John 17:1-11
1 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, 2 since you have given him
authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the
work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence
with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. 6 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. 7 Now they know that
everything you have given me is from you; 8 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. 9 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. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and
I have been glorified in them. 11 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.
A not-so-long time ago, in a quiet, little,
Southern community, there lived a family by the name of Jones. The Jones’s were
like most families in their community: they all lived within a five-mile radius
of one another; all the cousins went to school together; at least once a week
they all got together for supper; and every Sunday morning they gathered at Mom
and Pop’s house for breakfast before riding together to Sunday school and
worship at the Baptist church at the end of the paved road. When church was
over, they’d all ride back to Mom and Pop’s house for dinner (that’s lunch in
case you’re not from the South). They were a close family, who supported each
other, and everyone in the community held them in high esteem.
Then one day, Pop Jones got sick…and
then he got sicker…and then he got even sicker…then it looked like he was
getting a little better…but he only got worse. At first, Pop couldn’t work.
Then, Pop couldn’t drive. Before long, Pop couldn’t really walk on his own.
Eventually, Pop was confined to a hospital bed in the corner of the back
bedroom of Mom and Pop Jones’s house. As his illness seemed to drag on, Mom
Jones seemed to age a year every week, and all the kids seemed to be transforming
into strangers. Nell, the youngest child, seemed to fall off into the deep end
of crazy: she figured since Pop couldn’t drive his car anymore she could have
it, so she stole the keys and wound up wrapping the old Delta Eighty-Eight
around a cedar tree while out joy-riding with her friends. Glenn, the youngest
son, decided he deserved something too, so he moved back into Mom and Pop’s
house and declared that he was going to be the man of the house and his mother
was welcome to stay after Pop died, provided she kept to herself and didn’t
cause any trouble. Patricia, the oldest daughter, saw Pop’s illness and
eventual death as a chance to separate from a family she always felt was below
her standard of living: she left that five-mile radius, changed her phone
number, and only made an occasional appearance at major holidays and funerals.
Leon, the oldest of the children, bore the brunt of his siblings’ behaviors and
the heartbreak of his father’s death and mother’s decline.
Soon after Pop Jones’s death, his
family began meeting less and less on Sunday for breakfast, Church, and dinner.
Mom Jones slowly, silently lived out the rest of her years in a secluded cycle
of work, rest, and bill-paying. The children rarely spoke, and when they did,
it was often to fight over who got this worthless trinket or who was going to
have to take care of the latest issue with Mom. In the beginning of the great
unraveling, some said it was because Pop died and he was the glue that held the
family together, but others who knew the family knew it was there all the time,
just bubbling under the surface. Pop’s death and Mom’s eventual passing
revealed it for all the world to see. It’s a sad story, but what may be sadder
still is that it is not an unusual story, nor is it a new story, relegated to
the world of family relationships. It’s a story perhaps as old as human
civilization.
I believe Jesus knew this kind of
story. I believe Jesus witnessed this kind of story. In fact, Luke tells us in
chapter 12 of his gospel account that someone from the crowd of followers asked
Jesus to mediate in an issue involving two brothers and a family inheritance,
presumably left to them after the death of their father. Jesus knew that some families
tend to disassociate, disown, and disintegrate into dysfunction when the
central member leaves the picture. I believe that’s why Jesus prays this prayer
in the seventeenth chapter of the fourth gospel in such a way; he wants his
disciples—he wants us—to overhear his petition to the Almighty. Jesus, knowing
that his departure is fast-approaching, prays for oneness for his followers. He
prays “that they may be one, as [he and the Father] are one.” Jesus,
in this gospel’s version of “The Lord’s Prayer,” prays that his disciples, in
his physical absence, not fall into the predictable pattern of disunity after
his departure.
This powerful prayer of Jesus has
been held up as the proof text of those who stand defiantly against
denominationalism. It has been proclaimed as primary evidence in the case
against the Christian faith as it has been used to show the hypocrisy of a body
whose Savior and whose Scripture call for unity, yet there are over 41,000
different denominations and traditions of Christianity, with many of them
claiming superiority or even exclusivity when it comes to doctrine and
salvation.[1]
These enormously important words of Jesus have been highlighted in our very
county when it has been pointed out that there are nearly 300 churches in a
county of around 117,000, meaning there is one church for every 400 people
(whether they go to church or not!).[2]
These words have been used by those looking for a reason to either distance themselves
from the Church or point out the ways others in the church miss the mark. But
can I share something with you this morning? I don’t believe for one second
that Jesus had anything remotely close to denomination-bashing in mind when he
prayed this prayer within earshot of his disciples. No, I don’t believe for one
second these are words about dissolving denominational differences in order to
join hands together and sing “Amazing Grace” with former Catholics, Lutherans, Quakers,
and even Southern/other Baptists. I believe these words strike a whole lot
closer to home.
