The Church, over the years, has gotten a lot of things wrong. Most striking to many these days is our total mess up with the heart of Jesus’ prayer in today’s passage.
…that they may be one just as you are in me and I am in you…
Often, this is taught in such a way that it is about unity. Surely, that is true. But Jesus is praying for oneness. What does oneness have to say about unity?
Not uniformity of personhood, for the Father and the Son are not the same…
Not uniformity of action, for the Father and the Son accomplish different things…
…but uniformity of heart.
So perhaps oneness, then, is something more like solidarity—a shared direction of the heart, not sameness of opinion or function.
These, too, the Church has sought to answer in various ways. The canonization of scripture. The formation of creeds, then dogma and doctrine. The submission to the authority of various modes of leadership (popes, bishops, superintendents, pastors, ministers, priests).
What if it’s something else?
Earlier here in John, Jesus told the disciples that people will know who his disciples when they look and see how they love each other. Love does not require sameness from person to person, except for the posture of each person toward the other. We can share the same posture without sharing all the agreements of detail.
What if our posture toward one another is the truest measure of our oneness?
John 17:21-26
I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.
“Father, I want those you gave me to be with me where I am. Then they can see my glory, which you gave me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, even the world didn’t know you, but I’ve known you, and these believers know that you sent me. I’ve made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that your love for me will be in them, and I myself will be in them.”
Psalm 133
Look at how good and pleasing it is
when families live together as one!
It is like expensive oil poured over the head,
running down onto the beard—
Aaron’s beard!—
which extended over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew on Mount Hermon
streaming down onto the mountains of Zion,
because it is there that the Lord has commanded the blessing:
everlasting life.
Prayer
God,
Make us one—not in sameness, but in love.
Not in perfect agreement, but in shared grace.
Not in control, but in compassion.
Teach us the posture of Christ—humble, open, generous.
That the world might see your love in how we love one another.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.