Perfectly One

In Jesus’ great prayer in John 17, He says, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (vs. 23, 24, ESV) 

In a conversation with a student recently I was helping him work through the mechanics of sermon writing – but not ignoring the “art of sermon writing” that gives life and breath to sermons. We were talking about the wonderful community described by Luke in Acts as “the earliest, early church.” (2:42-4:37) Luke is prone to talk about “they had all things in common” and “that there were no needy people among them.” I don’t read of any theological arguments, internal conflicts, or other behaviors that would get in the way of what Jesus prayed for.

We do read of some external threats where leaders in Jerusalem wanted to put them in jail and quiet their testimony about Jesus. But rather than harming the outbreaking of the kingdom of God in Jerusalem, that just seemed to spur it on. It is only when there is an internal problem (Acts 5 and the story of Ananias and Sapphira) that the internal life of the church is disrupted a bit.

Before we even get to the great missionary stories of Paul, Barnabas, and others like them, the kingdom people in Jerusalem have welcomed Samaritans, a government official from Ethiopia, and Gentiles to be a part of God’s effort to plant the flag of the kingdom of God all over that part of the world. If you take a moment to do a little research, you will quickly discover that those three categories represented huge cultural divides in the Greco-Roman world of first century. But apparently when the church manages to be on the same page about Jesus – stunning things can happen.

We ought to stop right now and join with Jesus in praying this prayer. Our religious world is anything but “perfectly one.”

If you vote one way and I vote another – how could we possibly be “perfectly one”? If you’re rich and I’m poor, how could we possibly be “perfectly one”? If you’re for gun control and I think it is unnecessary, how could we be “perfectly one”? If you think organizations like Focus on the Family are wonderful and I think they aren’t, how could we be “perfectly one”? If I’m letting an undocumented immigrant live in an empty bedroom in my house and you think I should call ICE, how could we be “perfectly one”?

That series of questions about various positions could go on and on. We live in such a fractious world that it seems we think around every corner in our journey, we will be face with a “my way or the highway” kind of call to make.  I’m confident that Paul, despite thinking slavery was wrong, thought the circumstances with Onesimus meant that he should be sent back to Philemon. I’m even more confident that Onesimus would have disagreed with Paul. I hope that Philemon eventually took the side of Onesimus!

But in Philemon, Paul argues that while “rule and authority” can sometimes make right decisions, he preferred to “appeal to the heart.” Just think of how many divisive culture issues we are bombarded with daily could be brought to resolution if we worked on hearts and not more rules.

We can’t possibly be so naive as to think that our issues are more demanding than were the issues of the first century believers! (If you want a quick and relatively easy read on this topic, check out Scot McKnight’s A Fellowship of Differents.)

But within hours of the most brutal ways to die, Jesus prayed desperately that we would find a way to be “perfectly one.”  It is interesting that in Ephesians 4:1-6, the text where Paul names a whole series of “ones” – he puts them all on the same grammatical level. You can’t look at the list and say “one God” is a bigger theological issue than “one Spirit” for example. Or that “one God” is a bigger issue than “one body” – just to name a few of the “ones” on the list.

Yet, if I were to say something like “it really doesn’t matter if you believe the God revealed in Scripture is the one and only God,” I’m pretty sure this would be my last EES devotional. But if I were to say – I wouldn’t, this is hypothetical – “It really doesn’t matter if the church is fractured . . .” there is a good chance that few would say that I’m a heretic.

“Perfectly one.” That’s Jesus’ prayer for the church. If I believe the truth about Jesus and you believe the truth about Jesus, then I’m thinking we can work out all that fractures the essence of what Christ prayed for His disciples to be.

We really could do well to start praying with Jesus – and acting like he did!!

The Victory of “Might Have Done”

I am currently doing something I do at least once a year – reading through Psalms and Proverbs together. Five psalms, one chapter of Proverbs, and a one-day adjustment with Psalm 119 means you can do that in 31 days. If you’ve never tired it, I encourage you to consider doing so. I first learned of this when I was a senior in college and a preacher named Jim Dyer came and spoke to a class I was taking. I’m very glad I was present that day and often share this reading plan with students at Point.

This time I am reading from a new translation of the Old Testament titled The First Testament. It was done by John Goldingay who is an Old Testament professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. As the blurb on the cover says, The First Testament “interrupts our sleepy familiarity with the Old Testament, and sets our expectations off balance by inviting us to hear the strange accent of the Hebrew text.” So far I’ve found that blurb to true!

