Becoming One in Ministry

Our gospel passage this week, John 17: 1-11, Jesus prays for those he is about to leave on this earth. He prays for protection "so that they may be one, as we are one." Earlier in John 16, Jesus promises the disciples that there will be a another advocate, that the Holy Spirit will come to defend and protect them and his followers. Here, he names the purpose of this protection: so that we may be one with each other as God and Jesus Christ are one. Our prayer during the time in which we receive Holy Communion in the United Methodist Church asks God "by your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world. Jesus prays for us to be protected, so that we can become one with each other, and do ministry in the world. This is how people know the love of Jesus: that someone loved them and showed them God's love. This is how God's love spreads like wildfire, and I can guess that this is how you got "burned up" in it. 

One of my favorite authors/theologians/Christians/people is Barbara Brown Taylor. Hers is a faith that drew her to pastoral ministry in the Episcopal Church, away from pastoral ministry as she wrestled with God, to the classroom to teach, as she found herself through God again by writing books, speaking, and preaching around the world. I had the pleasure of meeting her as she taught at Candler School of Theology, the seminary I graduated from. In one of the sermons that she has preached, she talks about the role ministry has in the Church. In a world, a Church, of argument, division, and certainty, ministry plays a vital role as we seek unity with God and each other. This may seem obvious, that churches do ministry, but the role of practicing your faith, of actively living out the love that God has shown you, is not so obvious: 

"Practice offers us a way through the belief wars that are tearing God's kin-dom apart. Since Christian faith was born during a time of great uncertainty when human ideas about who God was and what it meant to be in covenant with God were in at least as much flux as they are now, Christian tradition has long offered its followers ways to act even when we don't know what to think. Ancient practices of communion, confession, charity, and prayer have kept the gospel alive during long periods of intellectual and institutional upheaval in the church. When Christians cannot agree on the historical Jesus, they can still feed the hungry and give the thirsty something to drink. When they cannot agree on how to read the Bible, they can still welcome strangers and visit those in need. Too often, I think, we insist on deciding what we think before we will decide how we act, when it's entirely possible that faith was meant to work the other way around. Trust the practice, and the practice will teach you what you need to know. Lay hands on the sick, clothing the naked, pray for the enemy, and come near. Do these things, and eventually you may discover what to think about them. Do not do them, and what you think doesn't really matter. Reason can only act on the experience it has available to it after all. The practice of faith is how we gain the experience to say a single sentence about faith that's true. This offers us a way of living life, and not simply a way of thinking about it."

Our kin-dom---our being one together through the God who loved us first, in who's name we do ministry. Our kin-dom is at risk, friends. There is so much division in this world, in this Church. Our kin-dom with each other is being torn apart. Being one with God and each other is not about believing the right things or saying the right words, it is about ministry. It is about loving-action. What we do has more power over what we say, or what we believe. For instance, telling someone that God loves them is great, but sitting on the phone or the couch or the bench with them as they share their heart may actually have the power to be the very presence of God with them. And this can unite us. 

I'll close with some of the most famous words that John Wesley ever said (he preached these words in a time of great division and argument, like there ever wasn't a time like that): "Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?" (Sermon 39, Catholic Spirit)

*Prayer:

Make us one, Lord, make us one;
Holy Spirit make us one.
Let your love flow so the world will know we are one in you.

*"Make Us One," The Faith We Sing, 2224.

In Christ, 

Jack