"Holy Unity" ** a sermon for 7 Easter, 1 June 2025**

 

Let’s get some context here.  This is the end of Jesus’ “high priestly” prayer.  Jesus and his friends have shared a meal together.  Jesus has washed their feet and given them the commandment to “love one another.”  Judas has left the group to betray Jesus.  Jesus brings the other disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.

            Jesus prays for the coming hours.  Jesus knows the betrayal and suffering that are ahead.  Jesus initially prays for the cup to pass.  To not undergo the fate that awaits Him.  A very natural and human response.  But, then Jesus also prays for the strength and courage to endure—Your will, God, not mine Jesus prays in the Garden (see Luke 22:39-46)

            At such a time, it reasonable for Jesus to only think of Himself.  Yet Jesus spends a significant time praying for His friends, for those that will be left behind.  Jesus knows things will not be easy for them in the next few days.  Fear, grief, and disillusionment will overcome them after Jesus’ death.  Jesus’ friends will huddle behind locked doors.

            Jesus also includes you and me in His prayers.  In particular, Jesus offers three prayers for His followers.  Jesus prays that His followers will be protected from evil.  Jesus prays for us to be sanctified, to be set apart as holy to God.  Lastly, Jesus prays that the oneness He enjoys with God will be mirrored in our unity with one another.

Unity tends to get a bad rap.  Especially in the current climate.  When we think about unity we think of the Borg.  The Borg, in Star Trek, are a hive mind-set, a collective.  A system where everyone thinks and acts alike.  We are not the Borg.  You and I are human beings.  Unity does not mean uniformity.  Let me repeat that.  Unity does not mean uniformity.

Finding two people who think, act, and believe alike is impossible.  Not only would that make for a mighty dull world, but no two individuals are exactly alike.  Unity is not about peace circling and singing “Blessed be the Tie that Binds.”  The Church is One because Jesus unites us as “Firstborn of all creation, the Head of the Church, and the Author of our salvation.”[1]

            We are all beloved children of God.  God, through Jesus, has adopted you and me, every last one of us, as daughters and sons.  As Paul reminds us, in Christ there is no slave or free, Jew or Greek, rich or poor, conservative or progressive . . . we are all one in Jesus Christ (see Galatians 3:28).  Our unity is to be a powerful witness to a broken and divided world.

            As Episcopalians, we can also draw on our heritage.  Episcopalians pride ourselves on being welcoming and inclusive for all.  We believe that the tent for thinking, believing, and practicing is wide enough to hold everyone.  Just like God’s unending love and mercy.  Kathleen Chittenden Bascom, the Bishop of Kansas, offers these words for us:

“Life in a polarized political context is a challenge that leads me to prayer and to tapping our Anglican roots.  Much of what we treasure about the Anglican/Episcopal expression of the faith came forth in times of extreme polarization.  The late 16th and 17th century saw the British Isles rent asunder between opposing political policies and monarchs and the polarizing religious ideas of the continental reformers and the roman catholic church.

In such a time, figures like Richard Hooker, George Herbert, Jeremy Taylor, and the Caroline Divines forged ahead in faith.  They walked the Via Media, the middle way, that has become a signature mark of Anglican Christianity.  In a time when “people who are passionately certain” left no room for complexity and drowned out other voices, these Anglicans claimed that God had endued humans, who are made in God's image, with “reason,” the ability to engage in complexity and choose nuances in the face of polarizing forces

They came. to “both-and” conclusions that we hold dear today they were firm in their nuanced belief that one did not have to choose between scriptures and the sacraments. . . .  In our own period of polarization, may we speak of and walk with courage the Via Media, Jesus's way of love, inspired by our Anglican forebears.”[2]


[1] Eucharistic Prayer B, The 1979 BCP, p. 369.

[2] From The Harvest, The Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, August 2024.  As reprinted in TAD, Summer 2025, pgs 53-54.

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