John 17:20-26

08/22/10
John 17:20-26
Hudson UMC

At the end of Jesus’ longest prayer, He prays for unity; unity among the disciples and unity of the disciples with Him and the Father through the Spirit. Before we spend too much time on what Jesus says and what it implies, let’s take some time and think about the whole problem of unity.

If we look around at the world around us, it is not difficult to see the disunity that is rampant in our society. It seems that our country is becoming more and more politically polarized, with the conservative getting more conservative and the liberal getting more liberal. We talk on an international scale about how there are some countries that hate us and we hate them in return. Even within the state of Iowa there is some tension between those who were born and raised in cities as opposed to growing up on the farm. If we wanted, we could sit here and make quite a list of things that we, as human beings, are in disunity about.

When we think that Jesus places a high value on unity within the church, we might expect that when we look at Christians, we would be struck by their incredible unity in light of the disunity in the world. However, unfortunately, that is not the case. There are many Christians who perpetuate the harsh feelings between Catholics and Protestants, but that is not all. Among the first wave of Protestant churches, we have Lutherans, Presbyterian or Reformed, and Anglican or Episcopalian. There has been some effort to have some kind of unity between these bodies, but there is still much that divides them. Even the Methodist movement quickly became its own separate denomination, no longer organically connected to the Anglican church out of which it came. Outside of the mainline, it gets even less united. There are a countless number of different Baptist denominations, not to mention the overwhelming flood of non-denominational churches, who are bound in no organic way whatsoever to the larger tradition of the church.

All of this is more than just a little bit embarrassing when we remember that Jesus prays here for unity among His disciples like He does, in such strong and moving terms. And if that were not enough, think back to chapter thirteen. Right after Jesus had washed the feet of His disciples, including the one who was going to betray Him, after He had abased Himself to the dust and been willing to serve those who were far beneath Him, He told them, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” According to Jesus, and He is the one person that we ought to listen to, we are called to love one another with the very love of God, the same love that God showed us by going to the cross and suffering and dying on our behalf and in our place. We are called to have this love for no other reason than because they also belong to Christ and follow Him. It is not because we agree on every point of doctrine or practice, nor because we think they are worthy of our love, but simply because Jesus loves them.

I wonder if perhaps part of the reason that we have such a hard time being united in anything as human beings is because we think that the source of unity should be in all kinds of things except Jesus. We look to culture or ethnicity or socio-economic status or common interests to unite us and they work, to a degree. Most of us are not likely to, on our own initiative, go our of our way to associate ourselves with people who are radically different from us, or with those with whom we know we disagree. And yet, something that transcends all of our differences with one another is that we are all bound to Christ. One of the things I think is great about being a relatively small church in a relatively small town where there aren’t a huge number of other churches is that it forces people who are not all alike to be together and get to know one another. Not everyone in this church agrees on everything, but we get practice, if only a little bit, in getting along with others who are not like we are.

This last section of Jesus’ high priestly prayer is focused on unity. Who is Jesus praying for here? “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” Jesus is praying for everyone who is reached through the witness of the apostles, which is every Christian in the world. There is not a single Christian who was not reached by the witness of the apostles. Even if you were on a deserted island and a Bible washed up and you became a believer, it would have been through the written witness of the apostles. When we look at all the Christians in the world, we realize that we are something of a mixed bag. There are rich Christians and poor Christians, there are Christians of all different races and languages, on every continent, with a multitude of varying traditions, all of which are dedicated to the glory of God through Christ and in the Spirit.

So Jesus is praying that all the Christians in the world would be united. It might seem like an impossible goal, since the church is so splintered, but let us continue and see what else Jesus has to say. “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Twice, Jesus speaks of the world’s understanding changing because of His disciples. He says that, just as the Father dwells in the Son and the Son dwells in the Father, if the disciples dwell in the Father and the Son, the world may know that Jesus is sent by God. He also says that, because He has given to His disciples the same glory that the Father has given to Him, they may be one as the Father and Son are one; and if this is the case, the world may know that Jesus has been sent by God and that God truly loves them.

Brothers and sisters, if this is indeed true, that being united to one another as God the Father and God the Son are united is how the world will come to know God, it has tremendous consequences. It means that the very most important thing that we need to do, aside from our own loving of God, is to be united to those other people who love God. According to Jesus, this is the key to reaching the lost, for sharing the good news. In spite of the fact that Jesus comes out so powerfully and emphasizes the evangelistic power of the unity of believers, we can look around and see that most churches don’t use this as their main focus for outreach.

As a pastor and seminary student, I have met quite a few pastors and church leaders from a variety of churches and denominations. Most of their churches seem to have one of a handful of strategies for outreach. One is to not do anything, hoping that people will just walk in off the street. We might call this the “Field of Dreams” approach, because we are hoping that, simply because we have built it, whether it is our church building or a particular program, people will come. Another major strategy is to come up with clever marketing and advertising that will help to develop a church’s branding and recognition, making their church more widely known throughout the community. This is not necessarily bad, but it tends to be focused rather narrowly on a view of the gospel as a commodity, where we show someone their need and then offer to fill it.

