Advent Lutheran Church

"One in Christ"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            This morning we are at the end of the season of Easter; next week we celebrate the great festival of Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Christian movement.  We might be at the end of the season of Easter, but the great themes of Easter will accompany us through the year, themes of rebirth and renewal and Resurrection; and the Good News that God has the final word for humanity, and that final word is not death but LIFE, both eternal life with God and a most distinctive life here and now.

Several years ago a movie by the name of “Tuesdays With Morrie,” after the book with the same title, told the story of a Detroit sports writer named Mitch who renews a relationship with an old college professor named Morrie.  Mitch is the stereotype of the driven multitasker whose life is a series of rushed interviews, quick appointments, endless deadlines.   But when he learns that an old college professor, Morrie Schwartz, is in the final stages of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, he decides to slow down long enough to pay Morrie a visit.  That visit becomes a series of visits, on Tuesdays; hence the name of the book and movie.

            On one of their visits, Morrie is in pain, lying in a recliner, his feet up.  He asks Mitch to rub salve on his feet, to ease the agony, and Mitch gets to work.  As he’s lying there, Morrie says, “You know, when we’re infants, we need people to survive; when we’re dying, we need people to survive.  But here’s the secret: in between, we need each other even more.”

            Mitch nods, then responds with a phrase he’s heard Morrie utter many times, “We must love one another or die.”

            Morrie gets a bit irritated at this, and presses the point.

             “Yeah, but do you believe that, Mitch? Does it apply to you?”

            This catches Mitch off guard, and he finally admits that he doesn’t know what he believes; the consideration of spiritual things is simply beyond his life’s scope.

            Morrie again presses the point: “You hate that word, don’t you?  ‘Spiritual’ – you think it’s just touchy-feely stuff, huh?”

            Mitch says, “I just don’t understand it.”

            Morrie: “We must love one another or die.  It’s a very simple lesson, Mitch.”

            It might be a simple message to hear and understand, at least intellectually; but it is a very difficult thing to put into practice.  Maybe that’s why Jesus spends so much time in the Gospel of John trying to get his disciples to embrace this lesson for themselves.  The context for this lesson is Jesus’ farewell to his friends.  What will come next will be his arrest, his trial and his execution.   Jesus knows all this, so he spends his last hours with his friends, sharing with them what is closest to his heart.

            I have a colleague who complains about this lesson, says it’s just a lot of words.  “There’s no action, no parable to explain, no miracle to behold; just a lot of talk.”  Maybe so, but Jesus’ words produce three themes that have great relevance and application for us.

            The first theme is Unity.  Jesus knows that the world that has been so hostile to him will be just as hostile to his followers, and that in the midst of that adversity, that opposition, it will be easy for his friends to give up, to simply blend into the culture and stop being the distinctive people he has cultivated them into being.  Since he will no longer be with them physically to keep them together, he prays that God will keep them unified.

            The unity that Jesus prays for is considerably different from the unity that the world has to offer.  The world’s version of unity is based on human agreement.  We belong to a certain political party because we agree with the perspective of that group over against all other groups.  We feel the same way about issues.  We agree or don’t agree with Arizona’s immigration law, and find common cause with others who feel as we do.   It’s the same with other issues like capital punishment, gun control, welfare reform.  What the world offers are pockets of agreement; it offers a unity of like-mindedness.

            The unity that Jesus prays for, the unity that God gives, is very different.  We get a glimpse of that kind of unity in the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews.  The writer of the letter traces the history of God’s people starting with earth’s first family, Adam and Eve’s family.  He notices that one quality dominates all the others in that long procession: faith.  Whatever they might have felt or thought about the specific issues of their day, they allowed only faith to dictate their behavior in the world, faith in the promises of God to redeem, to save and bring to eternal life.

Here’s how the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews sums it up: “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.  They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, ¹⁴for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.  ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return.  ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.”

What’s striking about this procession of people is that there’s no qualification; no qualification of race or politics or nationality.  Only faith.

It’s so tempting for the Church to buy into the values of the world, to adopt the world’s version of unity.  Through the generations, the Christian movement has fractured time and time again over issues such as Biblical interpretation, racial and gender equality, and so many others; and some members have elevated doctrine and purity over God’s gift of unity.  It’s easy to simply import the world’s values into the Church, but when we do we forget that the Church is to be a community praise and missional obedience.

That’s the second theme that emerges from Jesus’ words.  The unity of the church serves a wider purpose: it serves God’s mission to love and bless the world.

‘They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love … .’  You might have heard the old Christian folk tune.  They will know we are Christians not by the bumper stickers we put on our cars or the T shirts we wear or the signs we stick in our yards.  According to the Bible, it’s not very important to Jesus what theology we hold.  He doesn’t say much about “correct” theology; but he does reinforce the Old Testament command that “You shall love the lord your God will with all your heart and mind and strength – and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

I have to confess that, as a pastor, I am at the same time grateful and embarrassed when I think of what the outside world sees when it looks into the Christian church today.  I’m grateful for the tremendously strong witness to God’s love for his people that we bring in our disaster relief efforts and through our social service agencies.  And I’m grateful for the great work our individual members do through other organizations like Heart to Heart International and Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry and HopeBuilders and a number of other groups.  I’m grateful when I think of what God is doing in and through Hillside Community, Advent’s new mission start in the Gardner-Spring Hill area, and its determination to be faithful to the vision of starting a Christian community in which all are welcome.

But I’m also embarrassed when I think of what the unbelieving outside world sees when it looks into the Christian church, and the message of God’s unconditional love and God’s offer of salvation are obscured, covered over by conflict and in-fighting in the church.  We have a world that is literally dying to meet God, and we have a God who’s counting on us to make the introduction.

In order to do that faithfully and effectively, we need some help, and that’s the third theme that comes through Jesus’ words.

Did you notice the context of this lesson?  It’s a prayer.  Jesus doesn’t simply sit his disciples down and lecture them; Jesus is praying for them, and by extension, he prays for you.

Have you ever had someone pray for you, by name?  It’s happened to me a number of times, and it has always been a powerful experience.  How much more powerful to know that the son of God is praying for us.

I hope that for you, life is clear sailing, that all your problems are solved, all your doubts have vanished, all your worries are behind you.  And if that’s your story, please see me after church; I’d like to know your secret.

But if that’s not your story, take comfort in knowing that the Son of God is praying for you, personally; and that through that prayer, he is with you.  When you face pressures at work, Jesus is there, working to help you.  If you’re trying to reach greater clarity about your life’s purpose, Jesus is there, working to help you understand more fully the purpose of your life.  If you’re struggling with conflict in your primary relationship, trust that Jesus is in the midst of that conflict, working to bring about healing and restoration and hope.

And he’s working with you and on your behalf not only because he loves you but also because he wants to strengthen you to be an even more faithful witness to the love of God in and for the world.  It is as true now as it has always been: Our lives are the best proof of the Resurrection of Christ. 

So may we be one.  As God seeks to love this world through us, may we be one.

Amen.