With All His Heart

2015-05-17-One-Heart

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
May 17, 2015

Scripture: John 17:6-21

Jesus was down on his knees.  Time was running short:  he’d shared his last meal with his followers, washed their feet, delivered his final sermon.  Soon, he would be arrested and led away to die.  But first, he had one more prayer to pray, one more appeal to God – not for himself, but for those he was about to leave behind.  Like a teacher on graduation day, he regarded his disciples, students of the Way, the ones in whom he and God had placed all their hopes, and he wondered:  “Have I said enough?  Have I said it often enough?  Clearly enough?  Do they really get it?  What will happen, after I’m gone?”

Like the parent about to release the back of the tottering bicycle, or the robin about to nudge her fledgling out of the nest, Jesus hovered between holding on and letting go, wondering whether they were really ready.  Hands still damp from washing all those feet, he lifted his palms to the heavens and lifted his heart in prayer.

At Chicago Theological Seminary, where I earned my Master of Divinity degree, the faculty tell a story about a certain professor who quietly prayed for each student during the graduation ceremony.  One by one he lifted them up, as each name was called and each giddy graduate ascended the stairs to receive a diploma and Master’s hood.  “God bless her,” he murmured, so that only those nearest him could hear.  “Give him strength,” he prayed.  “God be with her,” he whispered.  And then, as one particular graduate approached, “God forgive us…”

So Jesus prayed, a fervent prayer of worry, hope and conviction on behalf of his faithful, fumbling pupils.  “I’ve done all I could, God.  I’ve told them everything; laid it all out – drew the map and connected the dots.  And I think they’ve got it; they believe that You sent me!”  Perhaps there were those about whom Jesus fretted (poor Peter, always getting it wrong, despite his best intentions; and those other two, James and John, who kept bickering about who would get the best seat in heaven…), but he loved them all.  Like all the very best teachers, he wanted them to succeed, was rooting for them all the way; and so he prayed with all his heart – for them, and for those whom they would reach by their good work.

He prayed like this:  “Guard them, God.  Help them to work together, to feel the bonds of love that tie us together – you with me, and I with them.  They’re going to need that, God, because life is hard.  And this work they are about to undertake, the work for which we have prepared them:  this founding and forming the Church – You know it isn’t easy.  The Evil One is lurking around every corner, prepped with a whole bagful of distractions to undermine their faithful witness with quarrels about whether to use round tables or square, whether to sit facing the front or each other,  and whether to baptize in a basin or in a brook. They’ll have heated debates about who is permitted to preach in your name, bless the bread, marry or be married.  The children will be served – or not; a ramp will be installed – or not; the front lawn (or the sanctuary, or the parking lot) will be shared with the neighboring church – or not…”

Jesus knew just how muddled community building can be, and so he prayed:  “that they may be one, God, as we are one.”  In other words:  Give them one heart.

On the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1957 at a solemn assembly in Cleveland, Ohio, representatives from the Congregational Christian Churches and from the Evangelical and Reform Churches ‘bound themselves together in the presence of God’[1] to form our denomination, the United Church of Christ.  On that remarkable occasion, heirs of Philadelphia-area German immigrants stood elbow to elbow with descendants of New England Puritans; Reformed Christians who grew up reciting the Heidelberg Catechism joined voices with Congregationalists who cherished the (Massachusetts) Bay Psalm Book; together, they declared that Christ who unites us matters more than the practices and perspectives that might otherwise keep us apart.  They took as their motto the words of Jesus’ prayer: “That they may all be one.”

Those in attendance at the birth of our denomination composed a message to the wider church, an inspired letter which read in part, “[Today], two classical politics of Christian history have adjusted themselves to each other through Christian union in such a way as to leave intact and effective the Excellences of each.  Differences in ecclesiastical procedure, which in sundry places and times have occasioned tensions and disorders, are appointed their secondary place and divested of evil effect.  This union has been made possible because the two companies of Christians have held and hold the same basic belief, that Christ and Christ alone is the head of the Church… to be drawn to him is to be drawn to one another, and to acknowledge him as head is to feel pain in dismemberment one from the other.”[2]

The letter goes on to emphasize that this union is not a state once and for all achieved, but a process: “a thousand new relationships must yet be woven into the fabric of the United Church of Christ.”

