Easter 7

Preparation

Please begin by reading John 17:1-11 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided the text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--So That They May Be One

This text comes from a five-chapter passage in the gospel of John recounting Jesus’ interaction with the disciples at “the last supper.”  In a sense, it is Jesus’ “last will and testament.”  In it, through word and deed, he sums up who he was and is, his relationship with the One who sent him, and his relationship with those who believe in him.

This “last discourse,” as it is sometimes called, concludes with a prayer for Jesus’ disciples.  Today’s text is the beginning of that prayer.  (It takes up all of chapter 17 and I urge you to read it all.)  It is a prayer not just for the disciples who were present in the upper room, but also for all those who will follow for millennia afterward.  It is a prayer for us!

Some recurring themes in John’s gospel are reflected in this prayer.  One is the alienation that has come between God and the world that God created.  The world in which we live is not a God-friendly place and following Christ sets the world in opposition to us as well.  (What a terrible indictment if the world hardly notices we are here!)

The good news is that there is a lifeboat.  We can survive the world in community with each other.  It is for this reason, and for the witness to God’s nature that we are to be, that Jesus’ most fervent prayer for us is that we might be one—one even to the depth that Jesus and the One who sent him are one.

What does it mean for us to be one?  Once, in my spiritual childhood, I thought God meant for us to all be the same; a people who felt the same, acted the same, believed the same, and never, ever disagreed.  I became acutely anxious when I found Christians with firmly held points of disagreement about worship, conduct, or theology.  God has long since delivered me from such foolish notions! 

Perhaps the best picture of what it means for us to be one, as Jesus prayed for us to be one, is Paul’s famous image in I Corinthians 12.  We together form the body of Christ on earth.  We are individually different parts of that body.  Together we have a common grand purpose, to represent and act for Christ in the world, but like parts of the body we are all distinctly different with different points of view and functions in carrying out that grand purpose.  The world may seem quite different to fingers than it does to toes, but that is part of the natural order of things.

We come together with different ages, genders, races, nationalities, social positions, regional and ethnic cultures, orientations, gifts, and religious traditions.  On top of that, we are all at different stages in our journeys toward spiritual maturity.  How did I ever think we would always be in total agreement!  Jesus does not ask, or expect, that we see everything the same or act the same.  Jesus does expect that we will be centered on him, and through him, on the One who sent him.  From that God-centered place, he also expects us to honor each other in our differences.

The danger to the health of the body, and to the oneness that makes survival in a hostile world possible, is in any one part thinking itself and its gifts and virtues superior to some other part.    Jesus had the answer for that one too.  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  We are not called to a uniform blandness, or to imagine that our talents and gifts are superior to another’s.  We are called to be one in a love that honors, and even cherishes, our differences.

revclay

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John 17:1-11

  After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.  And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.  So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.  They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

“I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.  All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.  And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  [NRSV]