We Are One

 By Bishop Brian Maas

“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be
one, as we are one.”

It’s the very last night of his life, and Jesus knows what lies ahead—but Jesus prays for his disciples; prays for us.

What is it that he prays? Among other things, he prays for God to protect us, and he prays that we may be ONE--one as he is one with the Father (and the Holy Spirit). 

Based on the polarizing division all around, I’d say we don’t have a prayer of experiencing that kind of unity. Except we do—we have this prayer, His prayer. And I believe that while God alone can complete it, we all have a role to play in achieving it. I think the heavy lifting in Jesus’ prayer is in that clause, “as we are one.” We all confess that we are part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. We confess that there is one Body of Christ over the whole world, and that we’re all part of it. But we certainly don’t look like One the way God looks like one.

This last Sunday was the Festival of the Holy Trinity. Most preachers find a way to preach on something else. This is wise, as preaching on the Trinity is prone to heresy. The most faithful thing we can do is admit it’s a mystery how God can be three persons yet one person, one person yet three. One old term sometimes used to describe the Trinity is “perichoresis,” which is often simply translated as “dance.” It’s an abbreviated way of saying that the three persons of the Trinity are forever moving, forever changing places, forever in relationship, yet always so closely that they are a single being. How? It’s a mystery.

Which brings us to, “We are one.” It’s the theme of our Synod Assembly. It is both a confession of faith and a mission statement. Something true—we are One Body of Christ—yet something to which we aspire, because we are not yet in such close relationship with one another that it’s difficult to tell us apart.

Until Christ comes again, aspiring is all we can do. Sin keeps tripping up our dance steps. But what if we were at least a little more open to deep relationship with one another, a little closer to the life Christ envisioned for us? We’ll never all be the same, but we can nonetheless be closer than we are, stepping around sins that divide rather than tripping over them. Even the Trinity is recognizably three persons, never identical. Why not the church? 

We can be individuals in our opinions, our ideas, our identities. But we can also be in deep relationship. We can practice forgiveness, grace, reconciliation; bonds of faith stronger than the worldly differences that separate us. You and I can disagree about just about everything and still agree on our faith in Jesus Christ; can meet together at the Holy Supper; recite creeds and prayers and hymns in unison; act complementarily in reaching out to the world.

I suppose it’s understandable that because of my position in and perspective on the church, my prayer for unity is constant. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is another prayer, the one of Jesus himself, the prayer to which you and I are at least in part, an answer; a prayer we might make our own:

Holy Father, protect us in your name; and make us bold to proclaim, bold to live Jesus’ prayed-for reality: we are one.
Amen