‘May they 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.’ John 17:21
It seems to me Our Lord’s invitation reaches us as a church at three levels, local, national and universal.
First local. It has always been a privilege for me to serve St John’s, starting 21 years ago as diocesan mission & renewal adviser working with Fr Clay and Fr Kevin and more recently in your pastoral vacancy. With no parish priest our Churchwardens with Deacon Stephen have worked hard through thick and thin to build our collaboration as we seek to promote Christianity in Burgess Hill and we salute that work as the vacancy draws thankfully to a close.
Fr David comes among us with welcome oversight to develop the life of St John’s with an eye to renewing worship, engaging youth and families and enhancing our buildings for better Christian service and outreach. He will need our support and prayers from day one as he presides over the coalition of catholic, evangelical and liberal Christians here at St John’s, keeping us united and outwardly focussed.
Our Lord’s invitation to be one as he is one within the Godhead reaches us as a church at a second level, nationally.
Through the Five Guiding Principles the Church of England is fully committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender. It also remains committed to ensuring those who cannot receive the ministry of women priests or bishops are able to flourish, continuing their witness to the Church of England’s claim to hold the faith and practice of the universal church. The majority decision to ordain women in 1992 failed to take the minority with it. There’s a majority but no consensus. This is a slow burner made more complicated by the ordination of women to the episcopate in 2015 which was effected under the understanding spelled out in the Five Guiding Principles.
St John’s members have given exemplary patience in bearing with the national division over views of the ordained ministry. It isn’t sexist to hold to the Bible and the practice of the worldwide church, Catholic and Orthodox over 20 centuries. Neither is it a betrayal of Christian principle to seek the ordination of women. It’s just that changing holy orders, one of the seven sacraments, is like changing the heating system in a church. There’s an upheaval and a chilling effect – and the national church remains in the middle of it! No easy answers here, just patience. The Holy Spirit is saying one thing to part of the church and another thing to the rest. We must wait and see and avoid knee jerk reactions, seeking to maximise unity as a national church which believes its part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’.
Thirdly let’s look at how Our Lord’s invitation to be one with one another gels with the international level of the universal church. In first century Corinth there were Chloe’s and Apollos’ and Cephas’ groups. In the world of the 21st century there are not three but 45,000 Christian denominations! Reversing this astonishing, alarming disunity seems impossible - but with God nothing is impossible!
Today’s second reading, looking to the Lord’s return, reminds us that the joy of Easter season is incomplete. ‘Surely, I am coming soon. Amen, come Lord Jesus’ (Revelation 22:20). Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again! As we move next week to Pentecost, the end of Easter season, we also move towards Advent. In the letter to the Ephesians scripture likens Christ our risen and ascended Lord to a heavenly Bridegroom preparing to gather his Bride the Church after her purification from sin, including her divisions, is ended and her holiness is made complete. The world will not be ready for this until the church is ready - that is, made one and holy - which is an astonishing thought! What we are celebrating this morning, our being made one bread, one body, is an anticipation of what is to come, of the Christ who is to come in his fullness.
The divisions of the world at this moment, linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are linked to Christian divisions, a reminder of how we fail to serve the overarching plan of God to gather a people to himself through his church from every people and nation. Part of the tragedy is the failure of Orthodox Church leaders to present that vision, keep their flock united, condemn the killing of church members by other church members or even call for a ceasefire. The Pope’s intervention has been striking in condemning Patriarch Kirill. This sets back ecumenical relations though it makes clear that the cause of the kingdom of God, of justice, love and peace comes first and church unity rides on the back of that aspiration.
Only as the different churches come together to the foot of Christ’s Cross and admit their need of his forgiveness are they ever going to be made one, as he desires. This happens worldwide whenever Christians opt to maximise holiness and cooperation with their sister churches. As Edward Pusey said ‘it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart’. I am aware that the Jesus Prayer I pray hour by hour - ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’ - is a gift from Russian orthodoxy. Though much harm flows from Russia at this time there is also holiness in many new monastic communities and that holiness is overflowing across the world
Christian unity grows – locally, nationally or internationally - as Christians grow together in both holiness and love. Let’s make that our priority as much as we can as a new partnership of priests and people emerges here from June 9th.
‘May they 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.’
