Getting the main point

‘… that all of them may be one.’ (John 17:21)

John 17:6-23 (Year B: Easter 7)

Unity is the point..

The evangelist John opens his Gospel by declaring:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

And he closes the gospel by confiding (John 20:31):

 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

At the risk of stretching matters, verses 20-21 of Chapter 17 are added, in this blog, to the set Sunday liturgical piece for today which terminates at verse 19 (John 17:6-19):

Mid-way between the introduction and the Logos (Word) and the end (the promise of eternal life) is prayer for unity found in Chapter 17. The whole point of this chapter and what has come before and what is yet to happen – death and resurrection – is unity; unity of God in the trinity and unity of us in the family of God.  It is a call to communion with and for. We can confuse this as a call to unity under and against. Unity in a hierarchical structure of power is not desirable. Unit of some against others for the sake of conflict and domination is not desirable either.

Jesus’ prayer ‘that all may be one’ can be misunderstood as a call to homogeneity and dullness. It is most definitely not a case of saying that we can have any colour car as long as it is black! To be one is the point of salvation in Christ.  The disciples of Jesus who experienced his transforming power in the months, years, decades and centuries following the events recounted in the gospels knew a unity of purpose and living that astonished the world. This, more than anything else, drew many others into the family of God (fellowship is the technical term used but it has connotations that might be off-putting !).

What does it mean to be one?

Does it mean having the same ethnicity, politics and social status? Most certainly not!

Does it mean blind obedience within a hierarchical structure? Definitely not. God invites us to love him with ‘all our minds’ while not breaking unity where that is essential.

Unity is about a balance of respect, inclusion and sharing of common purpose and values. In matters of doctrinal belief it requires discipline on what is essential and charity in everything else. In matters of ‘church discipline’ it requires respect, tact and loyalty where essential combined with courage, flexibility and initiative where questioning and change is required. If people stood still in the 1^st century or in the 19^th century in matters of how to articulate their beliefs and work within the complex cultural and social environments of their time then the reality of gospel would be greatly diminished and denied to countless numbers of people. ‘For God so loved the world ….’ (John 3:16). We only have to think of the question of the role of women in the Christian churches to realise (i) how much distance has been travelled in recent decades and (ii) how much distance remains to be travelled.  The paradox facing many is that in order to maintain unity of the Christian family it is necessary to suffer disunity for a time and with some others in order to move forward. However, it is not the case that anyone can presume or take it upon themselves to innovate without a lengthy period of reflection, study, debate, consultation and deliberation. 

At the same time, there is an urgency of proclaiming the good news and witnessing to a world that views the messengers of this good news with some criticism and distrust. Trust needs to be rebuilt, gradually, on the basis of a genuine and sustained concern for the what is true and what is in the common good. We should be wary of those who claim certainty. In claiming certainty about the meaning of scripture or tradition we may risk ending up hijacking the message and basing our lives on a false premises of self-confidence. In practice, people who appear to be most certain are – if the truth be told – deeply insecure because they desperately do not want their comfort zones disrupted and opened up to critical scrutiny. Deep down they are unsure and they crave certainty in signs, miracles, proofs, cut-and-dry answers to set questions and creedal type formulae that admit of only one set of language and philosophical framework.

And lest we think that we are immune from all of this we should reflect on how our values are constantly challenged and how, perhaps, in the course of a lifetime we have had to review, modify or enlarge our understandings and views on various matters of personal, spiritual, theological,  social and political concern.

But unity comes with a price

Unity comes at a price – we have to be ready to listen to others including the wisdom of those who came before us and we have to be ready to use our own God-given reason and life-experience to ‘work things out’ in harmony with the scriptures and the broad thrust of tradition. But tradition – or if you like the lived experience of the Christian community – is not static. It evolves and is re-expressed in every era.

It may help and it should help to share this process of critical engagement with other whom we can trust in the various walks of life.

Jesus prayer for us that we might be one in the love of God-who-is-love. His Name or Word is revealed for what it is; ‘He-who-saves’ because God-who-is-love is alive and working and united with ‘He-who-saves). By choosing to live openly and courageously in this love there is every possibility that others will join us in a larger community of witnesses and believers. This is the point of chapter 17 of St John’s Gospel. Amen!