Seventh Sunday of Easter
“May They Be One, As We Are One.”
When we hear Jesus pray “that they may all be one,” just as God is in Jesus and Jesus is in God, his hope is that we might experience the same sort of bond of unity shared by God and Jesus. Our challenge is that this idea of being “one” too often gets confused with similarity and agreement. What if instead we look at it as being exposed to the fullness of life, the richness of our different experiences, and then allow the depth of our connections to work within us to broaden our perspectives.
Jesus prays for us who will believe through the words of the disciples. We’ve received what we know through the words of the disciples in Scripture, but also in the words and actions of the living disciples around us. We will pass on the faith through our own words and actions. What words are we using? What do our actions say? What helps us to understand and express our oneness and our faith?
We are asked to be storytellers. But we have to be curious first—curious to hear and observe each other’s experiences of faith and allow them to expand the scope of our own understanding. Only then can we tell the story of our God that claims us as the beloved, even in our flaws. Only then can we speak of the ways God stretches out to meet us.
Even we, the “others” who are generations and generations removed from this prayer, should continue to strive for a oneness that pushes each of us beyond the boundaries of ourselves. This prayer—and the way of living it invites us into—is always about widening the circle of who is included, while drawing us closer and closer in towards one another.
Christy Clore, interim pastor, Kernersville Moravian Church
Kernersville, North Carolina