“Mature Oneness” Preached by Liz Williams Wollaston Congregational Church on June 2nd, 2019 Scripture: John 17:20-16 The United Church of Christ website, on the “what we believe” page, states: “We believe the UCC is called to be a united and uniting church. ‘That they may all be one’ … In essentials–unity, in nonessentials–diversity, in all things–charity." The UCC takes this motto directly from our gospel passage for today. It is the prayer that Jesus said on the evening before he went to the cross, interceding with God “that [the disciples] all may be one.” This was a deep, heartfelt prayer on behalf of all who would choose to follow Jesus, not only in his time but into the future. It’s a prayer that applies to us as well as Christians throughout the ages. While it sounds like a wonderful vision, it has not been so easy to follow. Looking back on this prayer of Jesus, I wonder what Jesus knew. I wonder if he knew the disarray the disciples would be in soon after he was gone. I wonder if he knew that the “Jewish Christians” and the new followers would argue and separate. I wonder if he knew that in 500 years there would be a huge shake up in the faith over the nature of Jesus and of Mary as the “Mother of God”; that in another 500 years the Eastern and Western church would separate in a great schism; and that 500 years after the great schism, there would the violent Reformations in Europe. I wonder if Jesus knew all this things, as he prayed that night before his crucifixion. A part of me says he knew the challenges ahead, that is why he prayed so passionately. Another part of me hopes he didn’t know, because of the pain it would have caused him. While he was anticipating the bodily pain of the crucifixion, what a terrible thing to also anticipate the ways in which the future church, the “body of Christ” would be torn apart too. What was this “oneness” Jesus was praying for? Was Jesus actually praying to God to prevent disruption among his followers? Did Jesus really expect, that if he prayed hard enough, the disciples and all future disciples would be in accord and agreement? I think Jesus knew people a little too well for that. He knew his disciples in all their diversity: their different gifts and perspectives. Eugene Peterson’s biblical paraphrase, “The Message” gives us a clue of what Jesus may have been getting at. In this translation Jesus prays that the disciples would be mature in their oneness. I think this means that they would learn to deal with disagreement and disruption wisely and compassionately. They would listen to one another attentively. They would be in accord, but their communities would not stagnate. To paraphrase the UCC motto, in essentials they would have unity, in non-essentials they would have diversity, and in all things they would have love. I gave some examples of the dis-unity of Christians over the past 2,000 years. Writer, Phyllis Tickle, puts a different spin on these great disruptions in Christianity, that have emerged at 500 year intervals. She calls them “Rummage Sales” – which reminds me of the yard sale here yesterday! These sort-outs have been disruptive to the church, but they have provided important shake-ups. Often they were necessary because of changes in the world. For the church to keep pace it needed to change too. And, according to Tickle’s schedule, we are experiencing, such a disruption right now. In a book titled “The Great Emergence” Phyllis Tickle looks at the “emergent church” movement going on at this time. [1] This movement is responding to dramatic changes in the global culture over the past 100 years: - the explosion of scientific discovery and technological development, - the revolution in global communications and travel, - the growing awareness of severe climate change, - dramatic shifts in family structures. As Tickle put it, the church is going through a rummage sale right now. We’re trying to figure out what we need to preserve --- the essentials --- and what we need to let go – the non-essentials, so that we can become the Church of the 21stcentury. This Rummage Sale extends all the way down to the local church. This rummage sale is to be our response to changes in our culture that impact our life as a church. As our culture changes, there are many more options to fill people’s time on Sunday morning.
These are some of the reasons why attendance in many churches has declined dramatically. And, yet, it is clear that there is a spiritual hunger in our times. This is noticeable among young adults many of whom have no religious background. They are hungering for an authentic relationship with the sacred and with one another. It will also be important for the church to respond to this hunger, as we do ourrummage sale. And we arecalled to do a rummage sale! We are called to leave behind what is no longer relevant and embrace the things that enhance authentic spiritual experience for the people of this time and place. This isn’t easy though, because most of us don’t like change. We like things to stay the same, even when they aren’t working any more. This phenomenon is called immunity to change. When I was in seminary I took a class called “Grounded in God”. The purpose of the class was to help leaders diagnose “immunity to change” in their organizations. To do this we began by looking at our own immunity to change, using a tool developed by authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey.[2] This turned out to be quite revealing for me. At the time I was co-leading a seminary group with another student. We were supposed to be developing a program for the group. But the relationship between myself and this student was not going well. I tried to work with her, but she seemed to avoid responding to my ideas. I knew that we really needed to sit down and talk. I needed to tell her my concerns. But, I was afraid that my co-leader would think I was biased against her, her background, her age group, her identity and so on. I realized I was very committed to not having my co-leader view me in this way. This way of thinking was affecting my other relationships, too. I was fearful of telling others what I was really thinking and this was something I needed to change. In the immunity to change process you figure out what is your “big assumption”. I decided that mine was this: “I believe that if I say what I am really thinking I will upset the other person and they will not like me anymore. They may then turn against me and turn others against me too, and no one will like me.” Hashing all this out was an important process. The final step was to come up with a “safe modest test” to challenge my big assumption. This was my test: to sit down and talk with my co-leader about how things were going, being honest about what I really thought. I plucked up my courage and did just that. As you might expect my co-leader was reasonable. She didn’t turn against me. She didn’t have any problem with my different age, identity or background. We managed to figure out a program for the remainder of our time as co-leaders. Tools like this one can be applied to organizations as well as individuals. We tried this at the Wollaston Congregational Church Leadership Retreat back in March, and came us with some assumptions. Here are some that group came up with:
These are scary assumptions! We need to be careful with them … and with one another, while living into the future that Jesus prays for us. And still, we can celebrate the mature oneness that is already being manifest in our church:
I call this kind of oneness “wholeness of the body of Christ”, and I love it! And so this is my prayer for us, Wollaston Congregational Church. That we will be brave enough to do our own rummage sale – that we will discover unity in essentials, diversity in non-essentials – so that we will embody “mature oneness” in love. May it be so, Amen! [1]Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, (Grand Rapid, Baker Books, 2012) [2]Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, (Boston, Harvard Business Review Press, 2009)
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