t difficult to express solidarity with people we’re never likely to meet.  It isn’t difficult to suggest that there is a theological standard which would make everyone unified and privately to accept that few hold to it. 

Consider the ants.  Their communities are unified in the sense that there is a unified understanding of what is important and a unified understanding of what must be done to make it work.  Every individual has a role which is accepted by the others and the thing only works because everyone pulls their weight.   Remarkably, there doesn’t seem to be any particular ant telling the others exactly what to do nor setting the agenda.  For an ant, community is key - without the others, the individual is nothing.

Of course, it is hard imagining being an ant and there are things we probably wouldn’t want in human communities.  But if you want an expression of a community acting with a sense of purpose, you could do a lot worse than considering ants.