That The World May Believe That You Have Sent Me
Seventh Sunday of Easter year C
Art: "Blessed Sacrament." Catholic Picture Dictionary. By R. and K. Wood.
When I present the claim that all church division represents a failure of ecclesial love, someone, whether in a university, seminary, or church-based context will ask about dividing churches and congregations in order to maintain the integrity of the gospel. The presumption underlying these questions is that maintaining the integrity of the gospel can never be a form of failure. This presumption is often accompanied, at least in the case of my own tradition, by ecclesial smugness. There are various forms of this smugness beginning with the assertion that “we did not leave, those other people left us, as witnessed by our adherence to the gospel and their abandonment of the gospel.” Alternatively, one might hear, “Well, we did leave, but it was for the right thing or reason.” Another version of this argues that the unity that Jesus prays for here in John 17 will be established eschatologically, at the end of all things. It is desirable in the present, but we should not imagine that this is something that is possible before Jesus’ return. Therefore, we should maintain the integrity of the gospel at the expense of a unity that only God can bring about at the end of time.
I realize that nothing I say or do, or anything my listeners can say or do, will bring the church back together. Instead, when I talk about these issues with people, my aims are directed towards puncturing the balloon of ecclesial smugness. It is important for us to recognize that whatever compelling reasons lead to church division, such division is also a failure of ecclesial love. Perhaps division reflects a tragic situation in which maintaining the integrity of the gospel is seen to be more important than maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Ephraim Radner makes the claim that the eucharist should taste bitter in a divided church. That rarely seems to be the case in the churches I know best. A bitter tasting eucharist may be the acceptable outcome of maintaining the integrity of the gospel, but I don’t think our gospel reading from John 17 lets us off the hook that easily.
This reading represents a slice of Jesus’ prayer for his followers on the eve of his arrest and crucifixion. It looks forward to a time when the disciples will have to carry on without Jesus’ earthly presence. As our passage begins, Jesus prays not only for his immediate followers but also for subsequent generations who will believe because of the words proclaimed by these disciples and those like them.
Jesus asks that his followers may be one, a unity reflective of the unity of Father and Son. Two times, once in 17:21 and again in 17:23 Jesus makes it clear that this unity has at least one particular purpose – “that the world might know (the verb in 17:21 is “believe”) that you have sent me.” John 17:23 fills this out by saying that the unity of Jesus’ followers will show the world both that the Father has sent Jesus and that the Father loves the world just as the Father loves Jesus.
Rather than treating the integrity of the gospel as something separable from the unity of the disciples, Jesus’ prayer seems to inextricably bind them. The world will know the truth or a large part of the truth of the gospel because the world witnesses the unity of Jesus’ followers. The material presence of a unified body of Jesus followers underwrites the truth of the gospel.
Paul makes a similar type of claim in Ephesians 3:8-10. Although there are a number of exegetical technicalities in these verses, I believe one of their primary assertions is quite clear. The presence of the church, the material presence of a gathered body of Jews and Gentiles reconciled to God and each other in Christ, makes known the manifold wisdom of God. Further, it is this precise witness to the manifold wisdom of God that will draw the cosmic powers back to their proper relationship with God and the world.
The church, the body of Christ, is the place where the redemption of Israel is made manifest in word and deed and where Gentiles are welcomed and reconciled to God and to the renewed people of God according to God’s purposes. It is striking that although these powers are located in the heavenly realms, their understanding of the wisdom of God and any subsequent reconciliation is dependent on the material presence of communities such as those Paul seeks to form in Ephesus and elsewhere.
The point in each case is that the unity of the body of believers whether in John or in Ephesians plays a significant role in underwriting the truth of the gospel. Unity may not, then, be a separable part of the integrity of the gospel. Instead, unity may be constitutive of the integrity of the gospel. If that is the case, then Church division is not a tragic matter of putting the integrity of the gospel above the unity of believers. Rather, it is a severe wound to the very integrity of the gospel that one is trying to uphold.
As we approach Pentecost, we members of the shattered fragments of Christ’s body can only pray for and await the healing, restorative work of the Holy Spirit, acting at the end of time just as at that first Pentecost. As we inhabit that time between Pentecost and eschaton, I hope that we all will find a measure of bitterness among the sweetness of the bread and wine this Sunday.