"As we are one"

 

“Protect them . . .  so that they may be one, as we are one."

 A Sermon for Easter VII - May 21, 2023

St. Martha's Episcopal Church - Bethany Beach, DE

Long ago, in another galaxy, far, far away, I was asked to lead a retreat for clergy of another denomination that shall go nameless ‘lest someone be tempted to make this story about that – or, them.

 

I arrived in plenty of time to set up and settle in and then found my way into the line for the obligatory morning coffee/tea and pastry AKA “Continental breakfast” AKA “Carbohydrate Overload”.

As I looked around the room, I was pleased to see that all the clergy had come in their casual clothes – lots of jeans, a few baggy sweatpants, and not a clergy collar or black shirt in sight. I turned to the person just behind me in line and said, “Good morning.” He returned the greeting in a rather perfunctory manner.

 

Pursued by the unrelenting enthusiasm with which I am normally blessed, I pressed on, “And where do you serve?” I asked cheerily. He pulled himself up as he took a deep breath and said, “I . . . . am the bishop.”

 

My inner child yelped, “Yikes!” but the theme song of my teen years drowned her out and I heard Diana Ross and the Supremes sing, “I’m gonna make you love me.” I mean, we were going to be together for two and a half days. I had to redeem this stumble at the start line.

 

More importantly, the whole theme of my retreat was an emphasis on “the oneness of the One we serve”. I was not about to let that be blocked by the barrier of a piece of clothing of a particular color.

 

I said to the bishop, “Well, son of a gun! I guess that’s what the purple shirt is all about, right?”

 

Silence. Stone cold. Not even a crooked little smile that might indicate some entertainment value, just a condescending glance that, to me, also communicated shame.

I mean, just who did I think I was? This is the church where some of us, at least, do things that are, “meet, right and proper so to do.” There are customs to be observed, traditions to follow, canons and rubrics and resolutions, oh my!

Silly me! I had this idea that when we are called together as religious leaders, the idea is to open our hearts and lives to what God might have to say to us in a particular space in time so that we might receive a blessing or at least be “entertained by angels unaware”. The spiritual and emotional space between the two of us in the lengthening continental breakfast line did not feel like much of a blessing.

As I spent some time reading and reflecting on today’s gospel, the memory of this incident came rushing back to me. As I recall, the retreat was held around this time of year, after Easter, before Pentecost and around the time of the Ascension.

 

We were studying what is known as “The Farewell Discourses” which may be a little confusing for those of you who are paying close attention. If you were thinking to yourself, “Hey, wait a minute! Didn’t Jesus say these words BEFORE the Crucifixion and BEFORE the Resurrection? Why are we hearing these words now? It’s after Easter! After the Resurrection! And, in fact, the Ascension.”

 Well, as my friend and rector, Jeff Ross notes, “There are only so many post resurrection stories to tell and there are 50 days or 7 Sundays before Pentecost.” As is sometimes true in the church, pragmatics trump theology.

These words are part of what is known as The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The passage is introduced by these words: “Jesus looked up to heaven . . .,” which puts Jesus in the posture of prayer.  

It’s hard to miss the consistent theme of his prayer: Unity. Jesus wants us to be one, even as he and God and the Holy Spirit are one.

Unity is the constant prayer on the lips of Jesus. It’s in the New Commandment he gave us in that Upper Room when he washed their feet. “Love one another,” he said, “as I have loved you.” And, now he prays, “ . . . protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

My favorite religious cartoon about this is from “Man Overboard” which pictures Jesus ascending into heaven, waving and saying, “Buh-Bye boys, remember everything I told you.”

And the disciples are saying, “Buh-Bye boss, we will.”

And, as just the feet of Jesus can be seen at the top of the cartoon, they look at each other and say, “What did he teach us?”

And, someone says, “Love one another. Stay together. Be one.”

“Right,” they say, “that shouldn’t be hard.”

And then they see a group of men in academic robes and hoods coming toward them and one of the disciples says, “Uh-oh, here come the theologians.”

