I am re-reading a book series right now by author Rick Riordan titled “Heroes of Olympus.” And while the series centers around Greek and Roman mythology, I think that the overarching theme of the book is quite pertinent to those of us in the Christian faith and fits very well with what Jesus says to his disciples in the passage we just read from the gospel of John. The overarching storyline in this series is that Gaea, the earth goddess, is awakening and she plans to overthrow the gods and destroy humanity. In order to stop her, the seven greatest demigods of the age must unite and somehow thwart her plans. The problem is that some of the demigods are Greek and some are Roman, and those two groups have had a long history of animosity toward one another. So, the entire series  focuses on these seven demigods trying to unite their opposing sides and working together to defeat Gaea. Unity is a struggle for them over and over again, but without it, they are doomed.

Jesus prays for his disciples, “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.” So, the first question I had as I read this passage was, “Who is Jesus saying should be one?” Was it just the 12 disciples and the others who were with them in the Upper Room that night? Or was it bigger than that? From Jesus’ words, it definitely seems to be bigger than just those who heard Jesus say that. But how far is that call to unity supposed to extend? Jesus says, “on behalf of these (meaning his disciples), but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” Okay. So, who exactly does that cover? Well, I suppose it depends on how literal we want to take it. Jesus defines “all” as these (meaning his disciples) AND also “those who will believe in [him] through [their] word.” How we interpret that “and also” part is really what is at question here for us. And it seems that we could take it a couple different ways.

First, we could interpret this to mean that Jesus longs for the unity of his disciples and all those that come to believe in him because of the direct message of those disciples, which would basically be the early church…those who were with Jesus through his death, resurrection, and ascension and those who basically began the first Christian churches. And we could interpret it this way in order to say that unity was needed in those times in order to establish the Christian church firmly and in order to turn a small movement into something bigger and longer lasting. And if we interpret it that way, then we don’t have to worry about any implications that might be there for the Church today. We don’t have to worry about divisions or strife within the church, because Jesus’ call to unity here was not for US. That would be nice and easy, wouldn’t it? But perhaps that’s not the best interpretation.

The other option would be to interpret Jesus’ words as being directed not only at those who would directly hear about him through the disciples, but also to us who are hearing about Jesus through the words passed down by the disciples and eventually written down in the New Testament. If we take that interpretation, then Jesus is calling for all of us to be one as well. And not just all of us here in the First Presbyterian Church, but Jesus is calling us to be one with our brothers and sisters at Presbyterian Churches all across the nation. And not only that, but Jesus is calling us to be one with all our brothers and sisters across denominations…that means the folks at St. Francis Episcopal Church across the street and those at the WestWay Church and those at Grace Chapel and our brothers and sisters at St. John’s Lutheran and St. Agnes Catholic and Mitchell Berean. And if that weren’t enough, Jesus seems to also be calling us to be united with the believers from the US and believers from Mexico, believers in China and Taiwan, believers in Ukraine AND believers in Russia. Is this sounding like a much more daunting task yet?

If this is the call for believers today, for followers of Christ, we seem to be doing a pretty bad job of it, don’t we? It doesn’t take much looking at the Christian church, either in America or anywhere else, to realize that we have become a very divided people. Two minutes spent surfing Christian social media posts and you can see evidence of the deep divisions that plague us and damage our witness. Unity feels easy when we are talking about people who see things the same way we do and believe the same things we do. But it is a lot more challenging when we are talking about uniting despite our differences. But in this passage from John, Jesus gives us three reasons we should be united.

First, Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Jesus longs for us to be united AS he and the Father are united. When early theologians were trying to describe how the doctrine of the Trinity works, they turned to something they knew. You see, there was a traditional Greek wedding dance called perichoresis, and it became an image of how the persons of the Trinity relate to one another. Here is how Jonathan Marlowe described the dance of perichoresis: “They start to go in circles, weaving in and out in this very beautiful pattern of motion. They start to go faster and faster and faster, all the while staying in perfect rhythm and in sync with each other. Eventually, they are dancing so quickly (yet so effortlessly) that as you look at them, it just becomes a blur. Their individual identities are part of a larger dance.” If we think about the interrelationships of the members of the Godhead in that way, and then we consider Jesus words of desire for us to be one as the Trinity is one, then we can see the types of relationships we should be seeking to cultivate with one another. We should seek to live in such a way that our individual identities become part of a larger dance. Theologian Greg Uttinger explains it this way, “In a ballroom dance or a folk dance, each participant is responsible for his own role. He cannot see the whole, let alone shape the whole. But as he dances his part well, as he submits himself to the rules of the dance, he helps to create a thing of wondrous complexity and great beauty. Such is the universe, and such is the church.” We are to be one because God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are one.

Secondly, Jesus says that we should be one “so that the world may believe” that it was God who sent Jesus. In other words, our unity impacts our witness about who Jesus is. Now, as a small church in a rural community, we may wonder why it really even matters whether we are unified. Our unity, or lack thereof, will not really be seen outside of this community…and maybe not even so much within this community. So why bother? And that’s an interesting question with anything we do, right? Why have youth group if we only have 5 youth? Why offer meals at our soup kitchen if only 10 people show up? Why work with other churches in the valley when it’s not going to do anything to increase our own numbers and who will even notice? These are the types of questions I’ve heard churches ask before.

But I happened upon a recent commencement address from Timnit Gebru, the leading computer scientist in the US. And in that address she said this:

“Work that you do locally, that you may not think is so important, can have huge consequences. 

So, many times we don’t really believe this, right? We don’t believe how interconnected we are. We don’t believe that our small actions locally can have ripple effects. We believe that something far away won’t come to our door or that small actions close by won’t make a difference far away. 

So, this is like my favorite thing. I read something recently, which really beautifully shows how this is not true, how interconnected we are, and you all might know this and I might just be like I might be too excited to tell you this and you’re like yeah I know that, but this was about how the Amazon forest, the life of our earth, gets a portion, a huge portion, of its nutrients from the Sahara desert so strong winds carry some of the sand in the desert, which ends up falling in the Amazon forest, nourishing it with nutrients like phosphorus contained in the sand. This was so amazing to me because think about how different the desert and the forest are. 

We think of them as almost polar opposites, right? Do we ever think about the desert nourishing the forest? And the desert’s so far away from the Amazon forest right? So, what does this tell me? No matter how far we think we are from each other and how different from the ‘other,’ we are all very intimately interconnected.”

The little things that we do here, the ways in which we show unity within the body of Christ locally, can and will have an impact beyond what we realize. So we must be one because it is important to our witness of Christ.

And finally, we must be one because of love. Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Our family has been re-watching the TV show The Good Place over the past week or so. If you haven’t seen the show, they basic premise is that these four people have died and gone to what they think is the Good Place or heaven. But, spoiler alert, they are really in the Bad Place and the demon in charge is trying to get them to torture each other emotionally. But something unexpected happens. They become friends and start to actually learn to be better people. And eventually, one of them figures out that they are not actually in the Good Place, so the demon in charge reboots everything and starts it all over. But, the interesting thing is that no matter what the demon tries, they always end up becoming friends and learning from each other to be better people. I think that is really the essence of what love is about. Love makes us want to be better people. And being better people means loving more. And that unites us.

We must become one because God is one. We must become one because it is important to our witness of who Jesus is. And we must become one because of love. That was Jesus prayer for his disciples and it is his prayer for us. Unity is not easy. Quite frankly, some days it feels nearly impossible. But it is the calling of God for us and it is the natural result of loving our neighbor. It won’t take away our disagreements or make us all exactly like each other, but it connects us despite those differences. So, may these words of Jesus begin to take root in our hearts and may each day bring us closer to one another in love. Amen!