Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
John 17:20–23
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—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."
CONSIDER
Unity. Unity. Unity.
Everyone says this passage is about unity. What if it’s not?
What if, in fact, unity is not the point? Here’s what it says:
“that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
Jesus is praying for our relationships with each other to carry the same essence and ethos as his relationship with his Father. There is a word for this: love.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” (John 15:9–10)
Jesus brought the entire program down to one command: “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
This text is about love. How can I say that?
Here’s why:
“so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
It takes us back to another familiar text. Rewind the tape about fourteen chapters: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
The Father puts all the freight and weight of his love for the world on his Son. Jesus puts all the freight and weight of the world’s faith on his followers’ love for each other. It comes down to our relationships, which is why I am fond of saying, “Our relationships are the mission.” It’s why we are investing ourselves so deeply in what we call banded discipleship. We believe Jesus’s prayer will only be answered in a big way through being answered in millions and millions of small ways.
Unity is not the goal. It is not even the outcome. The goal is love. The outcome is great awakening.
I think what I am trying to say is if we focus on unity we often get disagreement, but if we focus on love we will get unity.
PRAY
Abba Father, thank you for your Son, Jesus, who shows us what love is by becoming love incarnate in his relationship with us. Come, Holy Spirit, and make real the love of Jesus in my love for others. Lead me into even one relationship where I can become the life-laying-down love of Jesus for another. In Jesus’s name, amen.
