That We All May Be One

​Everything Jesus says in the Gospels is important. But our reading for today is one of the most important of all. It comes at the end of the Last Supper, which makes these very nearly the final words of Jesus’ ministry. Immediately after our passage, Jesus and the disciples headed to Gethsemane, where Jesus would be arrested and then crucified.
 
At the Last Supper, but before our passage, Jesus has already done a LOT. Jesus established the Eucharist, washed the feet of the disciples, and gave us the new commandment that we love each other as he loves us. Jesus finishes by encouraging us to “take courage” for he has “conquered the world.”
 
Then Jesus wraps it up with a long prayer for the disciples who were with him at the Last Supper, and also for “those who will believe in [him] through their word,” which is to say, for us. This prayer, our reading, is Jesus’ vision for the Church.
 
Jesus prays that we all may be one, perfectly united as Jesus and his heavenly father are united, “so that the world may believe.”
 
Now, we all know that unity is important for any group to function effectively. The easiest example is team sports. When my Atlanta Braves won the world series a few years ago, you could see that the team was united. They played like they were having fun together, and so they won.
 
It’s even more obvious in sports like basketball or that most mysterious sport, hockey. In January, many of us went to watch the Springfield Thunderbirds play. It was only the third hockey game I had ever witnessed. People had to give me a running commentary so that I would understand what was happening. But even I could see that the other team was more united than the Thunderbirds were, and, predictably, the other team won.
 
I experienced the same thing in reverse in my own brief intermural basketball career. When I was in my twenties, a friend invited me to join a team he was putting together. I warned him that I wasn’t good at team sports. But he encouraged me. He assured me that I could pick up basic basketball strategy in a couple of practices.
 
It did not take long for us both to realize that he was incorrect. During games, I spent most of my time standing at the edge of play, bewildered by the nine men moving around like they knew what they were doing. I was NOT united with my teammates, and so I didn’t know how to contribute. After a few games, my friend and I jointly decided I should retire.
 
In our reading, Jesus is telling us that Church is like a sports team in this way. Divisions are a problem. We need to be united to accomplish the things that God calls us to do.
 
Unfortunately, the Church has never been great at unity.
 
Divisions emerged already in the very first decade after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The Apostles Paul and Peter argued vigorously enough that others got caught up in it. The apostles were able to work it out, but Paul and his partner Barnabas parted company and never worked together again. 
 
Another decade on, things were even more complicated in the Corinthian Church. We can see in Paul’s first letter to them that they were fighting about a whole range of things, and it got bad enough that members were suing each other.
 
It keeps going from there, all through Christian history. Now, of course, we are divided into denominations, many of which won’t have anything to do with each other.
 
Out of curiosity, I asked AI how many Christian denominations there are in the world today. I thought the answer would be in the hundreds. The actual answer was something like 45,000! That is a LOT of division.
 
Some things are worth fighting for. But many things that Christians fight about aren’t worth it. And divisions over things that don’t really matter prevent us from doing the will of God.
 
In our reading, Christ prayed that we all might be one for a reason: so that the world would come to know Christ. Jesus says it twice.
 
Unfortunately, our divisions have compromised that witness. In places like India and Japan, people who might otherwise have considered Christianity were confused and put off by squabbles among competing missionary groups. The same is true in contemporary America for people who know nothing about Christianity except what they see in the news.
 
Ideally all Christians would be part of a single denomination, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. So, what can we do to come a little closer to Christ’s vision for us?
 
A first thing we can do is focus more on what unites us than divides us. And that is a lot. Christians agree on the majority of what we consider most important. Virtually all Christians agree on what the Bible is, on the basic doctrines articulated in the Nicene Creed, and on the importance of baptism and the Eucharist.
 
Virtually all Christians agree on our responsibility to help people in need as best we can, with God’s help. Thankfully we’re getting better at putting that one into practice. I think about our partnerships in Church without Walls. We’ve teamed up with other Episcopalians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and a non-denominational Church. A lot more Churches than that were involved in the CROP Walk to support the Parish Cupboard a few weeks ago. That kind of cooperation makes our witness stronger.
 
But the main thing we can do for unity is to keep our focus on Christ.
 
This week a group of Franciscans met here at Saint David’s, along with others on zoom, to talk about Christian mysticism. The book we are reading noted that, like us, “Jesus lived in a bitterly divided and polarized world.” But Jesus had a bigger, more inclusive vision of how we could be. Jesus saw beyond the things that divide us to the deeper reality of who we are in God. Jesus saw everyone as God’s people in God’s world.[1] And Jesus offers that vision to us.
 
Our task is to embrace Christ’s vision. And the best way to do that is through prayer, not so much by what we say in our prayers as by listening for God’s voice.
 
Sitting in expectant silence, just waiting patiently for God’s voice, can be hard. I know from my own experience that sometimes nothing seems to happen. Even those times are probably more productive than we realize.
 
But the more obvious benefit comes when we experience an internal shift in perspective, when our hearts open up, when we glimpse, however briefly, Christ’s vision of his people, of his Church, of his world. In those moments, we glimpse our union in Christ despite everything that divides us in the world.
 
When we live from that place of unity in Christ, when we live out that vision, both we and the world around us come to know Christ a little better.
 
I end with the Franciscan Prayer for Christian Unity. Let us pray.
 
“Holy God, who calls us in the Body of your Son Jesus Christ to continue his work of reconciliation and reveal you to all the world: Forgive us the sins which tear us apart. Give us the courage to overcome our fears and to seek that unity which is your gift and your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen.


[1] Andrew Mayes, Another Christ: Rediscovering Jesus, Francis & Discipleship Today,  chapter 4: “Becoming a Mystic: Unifying Vision.”