Theological Truth: Christ prayed that we would be one. This reality requires adding some things and subtracting others.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Shannon and I got married six years ago: her first marriage, my second. We were of a certain age, as they say, so unlike some couples who begin their married life with a secondhand sofa and a beat-up coffee table, we had the opposite problem. We had to decide whose furniture, dishes, artwork, electronics, appliances, linens, and general sense of style would be retained.
And what we would be cast off.
For example, my beloved Drew Brees poster? It didn’t make the cut.
For our two households to become one, some things had to go. To live together, we had to give up some of our individual possessions. Unity requires sacrifice.
The same holds true for us to live in community.
This social contract, this gathering of the demos into a common life, requires us to lay aside some of our preferences, many of our urges, even some of our rights.
You know that old saying, “my right to extend my arm ends when my fist reaches the tip of your nose.”
Or when camping, we understand that my right to enjoy some music in the great outdoors ends when quiet hours begin.
We even give up some of the wages we earn to fund our collective needs. People without children pay taxes to support public schools. Renters fund federal mortgage and flood insurance programs. Citizens who don’t own cars support highway construction and maintenance.
Living together means giving up some things for the common good. And it’s easier to do that when we realize that we are already united.
This is more than a democratic (lower case “d”) concept. It is also a Gospel truth.
In today’s Gospel we overhear Jesus praying. It’s a portion of Jesus’ high priestly prayer—something we always get part of during this last week of Eastertide. It comes during Jesus’ farewell discourse, as he is preparing his disciples for his departure. The prayer is in three basic parts, which works out very neatly for our three-year lectionary cycle. Year A we hear Jesus praying for himself. Year B Jesus prays for his disciples. This year, Year C, Jesus prays for us.
Amazing, right?
We have the privilege of overhearing how Jesus prays AND finding out that Jesus prays for us — those who have come to believe. Jesus intercedes for us:
“That we may all be one….that we may become completely one.”
With time running out, Jesus asks that we be completely one, just as he and the Father are one. Given his unique status as Son of God and God the Son, it is safe to assume that his prayers are granted.
So if Jesus prayed that we would be one, consider it done. This union is not something for us to hope for, it’s something for us to accept. This isn’t a prayer that may someday be answered, it’s a prayer request that has been granted, and now it’s up to us to live into. To do that, we’ll need to give up some things and make some sacrifices, which is easier to do when we realize our unity is already a reality.
In other words, it’s not a question of “If we give up some things, we’ll be one,” but “Because we are one, we need to make some individual sacrifices for the common good.”
Easier, but not easy.
Fr. Walter McCracken (of Trinity’s McCracken Hall) saw the church in that light. He opposed women’s ordination. On the night before the first woman would celebrate the Eucharist at Trinity, the rector called to notify Fr. McCracken saying, “Just wanted to let you know, that tomorrow’s the day.” Fr. McCracken’s response was immediate, “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll see you tomorrow at 8 am as usual.”
The rector replied, “But I thought you were against this,” to which Fr. McCracken said, “I am. But my church has spoken and I will be there.”
Fr. McCracken’s first priority was living into the reality of our oneness, that allowed him to give up some of his personal preferences and privileges.
You may have noticed that giving up some things and making sacrifices for the sake of community has grown more difficult and problematic. We have entered a period of radical individualism, with little willingness to see ourselves as united, and certainly not willing to give up individual preferences and privileges for a common good. We see it in our politics, in our churches, in our schools, and at all levels of government. How can we come together to solve the problems facing the nation and our world if we are only occupied with getting what I want and keeping what I have?
Martin Luther King was right. We are either going to have to learn to live together as brothers and sisters [because we are] or we’re going to perish as fools.
Maybe this week’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, will wake us up to the urgent need for us to address the epidemic of gun violence. To state the obvious, schools are for children and public schools are for all of our children. Reducing shootings at public schools is something that should unite us all.
Please remember, that unity is not the same thing as uniformity. We don’t all — we won’t all — have the same opinions on how to solve the problem of gun deaths. But we should at least be willing to admit we have a problem. From there I hope we can start to work together to decide what can be done, rather than starting from what can’t be done or won’t be given up.
Rather than protecting position, power, or ideology, the better question to ask is, “What wouldn’t I do to keep schoolchildren safe? What wouldn’t I give up to protect a child?”
Because if we are one as Jesus prayed, these children belong to all of us, and their safety is our shared priority.
My friends, we are already one. It is time for us to remember and reclaim this truth. Perhaps the grief of this past week can combine with the lessons from Memorial Day to remind us of the importance of giving things up and making sacrifices in order to live together as one people.
The earliest Memorial Day observations are steeped in sacrifice and unity. In 1866, a Columbus, Mississippi, women’s memorial decorated the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers, an act of generosity and reconciliation that helped reconcile the country.
Closer to home, Staunton National Cemetery was established in 1866 for union soldiers killed in the battles of the Shenandoah Valley. Of the first 749 burials at the cemetery, 518 were unknown soldiers, reinterred from western Virginia battlefields. Someone told me this week that some of those reinterments had multiple people in the same grave— both union and confederate soldiers lying together, united finally, but far too late.
It’s not too late for us.
Remember Jesus’ prayer. Trust that it has been answered.
We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. This unity doesn’t require uniformity, but it does require setting aside some individual preferences and making some sacrifices for the common good. Working for the common good isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of faithfulness — a willingness to walk in love as Christ loves us, and prayed for us, that we would be one.
— Fr. AJ Heine, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C, May 29, 2022
Readings: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29
