Last Sunday we read from the gospel according to John, today the lectionary is changing to the gospel according to Luke and will continue until March. In our scripture from Luke, Jesus is in Nazareth the town where He grew up; He is worshiping in the same Synagogue where he and his family have done it for years. Most of the people, if not everyone knows him, and before this audience He took the scroll of Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus laid his ministry before his community. His ministry was a ministry of unity and reconciliation; he came to bring back those who were rejected by society, the outsiders. He came to proclaim the gospel, the good news to the poor, the marginalized and to proclaim freedom to the prisoners. All these were groups, the blind, oppressed and poor lived in the periphery of society because of their condition.
Jesus presented his ministry to a much-divided society, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes and others. The unity and reconciliation he preached was only possible because the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him. Later in Pentecost, the same Spirit was given to His followers. Therefore, if Jesus proclaimed unity and reconciliation as a result of the Spirit of God resting on him, we the church must do the same, since the same Spirit is resting on us… And God knows we need this message. Nowadays, our country and our world remain torn by walls of separations. We are divided among races, rich nations, and poor nations; we are divided among Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Even our churches are divided among traditional and contemporary, supporters and no supporters of rights for people with different sexual orientation. There is no end to the motives or excuses that separates us in so many ways, and let us not forget those against and on favor of vaccines.
Usually, the reasons we separate ourselves from others are fear, ignorance, and selfishness, or simply because others are different. Humans have always tended to dislike those who are different. Now, just to speak on favor of our generation, this reality is not just of our times; this is not something our generation has created, -we have just continued with it- division has been among us for generations. A pastor friend of mine pointed to an old song by a Trio called Kingston. The song is titled “Merry Minuet” and even when it was written in the late 50’s the lyrics can easily describe our world: “They’re rioting in Africa. They’re starving in Spain. There’re hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain. The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans; the Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs; South Africans hate the Dutch, And I don’t like anybody very much. But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud, for man’s been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud. And we know for certain that some lovely day Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away. They’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran. What nature doesn’t do to us, will be done by our fellow man.”
Even though we have not created this situation, it is our responsibility to try to solve it, why? First, because to marginalize the poor, the oppressed and the blind is against God’s will. Remember Jesus’ prayer to His Father in John 17:21 “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
And second, because Jesus gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
To fix this condition that is destroying our world, our society, and the church of Christ, we have the same tools the prophets, Jesus and the disciples had: God’s written word and the Spirit of the Lord among us.
To accomplish the unity Jesus prayed His Father for in John, we must recognize a central reality that sometimes is too easy to escape from or ignore, the truth about human interdependency and unity. Paul illustrates this with a remarkably clearness and precise description of what the church is. His analogy is a comparison of the many parts of the church and the many parts of the human body. If we can understand our bodies at the most elemental level, we can understand what God intends for the church. What Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12 is that no part is more important than another. No part can say to the other, “I have no need of you.” If one organ suffers, they all suffer, if one organ prospers, they all prosper and the whole of the parts are integrally connected to the head.
All this unity and interdependency is true for the church. And if it is true for us and it is true for the world too. The task we have as the body of Christ, is to make this possible for every human community, for every family, for every city, for every nation and this global village that is our world.
We can only live and make this reality true in others when we make Christ our head. From our unity with Christ flows all our connectedness with others. When we respond with love to God’s love for us, we can care for others and feel the sense of interdependency that Paul illustrates so clearly. John Donne wrote a poem called “No man is an island” here is a part of it,
“No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
Another quote that describes the same thought of interdependence is “I am a man and nothing human is alien to me” I learned it from Miguel de Unamuno but has been said in different ways by different people.
For the writer of the gospel of John, unity is very important, for him it’s a condition for the world to believe in Jesus. As Christians, we need to understand, that my brother, my sister, and my neighbor are equally important for God, understanding that, will get us to the unity Jesus and Paul describe. “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
The way we live, the way we practice the written word of God will attract or will keep others away from Jesus’ body, from the church. It is important for us to realize that. Paul wrote in Romans 2:24 something that I wish is not a reality for any of us. “As it is written, God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
When we are one with Jesus, when we are one with God, it is easy to be one with others, it is easy to live like Christ. When we have God’s peace in us, it is easy to have peace with others.
John 17 11-12
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.