You see, Jesus prays this prayer as
a part of a rather lengthy discourse in the John’s gospel. Jesus prays these
words to his Father, just before he goes out to the garden across the Kidron
valley where he will be betrayed, arrested, and handed over to be crucified. So
Jesus prays this prayer while seated with his disciples at his last supper,
after he has washed their feet. Jesus’ words are for those right there in that
room with him, his first followers, that small band of friends who would go on
in the book of Acts to start the Church that would branch out into thousands of
iterations of two millennia. Jesus’ words aren’t about some “big picture,
global Christian unity.” They’re words about close-quarter Christian unity,
unity among Christ-followers who are within arm’s length of one another. In
fact, that may be the most difficult kind of unity to attain in Christ’s
Church.
Christ prays form unity among those
first disciples because he knows that while they may all come from the same
region around Galilee, they ain’t all the same. In fact, there was a great deal
of difference among those fish-smelling, tax-collecting, zeal-driven,
formerly-possessed, men and women. And as I look around this room this morning,
I’m not too ignorant to know that there is a great deal of difference among all
us wood-cutting, cow-raising, school-teaching, sick-healing, child-rearing,
sewage-pumping, crop-growing, wrench-turning, hammer-swinging, word-typing,
tech-driven, bank-running, plant-managing, hard-working, and hard-retiring
people! We ain’t all the same! Some of us come from great families, with more
than we’ve ever wanted, and some of come from less-than-exemplary families with
less than we needed. Some of us our so conservative we think the folks on Fox
News have slipped over to the left, and some of us are so liberal we just sort
of hang on to get through the election cycle. Some of us pull for that one
college football team from that town just west of Birmingham; some of us root
for that one college football team from that town just outside of Opelika; the
rest of us either don’t care, try to stay out of the way, or pull for teams
from college towns like Waco, Texas!
My point is we’re all different, just like those first disciples of
Jesus. And as Jesus prayed for them to be one, I believe he still desires for
us to be one. Now, can I let you in on a little something? It may be something
you already know. The whole “being one” thing is hard, and I believe it’s even
harder being a Baptist, because the one thing we Baptist have going for us is
freedom: freedom from creeds, councils, bishops, and even one another! As the
old cliché says, if you have three Baptists together trying to solve a problem,
you’ll get five different opinions on how to solve it! Being one is hard.
Everyone has their opinion about how worship ought to be, what hymns we ought
to sing, how we ought to sing them, whether or not folks should raise their
hands when they sing them, how long the sermon ought to be, what the sermon
ought to be about, how many services we have each week, when we should or
shouldn’t cancel services, how we should or shouldn’t spend the church’s money,
when, where, and if we ought to build another building…Being one [for a
congregation] is hard, because there are a whole lot of little “1’s” all hoping
every other “1” will see things their 1 way!
But here’s the thing: I don’t believe Jesus was, is, or ever will be all
that concerned about the order of worship on Sunday, the hymn numbers we sing, the
style of music we use for worship, the number of services we have, or (and
maybe I shouldn’t say this, but…) the amount of money we raise to build more
buildings. No, I believe Jesus’ petition for oneness among his followers
centered on the most important reason for Christ’s birth, life, death,
resurrection, and ascension: eternal life. And what is eternal life? Well, in
one of the most direct, to-the-point definitions in all of Scripture, Jesus
says in verse 3: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
You can choose to worship in a building branded “Baptist.” You can decide
to raise your hands in praise and worship with a place packed with Pentecostals.
You can kneel at the gilded alter of a Catholic cathedral. You can be
predestined to be predisposed to Presbyterian preaching. You can even sit in
the austere assembly of an Amish assembly. If your goal in the end of it all is
to truly know God, to selflessly seek the One who spins the galaxies of the
universe and has counted every hair on your head, if your purpose for worship
and service is to lift high the God who emptied himself to take on the form of
a slave and die for your sins, if your reason for coming to this place is to
know more of God and leave more of yourself behind, then you are one of those
fulfilling Christ’s prayer to his Father. You are one living eternal life,
right here, right now.
May we all strive to be one, united by the love of God that grants us
eternal life. May we all strive to be one, living in the eternal life of a
relationship with the eternal God. May we all strive to be one by letting go of
our selfish desires and ambitions, letting go of what we want from life, worship,
church, the world, and God. May we be one as we allow the Holy Spirit to speak
to us, to call us to know God more, to call us into eternal life. May you hear
that call this morning, and may you respond and become one with those of us who
are living into the reality of eternal life. May we all be one in this world as
well as the next.
Amen.
