Last week, we took a look at some of Jesus' last teachings to the disciples. He knew the time was drawing near that he would return to the Father, and he wanted to offer some final instructions to his closest followers. Now this week, with that same preparation still going on, Jesus here offers a prayer for his disciples. Though his loyal disciples stand with him as he prays this prayer, it is really a prayer of unity for all disciples in all times and all places. Obviously, with Jesus actually praying for the unity of his disciples, we can discern that this was supremely important to him. So, with Mother's Day as our backdrop this morning, we are going to explore Jesus' prayer for unity.
When you all think of your Mother, what comes to mind? Just throw out some words or phrases that pop in your head as great descriptions of your Mom. (pause) Loving, caring, hard-working, smart, devoted, funny, strict, a good cook. Or to be more specific to our topic this morning, here are some other words that come to mind: mediator, strong, the "glue" that holds the family together. Now certainly, there are countless instances in this world where relationships within families are less than positive in many ways. But I believe that most of the time, our first experiences of unity come through our families, with our mothers right at the helm, holding everyone and every thing together.
Just think of all the ways your mother, or grandmother, or aunt, or some other special woman in your life was busy holding the family together the best she could day in and day out. Certainly there was the cooking and the cleaning and the laundry. But she was also probably refereeing fights between you and your siblings on a regular basis--trying to keep you from ripping each other's heads off. She pushed you harder when you came home with bad grades, and comforted you when you fell off your bike. Maybe she was even the one behind getting everyone to church on Sunday morning. Then there were those times in your life perhaps, when you started rebelling against your parents, or you just couldn't do anything right. Yet, somehow, no matter how bad things got, no matter how terribly you treated that special woman who worked so hard to raise you, she never gave up on you, and she certainly never stopped loving you.
The unity for which Jesus prays here is founded on shared love. This is the kind of self-giving love seen in the life of Jesus. It’s also the kind of love we first experience most tangibly in our families. This mutual and reciprocal love is the kind of love that is as much a decision and choice as it is a feeling. It is the kind of love that can be commanded, love that is sometimes easy and graceful, and sometimes more about making a conscious decision to love another, even when it seems undeserved. This is the love that keeps loving without reservation, through all the rebellion and rejection, through every hill and valley of life. And here, Jesus prays that his disciples will be united by such love.
I think we can quickly begin to understand why Jesus offered this prayer. In the midst of his final extended conversation with his disciples, Jesus pauses to pray that they will be one with each other and one with God. And I think the reason Jesus prayed this prayer instead of just lecturing the disciples about the importance of unity is the fact that it doesn’t come easy. Unity is not something that just happens. It takes work; hard work. It’s founded in that unconditional, sacrificial love, and it requires grace, and forgiveness, and compassion. And all the division in our world today evidences the fact that unity is so hard to achieve!
Just think for a moment about all the stories of division that fill the news everyday. Even the Christian community in this country and around the world is divided. We’re divided by race and creed and denomination; and that’s just the beginning. We’re the ones who actually know Jesus and claim to follow him! The difficulties of maintaining Christian unity are mirrored in divisions throughout the world. Every day people dishonor their own vows of commitment to one another, if not abandoning them all together. Relationships with family and friends are severed. On a larger scale, religion, politics, and hot-button issues divide our society. In fact, the divisions are so deep you could probably throw out any topic in a crowd and hear at least two differing viewpoints defended with equal fervor.
And isn’t that why there are so many divisions to begin with? Because it’s so much easier to be right than wrong. Because we’d rather “stand our ground” and “stick to our guns” than open ourselves up to other possibilities. There’s something innate about humanity. We crave power and control. We don’t want to have to admit that we’re wrong. We don’t want to have to change. We don’t want to have to put any effort into anything that will benefit someone else but not us. We don’t want to have to agree with people we don’t agree with, or love people we don’t like. So instead, everyone just “digs in their heels”, and doesn’t budge, and as a result, we get stuck at all these divisive impasses. We spend all our energy trying to maintain our perceived position of superiority instead of trying to reach a place of common ground. We say to ourselves, “It would be easy for everyone to live in reciprocal love and unity if only everyone would follow the rules that I lay down!” This “my way or the highway” mentality pervades every part of our lives, and disrupts every part of our life together. We certainly need Jesus’ prayers for unity.
But just as much as we need Jesus’ prayers, we have to be prepared to take action ourselves, too. In no way is unity achieved through passiveness. Jesus’ prayer points to this truth. Even as he is offering these words of hope for his disciples, he is also challenging them. Through this prayer, Jesus calls out of his disciples that love which must pervade every part of our lives, even when that requires some effort. That means that we have to be secure enough in ourselves that we are able to engage in the kind of self-giving love that puts others above ourselves. Did you hear that? We have to be willing to lower ourselves so that others can be lifted up.
Certainly unity, in any form or fashion, cannot be forced. It can’t be forced in relationships, and it can’t be forced upon a society. There can be no bullying, no manipulation that results in a unified front. But in a divided world, and in particular in this world we live in, where divisions often run down so-called “religious” lines, there is no excuse for us not to work diligently every day toward the unity for which Jesus prayed. If we are one in faith, there is no reason we should not also be one in life and worship.
You see, the ultimate unity of the church does not come through human maneuvering, but only through the oneness of God. And our unity is found only in our common acceptance of Christ, which is why it is so important for Jesus to pray this prayer! Jesus is not hoping that his disciples will be unified just for unity’s sake, but so that the world might know and experience the love and unity of God the Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, I think we often too quickly forget that the church is the extension of Christ’s work in the world today. Which means that everything we do sends a message about who Jesus is and what Jesus is about. If we are divided all the time—arguing and defending, fighting and bickering, slandering, and criticizing, then that’s what we are telling the world Jesus did. But every one of us here is smart enough to know that Jesus was not that way at all.
“I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.” Jesus came to show us in the most real and personal ways the love of God the Father; a love that bound them together in pure, complete unity. And because Jesus was born in human flesh and lived on this earth just as we do, many people were able to see and experience this unifying love of God first-hand. So, when his time on earth was nearly finished, Jesus prayed for his disciples, that they would be united so that more and more people could know and experience the same love they had. That’s why we are here today. And truly, the Christian church is never really more than one generation away from extinction; all it would take is one generation not modelling and sharing the love of God. I fear that the decline we see in Christianity in our culture today stems from the fact that we have allowed too much division. We focus too much on our own little community of faith and we do not see union with other churches, even those in our own neighborhoods.
So we must understand without question that Jesus’ prayer for unity comes also with a challenge. We have to be willing to live into that unity—again, not just so we can be unified, but so the world can know and experience the love of Christ in the same sort of first-hand way as those earliest disciples. This means we have to work at loving both our neighbors and our enemies. We can live under no illusions that this is an easy task, but Jesus took no easy road either. Love requires commitment, and commitment means work.
We celebrate today the blessing of many women who have devoted their lives to their families and who have loved us without hesitation. My prayer for each of us on this very special day is that we will honor those women and our call as disciples, to carry that same love into the world. I pray we will make the commitment to that love that unites us and binds us as one, so that together, we can show the world the immense love of God the Father and our savior, Jesus Christ.