A week or so ago one of my “five psalms” was Psalm 18. It is a Psalm of David thought to have been written in response to God’s rescue of David from the hands of Saul. The line that leaped off the page to the point that that I put it on my “reminder” list in my iPhone was verse 23: “I’ve been a person of integrity with him; I’ve kept myself from waywardness I might have done.” In particular the phrase “waywardness I might have done” is a really intriguing idea.

I suspect we all often express thanksgiving to Yahweh for His presence in our lives and we ask Him to forgive us for the sin we commit – either by “commission or omission” as I grew up hearing said. Perhaps better expressed in The Book of Common Prayer by the phrase “the things I have done and the things I have left undone.”

But in the context of Psalm 18, David’s faithfulness to God, his integrity with God, and God’s faithfulness to him have apparently combined to help David keep himself “from waywardness he might have done.” Perhaps David was thinking of the story in 1 Samuel 24 where he could easily have killed King Saul in a cave in the Wilderness of Engedi. Or perhaps it was when David could have but didn’t kill Saul as he slept in the wilderness of Ziph. 

I suspect it is impossible to say – but what can be said is that by having a relationship with God marked by integrity, David was able to avoid wayward acts that he could have committed.

As I’ve been thinking about this phrase, two things seem to be important. First, if you read Psalm 18:1-24, you can’t miss the importance of the idea expressed in verse 21, “because I have kept Yahweh’s ways and not been faithless to my God.” If I want to avoid “waywardness I might have done” – keeping Yahweh’s ways before me is important.  Second, I ought to be more expressive of my gratitude to Yahweh for this great gift.

The victory of “might have done” is indeed a blessing.

Freed to be a Slave

Human freedom can be an alluring, and often intoxicating, reality. For all the things I like to do and want to do – I want to be free to do them. But for all the things you like to do and want to do that I don’t approve of, then I want the church, the government, or some other form of authority to say “No, you’re not free to do that.” Of course my ideas of freedom are precisely God’s ideas of freedom – so much of “religion” these days seems to suggest “I’m in charge – God said . . . “

The first line of Paul’s 1 Corinthians 9 starts out with this this bold question: “I’m a free man, aren’t I?” (The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation) Paul expected that his readers would answer that question “Yes.”  From that beginning he goes on to discuss a number a ideas about apostles and freedom, but in the middle of the chapter, verse 19, comes to the real issues at hand: 

 “The reason for all this is as follows. I am indeed free from everyone; but I have enslaved myself to everyone, so that I can win all the more.” In other words, it seems as though he had been “freed to be a slave.” That’s a bit of an oxymoron for sure.

From there he talks about all sorts of categories in his culture:  everyone, Jews, those with the law, those without the law, and the weak. He wraps that conversation up by declaring “I have become all things to all people, so that in all ways I might save some.” (9:22) The word “win” floats around in the text five times – once for each category – and then shifts to “save some” as a summary of it all.

Freed to be a slave! Sometimes I try and imagine about all the seeming contradictions that must have fought for space in Paul’s head. A former Pharisee and hater of those who followed Jesus, he is now its chief missionary. Later in Ephesians he will say he spent jail time “on behalf of Gentiles.” He will sit with a group of “God-worshiping women” by a river bank in Philippi and have a conversation about Jesus.  Having been set free from the law of sin and death, he finds himself enslaved to everyone so he can influence them for the gospel.

Actually, at the end of this paragraph he declares this is the very nature of the gospel itself. “I do it all because of the gospel, so that I can be a partner in its benefits.”

Each of the categories Paul mentions has potential for difficult moments for him. It isn’t as though he is thinking “this is a breeze” and I can influence people. Rather he must be thinking something like “this won’t be fun, it won’t be easy, but it will be worthwhile.”

I love being free. But hopefully I love even more the call God has placed on my life. I suspect that is true for you as well. So the question that now remains is something like this: “What area of freedom should I set aside in order to better influence others for the kingdom?”

Elsewhere Paul will remind his readers that when abused, freedom can be an excuse to sin (Gal. 5:13;    1 Cor. 8:9). But he also reminds us that where the Spirit of the Lord there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1).

Learning to walk in freedom and not abuse it may be one of our greatest challenges these days.