John 17:20-21
Sometimes we forget that peoples from outside the West have a whole history and tradition we know little about. That may reflect a preoccupation with our own history or, worse, a tendency to be more interested it who’s going to win an Emmy than what happened more than ten years ago.
Historian David McCullough reported to Congress on the state of history education in the US. Among other things, he told of the results of a question asked of a group of high-school students. The students were asked to name the commanding general of the American forces when the British surrendered at Yorktown. More than half said it was Ulysses S Grant. I suppose we should be happy they knew Grant was a general and not simply the name of a country band from New York. Some six percent said it was General Douglas MacArthur. Some of you will recognize MacArthur’s name and know he was a great general. He had a long history in the army but not quite that long.
So it’s no wonder we’ve forgotten some aspects of Christian history.
We read the Book of Acts and thrill at the stories of faith we find there. For almost half the book we travel with Paul on his way toward Rome. We admire him so much we may not notice that the gospel actually beat him to the Empire’s capital. In fact, we may forget that as Paul was heading West with the gospel, others were heading north, south, and east with the story of Christ.
We don’t know the names of all these missionary-evangelists but there were many of them.
Tradition which isn’t necessarily true (but may have never been proven false), says Mark took the gospel to Egypt. In any case, he is the patron saint of the Coptic Christians.
Another tradition says the Apostle Thomas took the gospel to India. Again, we don’t know if that’s a fact, but we do know Christianity probably reached India before it reached Britain. For many centuries there were thriving churches in the East, only after years of persecution did those churches fall into decline. And Christianity never completely died in those areas.
The rise of Islam greatly curtailed the spread of Christianity in western Asia. So for centuries there were no missionary ventures into the areas. Finally, Columbus found a new world which was neither new nor lost, proving the world was round, a fact many people had known for centuries. With that discovery came a new desire to carry the gospel to new places. Within thirty years of Columbus’ discovery, priests arrived in the Philippines. In time, the islands would become the one Christian stronghold in sea of Muslim nations. Today, some 94% of the population is Christian making it the largest Christian group from Korea and Japan to Lebanon and Jordan.
By the end of the sixteenth century, for the first time in the history of the world Christianity had been introduced to every continent—except, perhaps, Antarctica.
What explains this passion to carry the gospel? From the beginning, God wished to show his grace to all peoples. Paul put it this way in I Timothy 2:4—“God wants all people to be saved and know the truth.”
Because of texts like this Christians everywhere have felt compelled to send out missionaries to other nations. Around the world many churches support missionaries sent to the United States to reach various peoples.
We speak of Christianity being made up of many nations and many peoples, but to some extent that is not true. In one sense, the church is not made up of Christians from many nations, not made up of many peoples. Christians are one new nation, one new people. This was Paul’s point when he wrote the Ephesians that “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Eph 2:19) It was what he had in mind when he wrote the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28)
Last week we recalled the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11. We saw those attacks as the sad evidence of how divided our world is. Yet, if we truly lived in light of God’s vision for us, the gospel would be the greatest unifying factor in history.
We face a rising tribalism. We see more and more people stress the significance of their group over all others. We’re told that Christianity is a means of holding people down. Real Christianity sets people free. This is why from the beginning despotic rulers have feared real Christianity.
Yet we sometimes forget we are to be one people, one nation.
On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus mind was on the unity of his people. He wanted them to be one. He made it a subject of prayer. Let’s examine that prayer.
of spiritual mystery. The mystery involves the Trinity. For most of the church’s history we’ve spent our time trying to understand the “how” of the Trinity; we’ve sought ways to explain how the One God can exist as three Persons—the Father, the Son, the Spirit. Some of our attempts have been better than others, but none of them have completely erased the mystery.
Still, when we think about the Trinity we’re also reminded of how love is so much at the heart of the Trinity. The African theologian Augustine argued that the Trinity gave substance to the biblical declaration “God is love.” Love demands an object; this is demonstrated in the Trinity through the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father.
Okay, this is heavy stuff. If I spent the rest of the morning talking about it I couldn’t fully explain it; if I spent the rest of my life studying it, I couldn’t understand it. What’s most important right now is to hear what Jesus implies about that love and intimacy in his prayer. He tells us that the relationship of the Father and the Son is the model for the relationship of believers with one another.
Just how this would work itself out is difficult to fathom. So, let’s just focus on one aspect: One of the things made clear about this Divine relationship is its unity of purpose.
The NT portrays the each Person of the Trinity as involved in redemption.
How does this apply to the unity we, as Christ’s one people, are to express?
Our unity is primarily of a spiritual character. While the New Testament does recognize that Christians are united through common belief and common experience, the fundamental source of our unity is a shared relationship with Christ. Because we are “in Christ” we are in the communion of Christ.
Organizational structure cannot produce that unity. In fact, it may hinder it.
Unity among believers has never required uniformity. Read the New Testament carefully and you’ll discover evidence of shared substance but different styles. Christianity allows for diversity in our approaches to worship and ministry. Jesus didn’t anticipate his followers being clones of one another.
We may differ from one another in personality, gifts for ministry, vision of how we are to do God's work, but remain united in purpose. Love—rooted in our relationship with Christ and reflected in our relationship with one another—creates a unity which transcends minor differences.
We may come from different places, have different skin color, have different national histories. Some would suggest we are hopelessly divided. Some observers might suggest Jesus’ prayer could never be answered, we could never be one. How can we hope to work together? By recognizing that our unity is rooted in something greater history, culture, race. It is rooted in our shared relationship with Christ.
We are “in Christ,” to use Paul’s popular description of Christians. That means we are not only in communion with Christ but that we are in the community of Christ.
That kind of unity validates our claims about Christ. (23)
Being in Christ transcends differences—cultural, racial, economic, social, and ethnic.
Being in enables us to forgive and be reconciled with our enemies.
John White suggests something of the impact this kind of love can make.
"The church that convinces people that there is a God is a church that manifests what only a God can do, that is, to unite human beings in love . . . There is nothing that convinces people that God exists or that awakens their craving for him like the discovery of Christian brothers and sisters who love one another . . . The sight of loving unity among Christians arrests the non-Christian. It crashes through his intellect, stirs up his conscience and creates a tumult of longing in his heart because he was created to enjoy the very thing that you are demonstrating.”
We will fail to be gracious in certain circumstances, we will fail to be clear and convincing in our arguments from time to time, but the long-term consistency of our love will give a disturbing authenticity to our claims, disturbing to a world which more than anything would like our message to be declared irrelevant and outdated.
Despite the fact Jesus prayed for our unity, we must labor to maintain it. In Ephesians 4, Paul says we are to “struggle to maintain the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace.” Paul is telling us that it can be hard work to hold on to the unity we ought to have as one people of God.
Lots of forces would pull us apart. How can we escape these threats to the unity Christ wants us to have? How can we open ourselves to the riches of unity with other Christians? How can we be one people of God?
1. Strive to develop a personality which promotes unity. (4:1-2)
2. Focus on those things we share in common rather than those things in which we differ.
3. Get to know one another.
4. Learn to distinguish between what is important and what is incidental.
5. Practice taking leaps of faith about other people's motives. Trust one another until you have a reason not to.
6. Be willing to go beyond being a peace-keeper to become a peace-maker.
7. Remember there will be different and that different is not bad.
When Christians begin to behave like Christians, we will catch the attention of even the most jaded secularist. When we stop behaving like the old barriers are still in place, the world will take notice.
