Easter 7 (5/20/07) “Unity in Christ”

John 17.20-26

Our gospel lesson this morning takes us once again back to the upper room, where Jesus meets with his disciples on the night in which he was betrayed. Today we overhear his prayer, the longest prayer of Jesus that is recorded in the gospels. It is always moving and a bit startling to realize that what he prays for his disciples—for those gathered together that night, and of course for us as well—is that they may be one. It’s a prayer that puts to shame our general lack of interest in the unity of the church. During Lent, I had lunch one day with the interim priest at Emanuel Episcopal Church, and we talked about what a pity it is that Good Friday is the only occasion we’ve made in this community for our two churches to worship together. We agreed that we really should do better than that—after all, our ELCA and the Episcopal Church are officially in “full communion” with one another. We said it was a pity, we agreed we should do better . . . but of course we haven’t spoken about it again since then. Christian unity is one of those things that is really important in the abstract, but when it comes to real life, it often takes a pretty low priority.

Let’s have a look at these texts this morning and see if we can spark a little interest by taking a different slant on the question of the unity of Christ’s church. We first need to observe that this prayer of Jesus for his followers is not a footnote to the gospel; as St. John tells the story, this prayer comes right at the climax of the story. It will not go away. In some ways, it might be considered the “last will and testament” of Jesus. It shows what was on his mind as he faced his own crucifixion. If we are sometimes tempted to think that Christian unity is a boring topic, we would be well-served to remember that Jesus didn’t consider it that way at all. For him, the unity of believers with one another is an absolutely essential part of what it means to follow Christ.

Now let’s be clear that the unity to which Jesus refers here is a visible unity. Sometimes I have heard people say that when the Bible talks about Christian unity, it is talking about something that is primarily spiritual, that whether Lutherans and Episcopalians and Presbyterians and Roman Catholics and Baptists cooperate together is not all that important. Unity is a spiritual concern, there can be no question about that; but in this gospel lesson, we need to mark closely why Jesus prays for his followers to be one: it is “that the world may know” Christ. If he is only talking about a spiritual, invisible unity here, how is the world going to know about it? Indeed, the disunity and dissension that plagues the church is a terrible witness to the world. We may claim that we have a spiritual unity, but the world doesn’t see that. Instead they see our bickering and our struggles and our disagreements with one another.

As a historian, I’ve been particularly interested in the Lutherans in early 19^th-century America. You know, about the most insulting thing you could say to a fellow-Lutheran at that time was to call him a “Methodist.” There was such hostility toward other Christians that their very name became a curse. I don’t believe that Christian unity requires that we all agree on every issue of doctrine or interpretation, but it does at least require a kind of charity toward others that is too often lacking, even today. Unity in Christ means nothing if it does not transcend these denominational lines that we have erected.

Something else we need to say about Christian unity is that it is not bound by race or nationality or any of the other kinds of distinctions that we like to make among people. I love the passage we heard from Acts last week, where St. Paul has a vision of a Macedonian who says to him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” That text is usually used as a missionary text, but I think it works quite well as a lens into Christian unity. So often when we think of unity, we have on blinders that keep us from considering people who are very much different from ourselves.

We’ve had a particular interest in the Lutheran Church of Rwanda here at Peace. We think about Africa as a place where missionaries go and do important work; and yet we often forget that the Rwandan people are not pagan savages; a vast majority are Christians already! The Christian Church is strong and vital in Africa; indeed, Christianity is growing and prospering there far more impressively than anywhere else in the world. Scholars today are beginning to speak of the changes in store for the world Christian movement as the center of gravity shifts from Europe and North America to what is often called “the global south.”

Here’s a figure that may surprise you as much as it did me. One hundred years ago, 80% of Christians lived in Europe and North America, and 20% in the rest of the world. Today, only 40% of Christians live in Europe and North America, and the majority, 60%, in the rest of the world. The complexion of Christianity, the geography of Christianity, has changed dramatically in the last century.

Christian unity, it seems to me, requires that we acknowledge this unity not just with Presbyterians or Baptists or Episcopalians who, like us, are predominantly white middle class Americans. Christian unity means that we are one with God’s people in Rwanda, and in El Salvador, and in the Philippines, and all over this world. Christian unity means that there cannot be “us and them” when we consider other Christians. It is a unity that transcends many boundaries—not just those of denomination or church body. This is one reason why we need to resist the very common and very human tendency to think that local needs, needs in our own community, are more important than needs far away. In Christ, you see, there is no “far away.” Our responsibility to love and serve our neighbor applies to an incredibly large neighborhood—as big as God’s world.

When I was in high school, our church youth group saw a film that has always stayed with me. It was about some American youth who decided to reach out to youth in a foreign country, and so they sent them boxes of gifts which they in their innocence thought would be “helpful.” They received a warm letter of thanks, but more than that, they received a box from the foreign youth with gifts that they thought would be helpful to the Americans! The American youth were jolted by this, because they never thought of themselves as needing help, especially from some foreign country. They gained a new insight into the meaning of unity; it isn’t a paternalistic, “let us give you what you need” kind of thing; it is mutuality, a sharing, a common giving and receiving.

The title of this film was “The Day Geography Got Lost.” I love that! Isn’t it a wonderful description of what our unity in Christ is all about? In Christ, geography got lost! There is no east and west, no south and north. There is no “us and them,” because in Christ, we are one family, one people. We are one!

One more observation from our text today. Notice that Jesus prays for his disciples, but then also for those who will believe because of them. His understanding of unity isn’t restricted just to the immediate group of believers, but it crosses the boundary of generations as well. That’s a good thing, in the first place, because it assures us that this prayer is for you and me, these 20 centuries later, just as much as for the twelve disciples. But it is important for another reason. If we hear the prayer correctly, it will help us see that Christian unity is a long-term proposition. Our unity is not just with other denominations around us in our community, and not just with other Christians around the world, but with God’s people in every generation. We are united with them—with St. Augustine, and with Martin Luther, and with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and with the whole company, the “endless line of splendor” as a famous preacher once called it.

And knowing that can be a very salutary thing. I once read an historian’s reflection on why it is important to study church history. It is important, he said, because it helps us relax! Now he didn’t mean exactly that studying history puts us to sleep, though I know that’s true for many people! Rather he was saying, in the words of Charles Cousar, that knowing church history can “alleviate our panic” about the church in our generation. When there are troubles or dissensions, controversies of various kinds—and goodness knows we Lutherans have had our share in the last few years—a sense of this unity which transcends the generations can remind us that the future of the church is in the hands of the Lord of the church. It is not up to us to solve every problem or clear up every difficulty. Over the long scope of Christian history, we see Christ at work, bringing his people together, providing what we need, correcting what is wrong. So we can relax a bit, and leave things in his hands. They are powerful hands indeed.

So Christ’s prayer is that we might all be one—and that means we, his followers, in every denomination, every nation, every race, every generation. It is a magnificent vision. And if we have sometimes fallen short of what he asks of us, we must nevertheless keep striving and keep working and keep praying. We can be sure that our prayers will be heard because they are joined with his—the one who prayed that his disciples might find unity, indeed the one who in his outstretched arms gathers all of his people together and gives us that unity as his gift to us.