John 17:20-26
“One + One = One”
May 29, 2022
Math has always been an area where I have struggled.
Maybe it was the trajectory of math in school where initially with adding and subtracting in first and second grade, you were shown how to come up with a simple answer – and there was only a single correct answer to the equation 4 + 7.
It always equaled 11 even when it was 7 + 4.
Subtraction was just the reverse – starting with a bigger number, taking something away from it and arriving at 11- 4=7.
Multiplication back in the 60s when I was in 3rd grade involved memorizing times tables – I know it’s taught differently now.
Division was a bit more complicated but eventually made sense.
This was also the beginning of needing to show your work.
Our teacher wanted to see how we arrived at the answer.
From then on, how you got to the correct answer was just as or more important than the answer itself.
This continued through algebra and ultimately statistics – for me that was one semester in college when I got my first and only D.
I grasped it a bit more at the master’s level and even got an A in it at Gallaudet
– I guess three times is the charm.
The only thing, besides age and maturity, that I can use as an explanation is that all those statistical equations began making sense when I learned them so that I would be able to understand the research that was important to me.
They ceased being numbers on a page and instead were a doorway into the story behind them and what they represented – the lives of those behind the statistics.
The math behind Jesus’ message here in John’s Gospel – getting across the idea that in the face of all the diversity already expressed in the followers of the growing Jesus movement and all those who will join in the future, generations after Jesus walked on the earth, is that all those hundreds then thousands then millions and now billions of followers together add up to one – oneness in God.
God will be known by our ability to live as one.
What an expectation that we continue to struggle all these centuries later to live into!
We are to be known by the love we share which doesn’t become less when more people are added to the mix but rather grows and expands to welcome all.
Originally, when I was looking ahead to this Sunday, I envisioned talking about the divide that exists within Christianity itself and then within denominations, especially right now in one of our two traditions here at the Federated Church, the global United Methodist Church which is on the verge of the great divide over the issue of same-sex marriage and the ordination and full inclusion of LGBT pastors.
But then yet another mass shooting took place, just 10 days after the Buffalo supermarket shooting and 9 days after the shooting at a church in California.
Today, deep and abiding grief and anger is here among us after the devastating murders of 19 4th graders and 2 teachers, especially as more and more details of the events are shared publicly.
What we are witnesses to once again is the deep divide between us.
The oneness under God may be why our hearts break at the thought of 9- and 10-year-olds shot down in the very place they had come to trust as a safe haven from the world.
We imagine our own children or grandchildren or neighbors at that age and there is a oneness that comes also from having been 9 years old ourselves, looking forward to summer with lots of time to be outside playing or swimming or laughing with our friends.
We are reminded of those amazing teachers who made learning an adventure, an opportunity for positive reinforcement, who opened up the world to us with stories, and problem solving, and life lessons on how to get along with each other. We then hear of the two teachers whose bodies were found trying to hold close the students they treasured in the face of such violence.
We are hurting so much as a nation because we know there must be a better way.
We are in oneness under God in the heartbreak of the families who will bury their children and loved ones this week and we are having trouble fathoming how deep and wide such grief will be for the rest of their days.
These words today from Jesus are part of what is sometimes called his farewell discourse.
He has transitioned right before this from talking to his disciples and he is now speaking to God, praying that God will protect them and bless them and these words said aloud are intended to be a source of encouragement.
Jesus wants them to know that he is not abandoning them.
They were afraid of what they were being called to do and that they would be doing it without the physical presence of Jesus to lean on.
He wants them to see the world for what it is – often cruel and dangerous – but he also wants them to see that there is goodness.
Brokenness is present and yet God still loves the world.
Jesus wants them to know that God can see beyond the ugliness to the beauty and dignity underneath it all.
That was at the heart of Jesus’ message.
Love is still present even when it’s hard to see and feel and know.
Right now, that is the message we are meant to live into and share as Jesus followers, even amid our sadness and anger.
We are called to be kingdom builders and so we must resist the urge to shut ourselves off from the senseless violence and do whatever we can to unearth and promote the promise that is ours.
At this hard and heartbreaking time, we have to show our work.
Love resists evil and so must we.
The only right answer from God is oneness.
Let us then raise this prayer that comes from our New England Conference United Methodist Bishop Devadhar:
O God, we beseech you:
hear the supplication of Jesus,
answer his prayer
that we may all be one,
even as you are one.
Hear the outpouring
of Jesus’ heart, his
plea on our behalf,
that we, like him, may
be in you, and you in us.
O God, we beseech you,
to hear the One to whom
you gave your glory,
the One from whom
we have received the same,
so that the world may believe.
Let the prayer of Jesus
be ours, not so that we can
dictate what is right or wrong,
not so we can boast of our power,
not so that we can be set apart,
but so that the world may believe.
Let the prayer of Jesus,
be our prayer too so that
peace will replace war,
truth will replace lies,
love will replace hatred,
so that we all may be brought
into complete unity.
God of Grace, hear our prayer
through the love of Christ,
and the power of the Holy Spirit,
that we may be one, even as you are one.
Amen.