Unity Through the Word: A Sermon on John 17 (Jesus's High Priestly Prayer)
Scripture Reading: John 17:1-11
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
Unity Through the Word: A Sermon on John 17 (Jesus's High Priestly Prayer)
Preacher: James Huenink Scripture: John 17 (Jesus's High Priestly Prayer)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today's gospel reading is sometimes called Jesus's high priestly prayer. It is the prayer that He prays with the disciples right before He is about to leave, go be arrested, and die on the cross before He rises from the dead. The prayer is all about asking God to do things for the church after Jesus is gone, and He prays to the Father an important prayer, where He says:
"Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one."
Jesus is speaking about unity. There is a unity between our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Father — a unity that we can't even imagine having — and He wants the holy Christian church on earth to be united in the same way that He and the Father are united. That unity is expressed in this prayer as Jesus doing the work that God has sent Him to do. He speaks about being glorified, which in John is a reference to him dying on the cross, so he goes to the cross to die to lead people to this everlasting life, that they may believe in Jesus. And he says, "Then keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one."
The Challenge of Church Unity Today
This passage gives us a really big challenge in the church today, because the holy Christian church on earth is anything but one, like the Father and the Son are one. It is true that in a spiritual sense all Christians are united together in Jesus Christ — that by the power of the Holy Spirit, through faith we are bound together — but in a visible sense our churches are divided. And it is a tragedy that the church scattered throughout all the world in all various places. We are divided into different denominations and theologies and practices and activities.
It really is too bad. And Christ prays for his disciples and for us to have unity, unity like the Father and the Son — and it's a goal for the Christian church to have that unity, a unity that we haven't had for about 1000 years, unity not just in spirit but in action. The question is, what would that unity actually look like? How does a church, a denomination, a people gather together, not just in spiritual unity, but real unity? How could we get to that place?
There are lots of different ways of thinking about unity in the church. Today I'd like to examine three different models for gathering together in unity that people are looking for in our churches:
Unity through the ecumenical movement — gathering together basically to agree to disagree
Unity through an authority figure
Unity through the Word — understanding and reading God's word and gathering together around its teachings
And if you've read my sermon title, you kind of know which one I go for. It's called Unity Through the Word. But I think it's worthwhile examining these other ones, because many people talk about them, and sometimes we do too.
Model 1: Unity Through Organization (The Ecumenical Movement)
Let's try the first one: unity through organization. This is the ecumenical movement, which basically says we need to downplay the different things that divide us and instead come together in an organizational unity, gather together and present ourselves as one.
This ecumenical movement rose in the 20th century and became especially popular in the early 20th century. We saw movement like that within Lutheranism, as well as the various denominations all across America gathered together into a couple of different church bodies. One was the Lutheran Church in America, another the American Lutheran Church, and they later formed an even larger church body when they joined with the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches to form what we know of as the ELCA, which is an ecumenical Lutheran project.
Even larger than that are the cross-denominational groups best seen in the World Council of Churches. This was established in 1948 with the idea of bringing together people all across denominations into a single fellowship and organization. Basically, what they decided to do is agree to disagree — you can teach your thing, you can teach your thing, but we're still going to come together and tell the world that we are united.
The challenge with that is that when you come together and are united around something other than God's word and around the teachings of the gospel, your purpose becomes something other than the teachings of the gospel. In fact, you are forced to downplay faithfulness and following Christ and play up other things that actually bring you together. You can see this in the way that many of these ecumenical groups present themselves to the world. The World Council of Churches says on their website that they are "inspiring the worldwide fellowship of churches to work together for unity, justice, and peace." And while unity, justice, and peace are good things — we want those for the world, and I would love it if the whole world were united in justice and peace — that isn't the work of the church, is it?
The work of the church is the proclamation of Jesus Christ. Jesus is saying here in this passage that the Father sent him to reveal eternal life to the world, and that He glorifies the Father by His death on the cross, so that they can know the true God, the only true God. The church is called to proclaim this gospel — the gospel that gathers you here today. When churches gather around something else and build an organization by downplaying theology, by agreeing to disagree, what they end up doing is downplaying Christ and his salvation. And that's just as true when we end up doing that same thing here in the local congregation — when we downplay faithfulness to the gospel out of agreeing to disagree. That's not what Christ calls us to. He calls us to keep his word, just as the disciples did.
