Easter 7

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Easter 7
PROPER: C - Sunday after Ascension Day
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: May 24, 1998

TEXT: John 17:20-26 - 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. 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.

ISSUE: "You've all got to be One" seems to be John's repetitive theme song. The passage is Jesus' prayer as conceived by John which calls for a unity of the Children of God. The passage reveals a somewhat desperate early church which is, in fact, very exclusive. John has his hatred of the non-believing Jews, and demands a strong unity among his followers. Today we would be cautious of some of the cultic overtones of the John's community, but still be a community of faith with openness and profound witness to the brokeness of the world. To be united at One with God today in a healthy way is our on going challenge.
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Today's reading from John's gospel is a continuation of Jesus last few moments with his disciples at the Last Supper before this departure. Remember that they synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) emphasize the distribution of the bread and wine, that moment of sharing. John's Gospel written later than these accounts tells about the foot washing as the significant action of the Last Supper, and John provides what is called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. It is his prayer of greater offering and concern for the unity of his disciples.
Keep in mind that his passage is not the actual words of Jesus. It is more likely what John thought Jesus would have said in that last time together. John is at the same time expressing what was needed to be heard by the community of believers in this time, some 60 or more years after the earthly ministry of Jesus. The eye witnesses of Jesus ministry are dying off, if not gone by this time. Their future as believers in Jesus as Lord, as their messianic hope, is disconcerting and anxiety producing. John's response to this anxiety is to call for a high priestly prayer attributed to Jesus for a very strict unity. So John is saying that as surely as Jesus was united with God the Father, the believers must themselves be united in Jesus. They must all be one with one another, and love one another. It is like gangs today. They have a profound allegiance to the unity of the group or gang. And in language that somewhat tedious to us, John repetitively call them to being at one with one another, as the Son is at one with the Father, may they be at one.
Some side comments are important to a deepening understanding of the passage. To love something or a group in Jesus time, the 1st century, was not the kind of emotional love we think of today, being all fuzzy and cozy and affectionate. Love of this time was attachment to a family, kin, a group for the purpose of existence. Thus, John talks about loving one another, the community group, we now call the Christian group, and hating the world. The world in John's Gospel was not the understanding of world that we have today, it was more limited to the Judeans, the non-believers. Thus, the followers of Jesus in the Johnanine community were called to be a very close knit group, deeply attached to one another and their common belife in Jesus as Son of the Father. They hated the world, or were called upon to completely detach themselves from the non-believers.
The early church community was not the lovey-dovey all encompassing group of people who just reached out to everybody. They were likely to have been quite exclusive to people who were different from themselves. But for the sake of their fledgling beginnings and sake of unity and survival, they were became somewhat encrusted in the demand for strict unity. It was hoped and thought that this devotion and expression of unity would be a witness to the "outsiders", non-believers.
This extreme devotion of the early church can have its dangers, and we have to be careful when we say that John's community of early Christian believers is an appropriate model for the church of today. Some of the religious and racial prejudices of today can be traced to people who embraced to literally that Jews (the non-blievers) were Christ-killers and therefore were to be persecuted and shunned. Hitler made a big deal out of this kind of concept, as did some of my own relatives, and perhaps some of yours. In our need to be acceptable to the Lord, (if not to perpetuate some of our prejudices at the same time) we may be too quick to bond ourselves in the notions of what is right and unifying to the exclusion of good sense and greater continuing enlightment from God's Holy Spirit. Church communities can be too exclusive. They can be stifling and suffocating in their rigidity and become more like draining and destructive cults than providing openess and creative life giving development. They can be viewed by our world as opposed to everything and quite narrow. Then the light of Christ becomes hidden under the bushel basket.
There is still another side to the equation. And this side of the equation is due in part to Christendom. The church today struggles with the issue of membership and unity in the church as the result of no definition at all. Membership and unity today is often based on the ritual of baptism, and/or an occasional dabbling in church worship or activity. Membership is defined by some in terms of having been an acolyte when they were a boy. Or membership in the life of the church is determined by a grandparent who was once active. Membership or relationship is sometimes considered to be merely a matter of doing good things, or keeping the so called Golden Rule. (Do to others - usually meaning be polite or nice - as you would have them do - or be nice - to you.) Membership comes as a result of getting our individual spiritual needs met as if the church were somekind of spiritual supermarket with convenient electric doors for coming and going. Membership in the church community has tended to provide people with a kind of personal socially acceptable respectability. Unity of the church today which has so much diversity and rank individualism seems flimsy at best.
We live in our own age of great anxiety often expressed by the question: What is the world coming too?" We are faced with a great crisis in family life. Physical and sexual abuse is a significant problem. Divorce has become epidemic. People struggle with their sexual identities. There are serious health problems still to be addressed. We are faced with terrible problems of violence. Children murder one another at school. Baseball becomes 'basebrawl.' Nations fight over and carry on and on violence and hostilities over the centuries rooted in the prejudices of their ancestors. There is a significant amont of pain and suffering in the world. Obviously our world is in need of a healing and enlightening presence of God.
An exclusive club-like church isolated from the world is hardly a response to human need and suffering. Being holier-than-thou, judgemental and moralistic is not a healing approach either. A flimsy church so diverse, individualistic, and scattered cannot bear much witness either.
What seems clear in John's appreciation of Jesus at the Last Supper, those last moments, was that Jesus valued his relationship with God, and he valued his community of followers. He honored God with his obedience and his witness to servanthood, by taking the humble role of a slave and washing his disciples feet. He valued their relationship together. He prayed that they would also be the Children of God, and have a unique relationship with God. They would continue to be a strong and faithful community of support to one another and would continue to be the living body of Christ in the world. Of course, inspite of themselves, there was still betrayal, denial, and abandonment. The early church tended to be too exclusive, and the later church too flimsy. The issue for us is wheether or not we can respond and reclaim our calling and allow the Spirit of God working in us and through us to reshape our community into Christ's image, hope, and prayer.
The church today needs to be a worshipping community and a community knowledgeable of the faith in scripture. We need to know the unraveling story of God revelation of his love and mercy for the world. It gives hope and an understanding of the constant revelation of God to his people century after century. We come to know God through Scripture and prayerfulness, and experience the intimacy of God in our unity with Jesus Christ.
The very ministry of Jesus Christ was founded on and in a community of people who trusted him. We need one another as much as we need what Christ offered. We need sensitivity to pain and hurt, and the ability to be open to being healers as opposed to being moralistic judges. There is no one among us who is perfect, or who has not known pain and vulnerability. We need one another. What is so valuable about support groups, like A.A. for instance, is that there are people who can resonate and offer hope to one another.
What lies at the heart of the larger Gospel of Christ is the concept that inspite of ourselves - all the self-righteousness, sinfulness, betrayal, denial, and human stupidity - God in Christ Jesus loved us and desired to attach himself to us. We are shown a way of undeserved love and acceptance. To accept that grace, to love God, to reach out to one another is our unique and higher calling. Surely we still need the high priestly prayer of Christ.