You know, that cartoon has got a point. Maybe we do overthink things. I mean, if we can let the color of a clergy shirt – or even just a clergy shirt – get in the way of our relationships and define the status of our oneness, as it were,  it’s no wonder so much ministry for so much of the world’s needs goes wanting.   

We probably shouldn’t be surprised that we, as a nation, are so sharply divided. Oh, there have been times, even in my lifetime, when it was worse, but that was then and this is now and now feels pretty bad. The hypocrisy of some of our leadership – political, religious and secular – is thick enough to cut clean through with a butter knife.

Jesus says, “Protect them . . .  so that they may be one, as we are one.” Protection. Perhaps that’s what we need. Protection – maybe mostly, we need protection. from ourselves. Turns out, we are, in fact, our own worst enemies.

It will come as no surprise to a few people in this church that when I pray for protection, I often turn to my grandmother for wisdom.

 

My grandmother was an immigrant from Portugal who married an immigrant from the Azores. Large families were typical in those days but they had 20 pregnancies and 22 children, fifteen of whom lived to adulthood.


My memory of my early years growing up in the midst of that family could be summed up in one word: Loud. People in my family always seemed to be shouting – even when they were happy. You’ve heard the expression: Laugh out loud. That was the only way my family knew how to laugh. The knob on the volume always seemed to be set on 11.

Several of my aunts and uncles moved as far away as they could. My Aunt Alice eloped and moved across country to Seattle, Washington. My uncle Manuel married a woman older than my grandmother and lived with her in Jacksonville, FL. My uncle John married a Syrian woman and became subsumed in that immigrant family. My grandmother grieved all of these losses as deeply as she mourned the loss of her son, August, who died in a factory explosion.

 

As one would imagine in a family that size, there were always squabbles and disagreements – and, as I recall – it particularly involved one of the girls. Her name was Deolinda and she was tall and thin and scrappy. She had two boys from a marriage marked by domestic violence that ended in divorce.

She always seemed to be picking a fight with one of her siblings. My mother always walked away, refusing to engage with her. But, my aunt Hilda. Now, there was a different story.


When Hilda and Deolinda were in the same room – or outside in the back yard – you could see people begin to slowly move away like steel shavings at the wrong end of a magnet.

 

I once got brave enough to asked my grandmother why she never stepped in, why she never made them stop. She said two things I’ll never forget.


First she said that Deolinda had decided, somewhere in her life, that the proof of love was that she could use her words to push you far away, but if you stayed with her – if you came back – well, you must love her.

 

I remember saying to my grandmother, but that’s messed up. You shouldn’t have to prove love over and over again. And, my grandmother said that it was her fault. That, Deolinda was born at a time when one of her other babies had just died and another was sick and she hadn’t been able to pay much attention to her.

Her words of wisdom were once I’ll never forget, “Baby your babies when they are babies so they won’t act like babies when they’re adults.”

Listen to that again. Explains the behavior of some adults, doesn’t it?

And then she held up her hand and, with tears in her eyes, said, “A family is like a hand. Each finger is different. Each finger does something different. If you cut one off, the hand never functions quite the same ever again. But, if they stay together (wrapping her fingers around an invisible handle), they can work any tool, (putting her closed hands, one in front of the other) they can lift any burden, (making a fist), they can beat any adversary that comes their way.”

Jesus, in his High Priestly Prayer, looked up to heaven and said, “Protect them . . .  so that they may be one, as we are one.” That protection is never farther away than our own hands, which, with God’s guidance, can help us work together and lift each other up and defend ourselves.

 

In these troubled times in our nation, in the world, in our church or in our family, I hope you remember the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. Hold your hand up when you say it “ . . . that we may be one . . .” and remember the wisdom of my grandmother.

We all have our differences, but if we work together as one, if we keep in mind the mission and ministry of Christ Jesus into which we were baptized, there isn’t anything we can’t accomplish together.

And, let the church say, “Amen.”

(the Rev Dr.) Elizabeth Kaeton