Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 12, 2013 – John 17:20-26
That they may all be one …” Those words, in Latin, are on a crest on the lobby floor at my workplace. They represent one of the school’s founding denominations, born in the last half-century of Christendom, when optimistic disciples thought big was the best answer to Jesus’s prayer. The best witness was one, big church. One in creed. One in worship. One in polity. It was all about documents and structures. Which is not to say it wasn’t also about vision and mission. In those days, few could cast vision or imagine mission without the tangible expression of both in document and structure. This was also true for those who didn’t join the new church.
I grew up in the heyday of the ecumenical movement. The banners of Christendom had fallen. Witnessing to the world—at least North America, the U.K., and Western Europe—was the main concern. We believed we could make the best witness by showing how we could live side-by-side and work together, despite our differences in creed, worship, and polity. Our theologians also set to work, behind the scenes, to try to resolve some of those differences. Whether or not the world took notice, all who joined in the movement were better for it. There’s a practical ecumenism still present among congregations in our part of the world and a sharing of resources among denominations committed to social justice. These expressions of unity are issue-based, not expressions of a movement.
Christendom has fallen. Most Canadians don’t go to church with any regularity, and couldn’t care less about the unity of us Christians among ourselves. Neighbours may be quick to point out that there are too many churches. They may tell us we have no right to say what’s right or wrong when we can’t get our own act together. But that’s as far as it goes. Those who do watch to see what the religious do are far more likely to notice if people of differing faiths get their act together. Christian unity, as so many of us still think of it, isn’t the best witness we can offer our world.
Can we say for sure Jesus’s prayer is for all of us who call ourselves by his name to belong to one, big church? Can we say for sure Jesus prays just for people we would recognize as Christians? If creed, worship and polity don’t matter to Jesus, what manifestation of unity does he pray to see?
Jesus prays to his Father “that they may be one, as we are one.” One in purpose. One in spirit. One in nature. As those who saw Jesus saw God, Jesus prays the world will see God, in all God’s glory, in us.
That calls for a bigger us than the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the three churches that founded my school, and all the other churches combined. Jesus doesn’t really pray in support of our witness. He’s concerned about God’s glory, God’s witness to the world. That doesn’t mean he’s not concerned about us. He’s just not concerned about just “us.”
He prays for those who will believe in him through the words of his first disciples. We include ourselves in that. Do we go on from there, presuming that only people who have heard the same words we’ve heard, make the same confession we make, call Jesus by the name we know are included with us? The fact that we hang on by just a few of the threads pulled from the rich tapestry the first generations of disciples wove suggests we’re not the only people Jesus prays for. (There are, after all, the “also” people of verse 24 in the NRSV, and the “other sheep” of John 10:16.)
“That they may all be one.” One in purpose. One in spirit. One in nature. Some days I feel a lot closer to my Buddhist neighbours than some of my brothers and sisters in Christ.
