The 7th Sunday of Easter - Being One in Christ

Temptation crossed my path on Saturday at the end of our very successful yard sale--and my parishioner did not help me resist.  Temptation came in the form of a personal-sized trampoline—a circle just large enough to jump up and down on a bit, but not big enough for any dangerous tricks.  I was consumed by the thought that I might be able to demonstrate how Christ's ascension began right in the middle of my sermon.  My parishioner even suggested that I preach the whole time from the trampoline, just bouncing gently.  You'll be pleased to know I resisted not only my outrageous imagining, but also her suggestion to deliver my sermon several inches off solid ground.

Now to get back to the serious stuff.  The Feast of the Ascension occurred this past Thursday.  The feast celebrates Christ's completing his time on earth and rejoining the Holy Father, the Godhead. Pentecost comes next Sunday when we remember how the Holy Spirit came to liberate the disciples from their fears and to empower them to go into the world to make disciples.

So as we reflect on this in-between time, we may have some sense of what Jesus followers felt as they realized Jesus was no longer with them.  His absence after the power of his post-resurrection appearances must have troubled them.  Perhaps they not only felt abandoned by this charismatic figure who been the center of their lives, they also may have felt their trust in him ebbing away.  Who was Jesus—REALLY, who was he—and what are we supposed to believe and do now he has departed?  Was their fear that Jesus and his promises could not be trusted?  There isn't a more devastating feeling than betrayal, is there?  Would the promised Advocate and Guide come?

When the writer of John's gospel tried to sort this out quite a few years later, he told about Jesus' saying farewell to his disciples and then praying to the Holy Father.  Through Jesus' farewell remarks and his high priestly prayer, we see the struggle of Jesus' trying to explain a mystery—how he could be both fully a person and truly God—all at the same time—and what that meant for those who follow him.  One time I heard a witty pastor exclaim about this passage from the 17^th chapter:  “After all, he was [and is] God. Surely he could have explained things a little more clearly!”

Mysteries, particularly holy ones, cannot—by definition—be explained clearly.  Nancy Ramsey, a divinity school professor, offered this opinion about John 17.  She said, “[Jesus'] final hopes are not a celebration of himself, but the recognition that his life and ministry are windows into God's love and saving purposes.”  If Jesus' disciples could know God through Jesus' life, they would find themselves with changed hearts—hearts ready to risk what he asked of them.


What he asked was, in his absence, to continue the work of reconciliation he had begun.  He prayed to the Holy Father, “Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words you have given to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”

Jesus wanted his disciples, both then and now, to understand that the Holy Father and he are the same and yet distinct.  In a couple of weeks we will celebrate the concept of divine unity in separate persons (the Trinity) that begins to take its shape here in the Gospel of John.

But Jesus also wanted his followers to know that they are to emulate the unity of persons in the Godhead, to mirror the relationship of the Holy Father and Christ.  He prayed, “Holy Father, protect them [the disciples] in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

In the Ascension, Jesus Christ returns to the unity of God, leaving us a very difficult task:  in our relationships we, Christ's followers, should be a unity.  In his first letter to the Corinthians, written well before the Gospel of John, St. Paul compares the member of the Christian community to various parts of the body of Christ.  The unity he speaks about arises from the different spiritual gifts given to the various members of the community and—this is important—the necessity for each person to honor the gifts of the others.

So being a unity does not mean enforced conformity.  Rather I believe unity in Christ comes from a willingness to engage—with respect and compassion—those folks with whom we find ourselves in the body of Christ, the church.  Make no mistake about this, however, Jesus was not asking us to do something easy.  The history of the followers of Jesus shows that we have a very difficult time dealing with other folks who see things differently than we do—from the conflict between St. Peter and St. Paul about the inclusion of gentiles in the Christian community on through the centuries to our conflicts in the church today.

Finding ways to live together in our Christian communities—in ways that honor consensus rather than raw power, in ways that honor what our “weaker” members bring to the community, as well as what our “stronger” ones bring:  truly this is difficult, but Christ expects nothing less.

So had I set that trampoline in our midst this morning and started bouncing, what would you have done?  Perhaps even while rolling your eyes and thinking, “Here she goes again,” you would hold our relationship in prayer—a prayer that the Holy Father, to whom Jesus prayed, would bless our relationship and make it fruitful for the coming of the Christ's reign.