Living for unity

Sermon preached at 11am at St Mary the Virgin, Lapworth
Sunday 16th May 2010, 7th Sunday of Easter - Year C
Adapted versions of this sermon were also preached at 8.30am and also at St Michael’s, Baddesley Clinton at 9.45am.

Readings: Acts 16: 16-34 John 17: 20-end


Last Thursday was the feast of the Ascension and we celebrated that in church. The Ascension is when we remember Jesus finally leaving the earth, 40 days after his resurrection, and going to heaven to sit at God’s right hand. It is a time when we think of Jesus on the throne of heaven in all his glory. We think of his final triumph through all his trials and difficulties. We remember the words of the psalmist “The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Ps 110).
And the theme of the Ascension is still with us in our service this morning. There are several references to the Ascension in our hymns today. See if you can spot them! But also there things about our gospel reading, which are relevant to the Ascension. As we think about Jesus leaving this earth, so we find the need to focus on the last things that Jesus said to us before he left. And this is why our gospel reading is significant. It is sometimes described as Jesus’ “last will and testament” or his “priestly prayer”. It is the last words that Jesus says in John’s gospel before his arrest, his passion and death.
Actually these words are part of a prayer to God. And it can be hard to understand. God the Son is praying to God the Father. God is praying for God. We humans shouldn’t be too surprised if we struggle to understand it all! But it is very interesting what Jesus prays for. One of the things he prays is “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory…” So Jesus recognises that he is returning to the glories of heaven, and wants to share those glories with us. And this is part of our Christian hope. Our life is a journey towards this great destination that Jesus wants for us, to see his glory, share his life in heaven. And we know that the journey might be long and difficult and we need to grow and develop in love, and we might need to be purified in all kinds of painful ways, but ultimately we are called to this great destiny in heaven with Christ in glory.
But the main thing that Jesus prays for is unity. First of all he prays for his disciples. Then for all those who will believe in Jesus because of witness of the disciples. So that is you and me. It is the whole church. And his pray is, “that they all may be one” and he repeats this several times in different ways. “That they all may be one.” Jesus is praying for unity among his followers. He is praying for unity in the Church.
Now we all know that unity can be very difficult. Church Unity can be especially difficult to achieve. Since the eleventh century the Church has suffered a big division between the east and the west. Since the sixteen century there has been a division between Protestants and Anglicans and the Catholics. But then it always seems that there is scope for new divisions, even within our own denomination, the Anglican Communion and the Church of England. We only have to think of questions to do with women bishops, women priests, and homosexuality to know that there are a huge range of things that can easily divide us. And if we think of our local church communities there is always scope for division. Perhaps this congregation may have be spared much division, but my former parish in Solihull suffered terrible conflicts and divisions over women priests in the mid-1990s. And then even in the smallest unit of the church our families, our marriages, there is scope for division. We all know how easily problems can occur and how difficult it is to live in unity.
And yet Jesus prays for unity, not just in marriages, or in local church communities, but for the unity of the whole church. Well this might seem completely impossible; a total pipe dream. And I think for human beings alone unity is impossible. But it is not impossible for God, and it is what God wants. Unity for human beings is achieved as a gift from God.
So how do we receive this gift? How do we put ourselves in the right position to be blessed in this way? Well I think we get some clues from the rest of Jesus’ prayer. Jesus prays, “…may they all be one. As you Father are in me, and I am in you…” So this being united is about being “in” the other. This means positioning ourselves in the other person, mindful of their needs, their priorities, their legitimate aspirations. It means empathising with them and making their hopes our own. We try to serve the good that we see in the other person, doing our best to recognise them as God created them to be, with all their good qualities, and also do our best to ignore the things we don’t like, or that are bad about them. And this approach needs to be mutual. Jesus is in the Father, but the Father is also in Jesus. This two way giving certainly contributes to unity. In two weeks time it will be Trinity Sunday and we will be thinking about the perfect unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and this complete giving of each to the other is important to that unity.
But Jesus’ prayer continues further. “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us”. “May they also be in us.” So we are called to be in God, to share in that self giving of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father. But we need to be “in” God. We need to be attentive to God, through prayer, to listen to him and also to act according to what he wants from us. We have to be obedient to God’s will, to the path that he sets before us, so that we can walk forward and develop in line with his creation in us. To do this maybe we have to let go of some of our own devises and desires. Perhaps he have to lose some of our own ideas in order to be in God. But this being in God is part of the experience of unity.
Now when we dwell together in unity it is a very refreshing and renewing experience. The Psalmist says, “How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. It is like precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard…” (Ps 133). I believe that this experience of unity on earth is a preparation for heaven. It is a preparation for that glory that Jesus wants to share with us in heaven, a foretaste of heaven. So let’s seek to live “in” the other, and “in” God to experience unity and to prepare ourselves for heaven. Amen.