The Easter 7 dilemma: Use the readings appointed for the seventh Sunday in Easter, or those set for Ascension Day three days earlier – knowing that no one, even if their church is named Ascension, attends Ascension Day services anymore? Let's split the difference, starting the week with the gospel for Easter 7. This takes us back again to Jesus’ last night in earthly life. After a long discourse to his disciples, he embarks upon a lengthy prayer for them. Here is a part:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, 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.”
One reason to skip this reading is that it is heart-breaking to engage this prayer. Unity was Jesus’ deepest desire for his followers, we might say his last wish, and it has proved impossible for the church that bears his name to keep. And, as I have written here recently, one of the reasons the world does not believe that God sent Jesus as Redeemer is that those who follow Christ seem so to excel at division.
We have vastly different ways of reading and interpreting Scripture, what we think is important in worship, how we live out the calls to justice and generosity, care for the poor and the marginalized. We are divided by history, language, and culture, by conflicts both ancient and recent. Maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad about the current state of Christ’s church – his followers were locked in bitter divisions within a few years of his resurrection.
I am most convicted by this line, "on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” If we don’t speak our word, the word of grace and forgiveness and our experience of God’s overwhelming love, and if we don’t back that up by our actions, fewer and fewer will believe through us. And friends, the community of Christ-followers is spread by human contact, like a virus, a good virus, one that strengthens the immune system and promotes healthy growth and a just and secure world. We should find this as urgent a matter as Jesus did.
As we speak the words of grace and live them, and allow the Spirit to really rule our hearts and direct our actions, we will find ourselves less able to condemn our brothers and sisters in faith, even when their words or actions are reprehensible. We will be more able to pray for them and commit them to God’s hand, and keep our eyes on Jesus and spread the message of his love. Maybe if all Christians put that first, we’d have less energy for fighting with each other. And one day Jesus will see his dream of unity made real.
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