It is a radical, hope-filled statement, isn’t it?  That the ‘excellences of each’ might be retained, but that all our differences might be ‘divested of evil effect’; that our oneness in Christ might outweigh everything else.  Surely, Jesus was somewhere in the room on that warm June day in Cleveland, cheering on the founders of our faith, urging them forward as they undertook this grand experiment in unity; proud as can be and praying for them with all his heart.

Perhaps he prayed like this:  “Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me.  Their hearts are open and their vision is clear today, but over time, that singular purpose may lose its sharp focus, their best intentions become fragmented by petty and not-so-petty disputes and by pressures imposed upon them by a ‘God-rejecting world’ more interested in power and profit than in peace and partnership.  Let them not forget today’s bold claims.  Let them hold fast to your Word of Love, and to each other.  For this, I prepared them. They are living out the mission I gave them.  The one you gave to me… You know it won’t be easy. So help them, God.  Give them one heart.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ:  We are the beneficiaries of that prayer – the one Jesus prayed in an upper room, on the night of his arrest; the one he prayed in Cleveland, as our denomination was formed; and indeed, the prayer that Christ prays in every generation, on behalf of the Church universal.  This is Good News: that the one who taught us and called us together remains with us to guide us, is utterly invested in us, is rooting for us with all his heart, even as he urges us on.

“I give them a mission in the world,” he prayed on the night of his arrest.  That mission remains before us: the holy, hard work of building blessed community.  And the work is still hard:  We still get tangled up in our differences along the way; we still allow the daily struggles to obscure the bigger picture.  So it is good, once in a while, to recalibrate; like a sailor, to locate our north star; to turn again to Christ who gathered us together in the first place (like a powerful magnet, drawing us toward the Center). It is good to hear again Christ’s prayer for us – that we may all be one.

Note: This does not mean we will always agree, nor that we will always be of one mind, if by mind we mean opinion or perspective.  Each of us contributes our own ‘excellence,’ our own story seasoned by joy or pain, wisdom or wonder.  Still, the Spirit of Christ draws us into covenant, one with another, draws us close to Christ’s own heart, close enough to hear in it the rhythm of the stars, the weeping of our neighbor, the very heartbeat of God.  Sisters and Brothers in Christ:  May the rhythm of that heartbeat guide all we do.  For we are Christ’s disciples; we are Christ’s students, called to share God’s love with a hurting world.  That’s the mission.  Christ’s mission.  Our mission.  May we pursue it with all our hearts!

[1] “Message to the Churches from the Uniting General Synod (1957)” http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/unitedchurchofchrist/legacy_url/181/message-to-the-churches-from-uniting-synod.pdf?1418423546

[2] Ibid.

Scripture

John 17:6-21  (The Message Bible – a modern language paraphrase)

I spelled out your character in detail to the men and women you gave me. They were yours in the first place; then you gave them to me, and they have now done what you said.  7 They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that everything you gave me is firsthand from you, 8 For the message you gave me, I gave them; And they took it, and were convinced that I came from you. They believed that you sent me.

9 I pray for them. I’m not praying for the God-rejecting world but for those you gave me, for they are yours by right. 10 Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, And my life is on display in them. 11 For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world; they’ll continue in the world while I return to you. Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me, so they can be one heart and mind 12 as we are one heart and mind.

As long as I was with them, I guarded them in the pursuit of the life you gave through me; I even posted a night watch. And not one of them got away, Except for the rebel bent on destruction (the exception that proved the rule of Scripture). 13 Now I’m returning to you. I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing so my people can experience my joy completed in them. 14 I gave them your word; the godless world hated them because of it, because they didn’t join the world’s ways, 15 just as I didn’t join the world’s ways. I’m not asking that you take them out of the world but that you guard them from the Evil One. 16 They are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world.

17 Make them holy – consecrated – with the truth; your word is consecrating truth. 18 In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world. 19 I’m consecrating myself for their sakes so they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission. 20 I’m praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me.

21 The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind – Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us.