May 23, 2004
Acts 1:1-11 + Ephesians 1:17-23 + John 17:20-26
For the past two Sunday John’s Gospel has described the relationship of Jesus with God and with his disciples through which we have examined the identity of Jesus and our own in the langugage of friendship, love and belonging. There was the shepherd who knew his sheep and whose sheep knew him. He laid down his life for them, and then he whispered the divine name into the darkness of the divine mystery and called God, “Father.” He spoke of the oneness between himself and this “Father”, and he called us “friends” because he had made known to us everything he had heard from this “Father.” He gave us everything the Father had given him.
This Gospel talk is “theological language.” It is not the stuff of a romance novel nor a suspense story. It is as different a language as Greek or Arabic, Hebrew or Japanese is from our English. We are not going to understand the story if we do not learn the language
We may use the words, and they may sound familiar, but they will not lead us to Truth as we defined it last week unless we use them as they were intended. It is the same for Unity. Biblical unity does not mean uniformity. Biblical Unity is rooted in a union of love and respect. This was the struggle of the earliest church. They had to realize that their unity in Christ did not mean uniformity in appearance nor in observance of the Jewish laws.
The words of Jesus spoken to us today call us to a vision of unity we have not yet fully realized. Somehow in these days and in this nation it seems more distant and impossible than ever. Our lives spiritually and politically have become so isolated that the unity for which Jesus prays almost seems beyond our reach. Unity that is not inclusive of human diversity is not unity at all. We are called to Unity, and the only way there is through Love.
Again, this is a new language. Unity in the language of God’s Word is not conformity; but oneness as the Father and the Son are One. Their difference is not lost in the unity of their love. Love in the language of the God’s Word is not sentiment and emotion. It is power and sacrifice and service.
The two fundamental needs of any human being are solitude and community. We want sometimes to be alone, but to be “all alone” is the essence of hell. It is not enough to be touched and greeted; our solitude must be protected and respected. Love as we find it revealed in God’s Word is that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. To be “all one” is the essence of heaven, sharing that total and eternal reality which Jesus taught us to call “Father”.
Today’s Feast is not about the going away of Jesus. It is about Unity. I believe that where Jesus is, we are to be found. While I cannot explain that mystery, I can hold to the conviction that in returning to God, Jesus has taken us with him. We are, in Jesus, back where we belong. If we do not hold to this hope, then the ascension seems to be a separation; but the Spirit insists that that we believe in the nearness of God.
The reign of God is a kingdom of justice, of peace, and love. It will never be achieved by human effort alone, but never without humans. And so, we pray every day and some of us more than that: “Thy Kingdom Come” and we work to bring it about. When I am just, when I am a peacemaker, when I love or am in love, I am in God. Perhaps if this truth enters more deeply into our lives and our search for understanding, we will know more truly the unity for which Christ prays and toward which the Spirit continues to draw us.