Our
passage is from the last prayer of Jesus before his arrest; it's also the last part
of what scholars call the Farewell Discourse, that great teaching at his final
Passover, there in the fire-lit upper room.
And make no mistake: our passage is
a teaching, even though at the same time a prayer. Jesus apparently
didn't have any teachers who told him not to preach in a prayer, like I did
in seminary. If he did, he ignored it,
as I occasionally do as well. Rules,
sometimes, are meant to be broken.
The
entire discourse, including the prayer, has the sense of the final teachings of
someone who knows he’s going away, and would never see his followers
again. Indeed, Jesus knows that is the
case, he knows he's heading shortly to his death on a cross, he knew it before
they sat down at dinner, before he washed the disciples’ feet, before good old,
literal Peter vehemently refused, and then just as vehemently recanted when he learned
you couldn't get into the kingdom without it, saying “well if that's the case, wash my hands and head
as well.”
Jesus
knew it was his last supper before he handed Judas the bread, before he
explained that it was all over but the shouting, that he had been glorified,
though only he seemed to know exactly what he meant by “glorified,” that it
wasn't in any way shape or form what society
thinks of as “glory.” And because he knows what is coming
next, his last words take on additional significance, additional weight, as last
words usually do. And that final
teaching is all about “being one.”
In this, the final section of his final prayer in his final sermon, he
prays to God that his followers may be one.
In
the first part of the prayer, he asks for protection for the ones that God has
given him, I.e., the twelve
disciples. Minus, of course, Judas, who
has slunk off to do the deed, and whom Jesus calls “the son of destruction,”
though our translation renders it, inexplicably, “the one destined to be lost.” Jesus asks for God, whom he calls Father, to
take care of them, that their joy in him would be complete, and that God would “sanctify
them in the truth.”
In
our part of the prayer, he shifts his focus from the twelve to those who would
come after. “I ask,” he says, “not only
on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through
their word,” through the original disciples’ preaching of the Gospel. And he asks “that they may all be one.” Much of the rest of the prayer is elaboration
on this idea: as you are in me, he says to God the Father, and I am in you, may
they also be in us . . . He tells God the Father that the glory given to him,
he has given to his followers, so that they may be one, just as he and the Father
are one, Jesus in them and the Father in Jesus, that they may become completely one . . .
And
the placement of this request at the end of Jesus’ earthly life gives it
urgency, and its theme, that Christians be one, has resonated with fractious
congregations, theologians and church leaders almost from the beginning. In the fourth century, John Chrysostom, Bishop
of Constantinople, paraphrased this passage, saying if disciples would but keep
the peace among themselves that they had learned from him, the people around
them “would know the teacher by his disciples.”
He went on to suggest that their quarrelsomeness would cause others to deny
that they are followers of a God of
peace and not believe that Jesus has been sent from God.
Modern
interpreters have suggested that the prayer for oneness has the same urgency
and application today that it had 20 centuries ago. They are no doubt thinking of the doctrinal
squabbling and controversies over marriage and ordination standards, the
authority of scriptures, and the sufficiency versus the necessity of Christ that
have divided congregations and denominations for many years.
They pray, like Jesus did, for God to make us one, just as Jesus and the
Father are one.
And
it's when I read that last qualifier that I begin to question the standard
interpretation of this prayer as a call for unity among believers, as a fervent
desire that, as Rodney King might have put it, we all just get along. Don't get me wrong: I believe we are called
to do that, I believe we are called to share in the peace of Christ, to work together
in spite of our differences, that the old tension of purity versus unity must be
weighted heavily toward the unity.
But through this prayer, we are called
to be one just as Jesus and the Father are one, and so we have a model of what
this oneness is to be like: it's to be like that between the Father and the Son
(forgive the patriarchal language . . . I’m speaking of the formal
relationships within the Trinity). And
that oneness goes far beyond just getting along, or working together for the Kingdom
of God: it is an absolute oneness, a mutual indwelling, a non-dualistic
wholeness where the Son is not the Father and not not the Father at the same time.
In other words, if we are to be one as Christ and the Father are one, it
is not just unity we are talking
about, not just getting along despite our differences, but union, one with another, as Christ and the Father.
Jesus says “As you, Father, are in me
and I am in you, may they also be in us . . . " And I am reminded of that other
place in John, near the beginning of the Farewell Discourse, as a matter of
fact, where the disciples—minus Judas—are told “you will know that I am in my Father,
and you in me, and I in you.” And this
mutual indwelling is a characteristic theme of John. A bit later in the discourse, in the metaphor
of the vines, Jesus tells us to abide in him as he abides in us, and that those
who abide in him and he in them bear much fruit, and further, the Spirit, the Advocate, will abide in them as well.
And here in our passage, God the father
is entreated to make us one—you and me, John and Bob, Betty and Pam—just as are
God the Father and God the Son. And so—unless
the Father somehow refused the prayer, saying “Sorry Son, I don't think so”—I suspect we are one in the same way that they are,
whether we know it or not, indeed, whether we like it or not.
In a couple of weeks, when Trinity
Sunday rolls around, we’ll explore some of the ramifications of this—if we are
in Christ, Christ is in us, and we are one with each other, do we not all stand
directly in the Trinitarian flow?—though we’ll explore some of these issues
then, what about the remarkable conclusion that we are one with each other as
are God the Father and Son? That each
one of us both is each one of
us and is not each one of us at
the same time?
Well, mystics would say that it only seems weird because the phrase “each one
of us” is inapplicable: there is no such thing as “each one of us.” Oh, there is
a thing we think of as an “each,” as
an individual, but that’s what Thomas Merton called the “false self,” though
the term “lesser self” is more accurate. Jesus said we must die to this lesser self,
this idea that our differences in hair color, gender, income, achievements,
weight, mortgages, even our DNA, defines who we are, is our true identity. Our true identity lies in our divine, innermost
quality of aliveness, where what is us is intertwined inextricably with what is
divine.
It is there—if it can be said that there
is a “there”—that Jesus abides in us, in the full, intimate sense of “abiding.” And because divinity is at the core of each
of us, there is no individual in the
truest sense, no “I” and “thou,” we are all one—in the most literal sense—in
Christ Jesus.
And though Christian unity should flow from death to the lesser
self, and the divine union at our core, what I’d like to leave you with is
something else that flows from it as well.
James Finley—trauma therapist, theologian, and one-time student of
Thomas Merton—puts it like this: our dying to our lesser self reveals to us,
makes it undeniable that in even our apparent
brokenness, we are invincibly precious in our being. Amen.
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