More or less, here’s the sermon I preached this morning. In hindsight, I probably should have changed the title because the sermon took a slightly different turn than what I envisioned earlier in the week. I ended up approaching the text as a prayer for the disciples Jesus would eventually leave behind. By extension, I believe Jesus was also praying for us, specifically that we would be united in our mission of spreading scriptural holiness throughout the world and that we would be sanctified by truth of God’s love. In other words, this is a call to unity, not uniformity in all things.
I hope you receive a blessing from my attempt to articulate the message of Jesus.
Think to when you can first remember hearing about Jesus. Who was sharing the good news with you? If you’re like me, it was probably your mother or someone in your life who’s like a mother to you. For me, it was my mother who I remember as the first one to teach me anything about faith. I was very sick when I was a child, something I’ll talk about someday, but this gave us a lot of time to talk about God and things about the faith. Momma was the first one who taught me to pray at bedtime and to pray when I was scared when I’d have to go to the doctor or to the hospital. She shared many a story out of her Bible. She was far from perfect, but my mother was the one who introduced me to Jesus.
No matter who first shred Jesus with you, they still had to take the time and make the decision to do so. Every single one of us is set apart for a ministry of some sort, something that’s perhaps unique to how we’re gifted and equipped. There’s one ministry we are called to called to: Sharing the gospel. We get off in the weeds about having the correct words and all of that, but Jesus has already prayed for us to be prepared. He’s already prayed for us as we carry out the mission he started. Do we claim that? Are we united in this mission? This is precisely what Jesus prayed for and his desire for us today.
Jesus knows that his time is growing short. If you’ve read ahead or know already, then you know that this just before he is betrayed and arrested. Jesus is obviously concerned for the apostles that he’s leaving behind. He knows that they’re still a rag-tag bunch who still don’t understand everything he has been trying to teach them. That kind of sounds like us, doesn’t it? He knows they have their disagreements and their arguments. Still, Jesus knows that he can’t stay much longer and so he does what our moms taught us to do in times of trouble: Pray.
Notice something about Jesus’ prayer: He wasn’t praying for his own worries or to otherwise be comforted. He prayed for each one of his students. And, honestly, I can’t help but believe he was praying for us too. He prayed that they might be protected from the whims of the world and those of the enemy. He prayed that the apostles be set apart as being in the world but not of the world, that the world might know that they are here but that their loyalty lies with God and God only. He prayed that they might be protected by God’s guidance and sanctified by the truth. He prayed that they might be emboldened to proclaim the gospel and that they might united in that truth.
Jesus also prayed that they might remain in the world to be His presence after he eventually ascended. Again, Jesus knew that his time was short, but he did not want the mission to end once he died, rose, and eventually returned to the Father. Jesus wanted the mission of reconciling humanity to God to continue and even to expand. Jesus knew that this would begin with his apostles being emboldened and strengthened to be the ones to keep it going.
I want us to receive this as a prayer for us as well. We are the continuation of the work of these apostles. We are not only the recipients of the gospel through others who answered the call of Jesus to proclaim, we are entrusted with the task of spreading the gospel t others. The best news that the world has ever received should not be kept solely hidden in our hearts, it should be shared and lived as loudly as possible.
Do I believe that Jesus expected all believers to be united in everything? No, I don’t. Jesus understood the reality of his people. As I already mentioned, the very apostles had disagreements amongst themselves and even disagreed with the meanings of Jesus’ teachings. The history of the Christian church is full of disagreements, splits, reunifications, even wars. Disagreement is part of the human condition. Jesus certainly knew that believers would not always agree. What I sense in this prayer is that Jesus does want us to be one in the mission to share the gospel, live the gospel, and make disciples who go out as sanctified believers to proclaim the gospel to new people.
This is a good opportunity to weigh where our loyalties lie. If we are supremely loyal to anything or anyone besides Jesus, then we need to repent. People, institutions, you name it… they all disappoint, disappear, reappear, and go through all the parts of a lifecycle. None of that is true about God, because God never changes. Jesus is always our messiah. We are his hands and feet. None of those things ever change.
We are not called to be of one mind on everything but we are called to be unified in Christ. The fact is, people aren’t always going to agree on everything. Jesus didn’t pray for uniformity, where the believers would agree on literally everything, He prayed for unity, something that’s stronger than any differences that we, as the church, share. If we’re striving for uniformity, we are not going to be satisfied because there is simply no way that people are going to always agree on anything. This is simply not possible. Unity means we willingly set those differences aside for the sake of something much bigger than ourselves or our disagreements. In this case, we find unity in Jesus.
A quote that I’m about to share is often attributed to St. Augustine but he didn’t say it. It was Marco Antonio de Dominis who gave us a great quote for today. What’s important for us to know about Dominis is that he was twice declared a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church during the days of the inquisition because he did not agree with some of the tenants of the Catholic faith, specifically the papacy. At some point during all of that, he wrote this: “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.”
As we prayed last week when we came to Christ’s table:
By your Spirit make us one with Christ,
one with each other,
and one in ministry to all the world,
until Christ comes in final victory
and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
May it be so, Lord. If we truly want to honor the person who first told us about Christ – maybe even our mothers – the best way to honor them is to remember that we are not of this world, but we are in it to be Christ’s presence and his hands and feet. Surely, we can all agree on that.