Model 2: Unity Through an Authority Figure
The second way that many people try to develop unity is through an authority figure. This is the Roman Catholic model. What they do is say: we have the Pope; God has established the office of Saint Peter to unite the whole Christian church on earth; and because God established this office, we know that the church is united and gathered together under that one office.
Obviously, as Lutherans, we're not big fans of that model. But it is very attractive to a lot of people. We are living in a world that is adrift, cut off from all history and tradition, cut off from our past, and lots and lots of people are reaching out to grab something firm and solid. The Roman Catholic Church's bold claims of having that solidity, of having that authority, appeal to a lot of people. It is actually quite easy to say, "I am going to export my judgment on God's word and simply say it's His job and not mine," because we live in a world filled with lots and lots of voices, lots and lots of teaching, and simply saying "I'm going to let someone else decide" is actually really easy — in fact, quite satisfying.
But the problem that Lutherans have always pointed out about finding our unity in the Pope and the bishops and the structure of the church is that every time you unite behind a figure, you end up uniting by something that is not Christ. And when that human figure starts to say things that are contrary to the teaching of God's word, he sets himself up in place of Christ, as if he were speaking for him. This is why the reformers called the papacy the antichrist — not because he was hostile to Christ, but because he spoke in place of Christ. The words of the gospel can be contradicted by the authority of the papacy. When an office becomes your unity, you end up having to align yourself behind someone who is not Christ, and that can allow that someone to lead you in the wrong direction.
And the papacy isn't even doing its work anyway. If you look at the Catholic Church, they are just as divided as the world of the Protestants — so much so that there are lots and lots of really traditional Catholics who are always calling out against what the Pope is saying, which kind of makes them Protestants a little bit. Even politicians are allowed to come out against church teaching and doctrine that the church has proclaimed and publicly advocate against it, while still remaining good Catholics. Somehow, that is not bringing about unity the way the Father and the Son are united.
Model 3: Unity Through the Word
So, what's the model of unity that we cling to? It's unity in doctrine through the Word. That's the unity that the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, has always seen as the chief unity of the church.
Jesus says:
"For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you."
What Jesus is showing in this high priestly prayer is that He was sent from the Father to reveal the name and will of the Father through his death on the cross, and that the apostles heard this word, have kept this word, and they are all going out to proclaim it. Unity is not in an organization, or in agreeing to disagree — it's unity in the name and teachings that reveal the Father.
The challenge, of course, is that we all disagree about what those things mean. We disagree on what the Word teaches, we disagree on what the passages of the Bible say, and how church should be run, and there's all of this chaos out there — it can be confusing and difficult. But you know what, life is difficult. Life is confusing. And the attempt to make it simple actually ends up getting in the way. We have to trust the Holy Spirit to work through the word to gather people together in unity around the word that Christ has proclaimed. It's the word then that guides us to preach and teach that same Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that the apostles proclaimed, and that Christ revealed to His church.
A Historical Example: Free Conferences in the Missouri Synod
We actually have examples of this working in the history of the Missouri Synod. Very early on in our history, we did something called free conferences. They weren't free regarding money — it was conferences that anybody could come to that were not part of a particular denomination. They were designed around gathering people together to read the Lutheran Confessions and God's Word and come to agreement on what they said. Kind of a novel concept, right? Let's get together and instead of attacking each other, try to agree.
And they kind of worked. This is one of the ways that the Missouri Synod grew rapidly during the frontier days. When there were all of these independent pastors starting small Lutheran congregations, the proclamation of the word and the study of the word brought unity amongst these different groups of people — not unity just in organization, but unity in teaching and practice as well.
Conclusion: True Unity in Christ
Because unity in Christ — the kind of unity that Jesus is praying for — isn't brought about by agreeing to disagree or by exporting your theology to an authority figure. You end up with disunity that way. True unity comes with being one, as the Father and the Son are one, around the teaching of the Gospel, around the salvation that Christ gives us in the Word of God.
In His name, Amen.