One

The scriptures referred to are John 17:20-26.

If you've ever led any kind of group—a club, a study group, an amateur theatre troupe, a fraternal organization, a choir, a volunteer group—you know that the worst thing that can happen is disunity. The disunity may arise from controversy about a person, about an event, about procedures or about the ultimate purpose of the group. If it doesn't get resolved, it will split the group, which will either weaken it or kill it. 

There are many historians who feel that what laid the foundation for the successful Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century was the incredible disunity of the Roman Catholic church in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. It started when the Pope got into a conflict with the French King about the power of the papacy in temporal and specifically political matters. It culminated in Pope Boniface VIII stating pointedly “It is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.” By which he especially meant King Philip IV. Philip replied, “Your venerable conceitedness may know that we are nobody's vassal in temporal matters.” In 1303 the Pope, to assert his God-given powers over “kings and kingdoms,” was going to excommunicate the king of France when a delegation of the king's allies attempted to arrest the Pope and beat him so severely that he died days later. (Remember that when uniformed critics say that during the Middle and so-called “Dark” Ages the church held absolute power.) The next 7 popes were, unsurprisingly, French. They eventually moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon in southern France, where the king's power over the popes and the cardinals grew. Nearly 70 years later a pope dared return to Rome. So the French cardinals in Avignon elected a new pope. Both popes excommunicated each other and their rival's followers. Eventually cardinals tried to rectify the situation by electing a third pope, but the other 2 popes neither stepped down nor recognized him. So now there were 3 popes. Which meant no Christian in Europe could be sure if they were saved or if the sacraments administered at their local church were valid. This mess went on for 40 years until a church council declared the Avignon popes illegitimate and elected another pope in 1417. But claimants to be Avignon popes continued for another 20 years. By the end of it all, the direct political power of the papacy was greatly diminished, as well as its moral authority and its ability to preach the gospel. So when 100 years later Martin Luther began speaking out against the theology of the Roman Catholic church and its corruption, and when the church refused even to debate him, the idea of breaking away and starting over with a different church, one closer to the ideals set out in the Bible, was not considered all that unthinkable. It hadn't been that long ago that, thanks to the Western Schism, everyone in Europe found themselves having to decide which version of the church to follow.

When I tried to look up how many Christian denominations there are now, I kept running into the number 33,000, which, if true, would mean there are 2000 more denominations than there are verses of the Bible. This number comes from the World Christian Encyclopedia and they define a denomination as an organized Christian group within a specific country. So groups that transcend national boundaries are cut up into smaller units. And there is also the problem of how small a group qualifies as a denomination in this book. The WCE lists 22,000 independent groups, some as small as a single autonomous congregation. And it lists 1600 “marginal” groups, like the Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses, which are not generally considered mainstream Christian groups. But even if you consider only those the WCE labels as Protestant you still get 6000 denominations.

However you slice it, that number is nowhere near what Jesus wanted, which is, to quote today's gospel, “one.” Our passage comes from Jesus' prayer for the church after the last supper. In the 17^th chapter of John, Jesus prays for his followers: their protection, their joy, their sanctification and especially their unity.

Why would Jesus be thinking of disunity at this time? The gospels mention the disciples periodically arguing over who was the greatest (Mark 9:33-37; Matthew 18:1-5; Luke 9:46-48). According to Luke, one such dispute even broke out at the last supper. (Luke 22:24-27) Perhaps that is why Jesus stripped and washed the disciples' feet in the manner of a slave, to teach them that humble service is the mark of the Christian leader. (John 13:3-17) Plus he saw how the Judaism of his day was divided into groups such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots and the Essenes. Groups can split over the smallest differences. That's why Jesus didn't say that the world would know who his disciples were by the fact that they agreed on everything, nor that they did everything the same, but by their love for one another. (John 13:35)

But is that realistic? Can groups be one if they don't agree on everything or do everything the same way?

Consider nursing. When I became a nurse back in 1981, my license was basically only good in Missouri, where I was trained and took my state board exams. There were a few states that would issue you a license in their state by reciprocity. So when I came to Florida I had to get a license here as well. But now the Nurse Licensure Compact lets a nurse have a multi-state license that allows her to practice in her home state and in the 32 other states that are part of the compact. To be sure this is possible because now rather than taking individual state boards there is a national licensure test, the NCLEX. But I am sure that not all nursing programs are exactly the same in each detail, though they agree in the essentials. And to renew my license there are still certain mandatory courses in Florida I have to take as part of the 24 continuing education units I have to get every 2 years. Currently I have to take Florida approved courses on Human Trafficking, Domestic Violence, Florida Nursing Laws and Rules, Preventing Medical Errors and Recognizing Impairment in the Workplace. The first time you renew your license in this state you also have to take a course on HIV/AIDS. Thank God we no longer have to take the Alzheimer's Disease course every time we renew. And only the official 4 hour Florida course would do. When I was the floating office manager for a home health care company out of Louisiana, they had their own online CEU program. So everyone took their Alzheimer's course. Unfortunately, it was only worth 3 ½ hours of instruction. At the insistence of the state I had to call all the nurses working out of the office I was at to come back in and take the official Florida version. Which consisted of a specially trained person who simply played a 4 hour DVD on the subject and gave us a 10 question multiple choice test. Apparently we had missed the crucial half-hour of information on a disease for which we don't know the cause and don't have a cure or even an effective treatment!

