Sermon for May 29th (Church Unity)

A ship cruising far off the shipping lanes in the South Pacific notices a signal fire on an uncharted island. The captain puts a boat over the side and the crew goes to investigate.
They find a shipwreck survivor alone on the tropic island. He is shaggy, unshaven, and nearly naked except for a scrap of cloth around his waist. The survivor is overjoyed at seeing his rescuers. “I’ve prayed and prayed that someone would come but no one ever saw my signal fire before. I’ve been stranded alone on this island for seven years”.
The captain asked, “How have you survived”?
The shipwrecked man told about eating berries and bananas and coconuts, about catching crabs in the lagoon, about rubbing sticks together to make fire.
As the man showed the ship crew around his primitive camp, the Captain noticed three huts made of sticks woven together and thatched with palm fronds. “What are these,” he asked.
The shipwrecked man pointed to the larger grass hut and said, “I build this one to live in so I could be warm and dry during the tropical rains every afternoon”.
“What about that one,” the captain asked.
“O, I wanted a special place to worship and pray; that’s my church”.
“What’s the third hut for”?
“Well, a couple of years ago there was a squabble and the church split”.


Today I’m going to speak about church unity. But in order to understand this topic, I’d like to focus first on another similar type of relationship: marriage.

At wedding ceremonies, I often refer to a scripture passage from Genesis which talks about a man and a woman becoming “one flesh”, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” It’s what marriage is all about. We promise to be partners with one another even when everything else falls by the wayside including friends, money and even health. And it doesn’t get any more “one flesh” than a baby who has his mother’s eyes and his daddy’s chin. But, the funny this is, that even though we become “one flesh” at marriage we aren’t really “one” just like that! You don’t blink your eyes and suddenly feel in tune with one another’s interests and habits. So, unfortunately, even though God promises that we will be “one flesh” so often we find that we are very different.

In today’s reading, Jesus makes a different promise. This time it isn’t about two people, but about many—an entire community of believers. Jesus prays to God his Father, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.” This promise is meant as much for the disciples as for Christians today who accept Jesus’ teaching, and believe that Jesus is truly one with God. However, we’ve got the same problem, don’t we? God says that “the two shall become one flesh” , but we often see just the opposite: estrangement, abuse, separation and divorce. And even though Jesus prays that God would protect his disciples “so that they may be one as we are one”, today we see hundreds of denominations and factions within churches.

So what is it that we are misunderstanding? I’ve found some interesting quotes that I think get to the point of our misunderstandings on both marriage and church unity.

Here’s the first one:“Marriage is when a man and woman become as one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.” That’s how discussions go about church unity as well sometimes. Sure we can do ministry together, as long as you do it MY way. Another big issue between couples and between churches is that we forget that these relationships need constant attention. Mignon McLoughlin explains this in another funny quote, “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” This is true for our church family as well. We are required to love each other again and again always in new and different ways and to not take each other for granted.

I often explain to couples that in many ways they are already married before they ever say the vows. They are already committed to one another or else they wouldn’t agree to promise it in the first place. They are in love or else they wouldn’t be wanting to get married. But, at a wedding, we pray that God blesses them to continue to be committed and love one another. When Jesus prayed that the Christian community might” be one” as Jesus and His Father are one he wasn’t asking that they achieve some type of unity, but that they continue in the unity they already have. I don’t worry about people getting divorced at the wedding, it’s after that when things start going downhill. When the disciples were walking around with the bridegroom, Jesus, their priorities were all the right place, they were unified around Jesus and His Word. It wasn’t until after Jesus ascended that problems began. Jesus prays that they would “continue to be one” after he left the world. Just like we pray that a couple might “continue to be one” after they get hitched at a wedding.

If we expect every Christian in the world, or even in this church, to always like each other we will be disappointed. It is our shared commitment to Jesus that binds us together. That’s true as well for the the unity-the one flesh-of marriage. It isn’t simply based on love or else every marriage would be doomed at some incredibly important points in their lifetime. The philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.” And couples are often punished with unhappiness, frustration and hopelessness when the love they believe makes them “one” with their spouse suddenly feels distant. Joseph Campbell said, “When you make a sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.” And even that unity comes, finally, from our commitment to forgive as Jesus forgives us.

This is where I have a great deal of trouble with how most Christians talk about “church unity”. As long as you accept Jesus’ teaching, believe that Jesus is truly God and believe in Him it doesn’t matter what your denominational affiliation is: we are one. We might do things differently, just as a married couple might, but we are committed to the same relationship. The unity of the church is based on our commitment to a relationship with Jesus, not on what we see with our eyes. Just like the unity in a marriage is based on a commitment to a relationship to our spouse, not on what we might see or feel on a particular day.

How can we become “one” church in this world or even “one” in our little church in Fontanelle? We commit ourselves to a relationship with Jesus. Not to a feeling or a set of circumstances, but to a promise. Why is Jesus so important? Because we are all, finally, unified by one thing. All of our churches. All of our marriages. What is the one thing? Our brokenness. Our sinfulness. This is why we get together in the first place—to share our joys and sorrows. To forgive and be forgiven by another human being. And this is what we share as Christians: our need for a Savior, for forgiveness, for Jesus. If you have come today for forgiveness. If you have come broken and in need for a Savior. Then we have found unity as a church. And by God’s authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.