A third method of outreach is to get really involved in people’s lives, either on a one-on-one basis or by doing extensive volunteering with various organizations or working to establish events to help people. Again, there is nothing wrong with doing these things, but, if we take Jesus seriously at this point, we need to realize that it is secondary.

According to Jesus, here and earlier, the chief mark of being a disciple is not your written statement of faith, nor is it your list of programs in the church, nor is it even the number of things you do in order to foster justice in the world. The chief mark that you are a disciple is that you love other disciples, that you are one with them like Jesus is with His Father. Jesus says that the world will know that we are His followers if we love each other. The flip side to this, of course, is that, if we don’t love one another, if, in spite of Jesus’ express declaration that we are to be united with all other believers, we insist on doing whatever we can to not be united to Him and to each other, what will the world think?

There is a church in Israel called the church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is supposedly built on the site of the empty tomb. It is here that Jesus was buried, it was here that the resurrection took place, it was here that God worked out the salvation of the world. If there was ever a place where Christians ought to be united, it is here. And there is plenty of opportunity for the people to practice being united because there are Christians from every tradition who worship there and they take turns leading worship. However, they do not take turns because they want to; every tradition thinks that they should be in charge. There is so much conflict between the believers there, at the very site where God raised Jesus from the dead, that the key to the church had to be given to the care of a Muslim. It is a depressing thought that even the resurrection does not always reconcile Christians with one another.

However, in spite of disunity, in spite of the fact that it seems that we have so long to go before we achieve any kind of outward unity in the church, there is a sense in which we are already united. After all, as those who believe in Jesus, we are united to Him as branches on a vine, and, guess what, every other believer is also united to Christ like a branch on a vine. This means that, regardless of whether our church structure shows that we are united to every other believer or not, that is precisely what we are. In Christ, we are truly one body. Now, it is something of an unusual body. It sometimes seems like, in the body of Christ, we have arms going one way, legs going another, eyes and ears not cooperating with one another. And yet, even in the midst of our dysfunction, we are indeed still one body, whether we like it or not. We are forever bound to all other believers; not just the ones we like, but the ones who drive us up the wall. We’re stuck with each other, so we’d better get used to the idea.

I want to direct your attention to one of the very last things that Jesus says here. We need to be very sure that we understand this because it is the last thing that Jesus will say to His disciples until He has been crucified and raised from the dead. He says, “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

This is one of the very most hopeful things that Jesus ever says. He has pointed out over and over again that He has declared the name of God to the people during His ministry on earth. What He has done here is promise that He will continue to do so. This is Jesus’ solemn assurance to us that He will not ever abandon us to our own disorder and conflict. Even if we continue to fail and continue to allow our petty likes and dislikes to divide us, even in the church, where we ought to be the most unified, Jesus will not abandon us, will not leave us to our own destruction, but will continue to make the name of God known in our midst.

There have been many times throughout church history where it has seemed that the word of God had departed forever, that God had abandoned His church. There was a time when it seemed that grace was being sold for money and the church was using salvation and condemnation as weapons to ensure that the people were obedient to them. And yet, God raised up people who dared to listen to God Himself and used them to remind the world of the power of grace and the love of God for us, even when we seem unlovable. There was a time when it seemed as though the Bible was under so much attack from all sides, with people twisting the text one way or denying its authenticity in another way, and even trying to bind up authentic Christian faith with political allegiance so that to stand against the government was made to be the same thing as standing against God. However, God has stood strong throughout those times and is now making it ever more clear that He will speak, even when we do not want to listen.

The point is that God is more ready to bring unity than we are to let Him, He is more ready to speak than we are to listen, He is more ready to move in our midst and regenerate us than we are to let Him. Indeed, God is ready to heal anyone and any group of people and often works much of this healing long before they notice it. This means that God’s grace is alive and well, even when it doesn’t seem like it, even when the world seems to be getting worse and worse, even when our world is ravaged by war and our economy has gone down the tubes. Remember, even when human beings were so evil as to crucify the Son of God who had come among them to heal them and make God’s name known in their midst, God’s grace was at work; in fact, it might have been more at work there than it ever has been before or since.

Brothers and sisters, there is hope for the future, and there is hope for today. It is not a hope that is based in our programs, nor is it a hope in our own creativity and our ability to solve problems. It is not a hope in ourselves at all, but a hope in the almightiness of grace, a hope that, in spite of all the evidence against it, this world is still God’s world and He will not let it go. Jesus could pray with this kind of confidence that the relations between people like you and me, believers who are grafted into Christ would begin to resemble the relations between the Persons of the Trinity, who are absolutely united in their differentiation, right at the moment of His betrayal. In the very next passage, Jesus is going to be betrayed, He is going to be taken away to die. In the midst of the bleakness, Jesus is confident that, as Paul has said, that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Let us join in that confidence in our lives. Let us pray.

AMEN