"One"

Joshua J Sander
5/20/12
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Ascension Sunday
“One”

Acts 1:1-11
John 17:6-19

Sometimes the storyteller in me gets a little frustrated with the Revised Common Lectionary, which is how we know what scripture lesson goes with which Sunday. For example, last Thursday was Ascension Day—the holiday where we celebrate the resurrected Jesus’ final words to the disciples before going up to heaven. Today’s Gospel lesson, as well as the Gospel lessons for the past couple of weeks, come from Jesus’ words to the disciples directly after the Lord’s Supper—before the Crucifixion, let alone the Resurrection. Add to that whole mess the fact that we’ve been spending the last few weeks with the Gospel of John and that the version of the Ascension we just heard comes from the book of Acts—which was written by Luke—and it gets even more difficult to put things in order. So yeah, the storyteller part of me is kind of screaming that things are all out of order today.

So for those of you who need to see the chronological order of things as much as I do, I’m going to try the best I can to put this in order for a minute. Jesus gave the disciples the metaphor of The Good Shepherd before he raised Lazarus from the dead, before the chief priests and the Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus, before the triumphal entry and the Lord’s Supper. After they had eaten, Judas left and Jesus foretold Peter’s betrayal. Then Jesus spoke for a long time the disciples. He told them that where he was going they could not follow and promised to send them the Advocate, by which I mean the Spirit of Truth, to be with them always. He gave the disciples the beautiful metaphor of The True Vine, asking them to live in his love, and then gave them the commandment to love one another. Jesus then warned the disciples that the world would hate them because he chose them to be separate from the world. And then he prayed the prayer we heard in today’s Gospel lesson.

Skip ahead through Easter and you get to the Emmaus walk and the appearance of Jesus to the disciples where they all got to poke him and watch him eat fish. And after he appeared to his followers and demonstrated that he was indeed alive, Jesus spoke to them one more time before ascending to heaven.

So why explore Jesus’ prayer from his last Passover meal on the same day as the story of the Ascension? Well, because there are more ways to organize ourselves than simply chronologically. We can also put things together that have similar themes. In both of these lessons, Jesus is preparing his followers—his disciples and friends—for his absence.

Can you imagine how shocking that last supper must have been for the Disciples? I mean, they were expecting to sit down to dinner with their closest friends and their beloved teacher—granted, it started out a little weird, with Jesus bathing their feet like the servants should have been doing—but then again, Jesus did stuff like that, you know? Just to make his point. But then Jesus just out and said that one of them was about to betray him. And then Jesus said:

Jesus: Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.”

Pastor Josh: Aw man… this sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? I imagine that most of them had trouble listening from that point on. There’s Jesus saying,

Jesus: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Peter: Where are you going?

Pastor Josh: See what I mean about not listening?

Jesus: Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterwards.

Peter: Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.

Jesus: Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.

Whoa. Poor Peter. Hearing Jesus say that must have been like a kick to the gut. As Philip and Thomas continue to question Jesus—*arm waving* where are you going? We don’t get it!!—poor Peter must have just sat there, dumbstruck. But Jesus goes on, saying “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth… I will not leave you orphaned…”

Then Jesus goes back to what he was trying to tell them in the first place, only this time he gives them a parable, I mean he gives them a metaphor, he says that it’s like he’s the vine and they are the branches. That they should live in his love. And then he says it again, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Why is Jesus working so hard for the disciples to get it? Why is using different words to say the same thing over and over again? And still he goes on,

Jesus: you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you.”

Pastor Josh: And on…  

Jesus: those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.  

Pastor Josh: And on…  

Jesus: I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me…

Until the disciples must have be thinking, “Oh dear God, why must he keep saying these horrible things?" And about the time things must have really been sinking in—just about the time when the disciples must have known deep in their souls that something big was about to happen and that it wasn’t at all going to be fun— then Jesus stops speaking directly to them and turns his attention to God, praying, “Holy Father, protect them in your name so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name. But now I am coming to you…”

Jesus is praying to God that God will protect Jesus’ followers so they can be one with each other in the same way that Jesus and God are one. Why? Because Jesus is about to die and their world will be turned upside down.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Those who will believe in me through their word. That’s me! I believe in Jesus. And that’s you! You believe in Jesus! This prayer—it’s for us!! That we may all be one, just like God is in Jesus and Jesus is in God—so the world might also grow to believe…

You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this prayer for us. I hope that it isn’t the first time you’ve heard it either. I know that in recent history more folk are familiar with the UCC’s God Is Still Speaking campaign —with the image of the Comma and the accompanying quote from Gracie Allen, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” Not to mention the words of extravagant welcome, “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

But the God is Still Speaking campaign and its message of extravagant welcome is only the most recent way the UCC has attempted to tell the world what it is about. Before the Comma there was the UCC logo. 
No, not that one.
  Closer.
There we go…
The UCC itself formed from a merger between the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches in 1957.  I do not know when this version of the logo was adopted.  But I do know that the United Church of Christ website says that, “It is based on an ancient Christian symbol called the "Cross of Victory" or the "Cross Triumphant." The crown symbolizes the sovereignty of Christ. The cross recalls the suffering of Christ—his arms outstretched on the wood of the cross—for the salvation of humanity. The orb, divided into three parts, reminds us of Jesus' command to be his "witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth…" And I also know that the symbol of the Cross Triumphant was present at the 1957 merger.

To this ancient symbol, the UCC added two pieces of text to describe who we are as a community—the first, of course, is our name: United Church of Christ. The second is the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples and all those who believe in Jesus: That They May All Be One. Including this piece of scripture “reflects our historic commitment to the restoration of unity among the separated churches of Jesus Christ.”

As for the words Jesus said to his friends and followers just before the Ascension, "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

And they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" But he didn’t really answer, saying, "It is not for you to know …” Honestly, though, this is another example of the disciples simply not listening and understanding. Remember that this word comes to us from the Book of Acts, which was written by Luke, and in Luke 17:21 Jesus clearly says that “…in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

The disciples, just like the rest of us, myself included, completely forgot that the Kingdom of God is within us. as the Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchel puts it, “Nonetheless, we still wait a day when Christ will come in a new way. As we waited in Advent, and waited in Lent, so now we continue to wait and watch for Christ to do something new, to enter the world and our lives in a new way. But as the disciples did, so we too often look in the wrong direction. We look for signs of the end of the world. We look for signs that things are getting better or getting worse. Rather, the reign of God is within us, and while we wait for Christ to do something new, we participate in the reign of God now.

And so I’d like to close with a challenge and a cliffhanger.

The challenge for us, myself included, this morning is to go out into the world and look in the right direction for the Kingdom of God—within ourselves and one another. And where we see that the Kingdom is not present, we should work to make it so. The challenge, in other words, is to participate in the reign of God now, that they may all be one.

And now the cliffhanger: Hear the words of Jesus.

Jesus: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Pastor Josh: Amen. And amen.  And tune in next week...