John 17: 20-26
May they all be one.
Father, may they be one in us,
as you are in me and I am in you,
so that the world may believe
that it was you who sent me.
Jesus sets before his disciples a vision of their own unity with each other, in and through the Father. This unity is to be a sign for the world. It’s a grand vision. As they set out on their mission they will need the strength which comes from this vision.
In the Acts of the Apostles Luke gives us a sense of what this unity might mean in practice:
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
This of course is very much an ideal. Despite the desire to be one in heart and mind, as the Church grew, there were rifts and divisions. Through the centuries the Christian landscape has become vast and varied. What then of Christ’s prayer that we may all be one? Giles Fraser commented in an online article that ‘ecumenism seems to work better in practice than in theory.’ There’s a good deal of truth in this. For me, friendship plays a significant part in our path to unity. In friendship there’s a desire to ‘share what I love’ in the hope that you might love it too. In friendship we start from what connects us rather than what divides.
As you hear the Gospel today, bring to mind your friendships with people from other traditions. Thank God for those friendships.
Image: Chang Duong, Unsplash