I'm pretty sure that the same way any rational person would feel about the ridiculousness of that story, Jesus feels about some of the differences we see between Christians who otherwise agree on all the essential beliefs and behaviors he taught us. Jesus never said, “This is precisely how you baptize someone.” He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...” (Matthew 28:19) He didn't say, “This is the official recipe for the communion bread.” He said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” He didn't say, “This is the vintage or color of wine or grape juice you must use for the Eucharist.” He said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” He also didn't say, “I mean this literally” or “This is just a metaphor,” much to the disappointment of some and the continued employment of theologians.

Scripture tells us that the Word that was with God and that was God became flesh. It doesn't tell us exactly how Jesus could be both fully divine and fully human. It tells us Jesus died for our sins. Nowhere does it tell us precisely how that worked. It tells us that Jesus rose again and that he could be touched and eat and yet locked doors could not keep him out. His post-resurrection body seems to act like a sub-atomic particle but the Bible doesn't tell us how he could do that. Like the female anaconda at the New England Aquarium who just gave birth to 2 baby snakes without any male contact or contribution, effecting a virgin birth, Jesus just does things and we are left to scramble for possible explanations.

You would think that would make us humble when we develop theologies. You would think that we would admit that the specific ways we interpret the main events in Jesus' life are our attempts to explain them to ourselves and not on the same level as the events. You would think that we would acknowledge that others might have different interpretations which, should they not contradict what Scripture says, are equally legitimate attempts to work out the why and how of the events being considered. But weirdly we tend to assign the same certainty to our interpretations of the Bible that we do to the things the Bible explicitly says. And we use that certainty to divide ourselves from our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And the unity that Jesus prays for us to embody is not mere lip service but an organic unity, a deep unity. In fact it should be godlike, literally. Referring not only to the Eleven but to those who believe through their word, Jesus prays, “...that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one...” We are to embody the unity which we find in the God who is love, love so thoroughgoing that 3 divine persons are one God. We should be as close in heart and mind and spirit to each other as the Father and the Son are.

Nor is such unity an optional feature. Jesus continues,”...that they may be completely one, so that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” So our unity is part of the gospel, the good news of God's love that we are supposed to spread. Ecumenical activity is a form of evangelism. Because the world is divided up into regions and countries and ethnic groups and political parties and those divisions are getting deeper and harsher. They are making our nations and our world unworkable. Our unity should act as a sign of a better way to live, of the kingdom of God being among us and his royal reign being realized in us. (Luke 17:21)

If, as Jesus says, God's will is that we be one as the persons of the Trinity are one, then not even trying to achieve that unity is, by definition, a sin. And we are privileging our understanding of theology, of the proper way to do rituals, of how a church should be structured over that of others. We are saying we are certain we are right and we are certain they are wrong. But, as Paul points out, now we know only in part; when we get to the next life, we will know in full. (1 Corinthians 13:9-10) It follows that we are going to find out that we were all heretics in some area or another. None of us know or understand all the things of God. How could we? So we will find that some things we thought we knew were in fact wrong. We will also see that some of our questions will turn out to be nonsense; they will have no more meaning than “How 5 is blue?”

That being true, we should be modest in our claims of what we know for sure. Even if you say, “I believe what the Bible says,” as Francis Schaeffer pointed out, the Bible may be true but it is not exhaustive. As John says at the end of his gospel, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if everyone of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25) So there are not only things about him we know that we do not know (like his eye color, height, etc) but things that we don't even know we do not know. Hence humility is called for.

Mark Twain supposedly said, “It is not the things which I do not understand in the Bible which trouble me, but the things that I do understand.” While he meant that cynically, it is true in another sense. The things we don't understand we can think about and even argue about but we don't have to act on them. They shouldn't trouble us as much as the stuff that is crystal clear. Those things allow us no opportunity for mental or moral confusion. Jesus says, “Love your neighbor.” Jesus says, “Love your enemy.” Jesus says, “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” Jesus says, “What you do or do not do for others in need you do or do not do to me.” Jesus says, “You are to be one as I and the Father are one.” There is no wiggle room. Even if in certain situations the way to carry out those commands may not be immediately obvious, the direction in which we should be going is clear. We may not hate or neglect others. We must do good to others, even our enemies, and never do evil. And we must certainly do good and work together with our fellow Christians, however wrong we think they are in non-essential matters.

And we are in agreement on the essentials. At our baptism, we reaffirm our faith in the words of the Apostles Creed, the most basic summary of what we believe. You know which churches say that creed? The Catholics, the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Moravians and the Congregationalists. The Eastern Orthodox churches use the Nicene Creed, which we also use and which is for all intents and purposes the Apostles Creed expanded. And we all affirm the Bible as God's Word.

Again, all Christians churches base their ethics on the Ten Commandments and the Two Greatest Commandments. They baptize people into the church and share the Lord's Supper, whether they do it weekly, monthly or quarterly.

Both of our denominations are now in full communion with certain other denominations and they are working towards that end with still others. My own position as spiritual leader of our two congregations is a result of that. But, as with all that Jesus asks of us, we cannot simply pat ourselves on the back and rest on our laurels. We are by no means completely one. There is always more work to be done.

Paul frequently wrote about the importance of unity in the church. He wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) That is radical. Paul is saying that unity in Christ overcomes any differences in race, class and gender. Those are all major differences. In comparison, our differences are trivial. So I'm sure that if he were writing today he would add “There is no Catholic or Protestant, Orthodox or Pentecostal, Baptist or Methodist or Mennonite or Lutheran or Episcopalian for you are all one in Christ.”

On the night he was betrayed Jesus prayed that his followers all may be one. Is that hard? Yes, but no harder than what he was about to face to save us. Jesus never said following him would be easy. He said it was a matter of denying yourself and taking up the cross and going after him. That's incredibly difficult. And so is asking a bunch of Christians to be one. But it is also clear that it's what our Lord wanted.