“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.)” John 17:20-26/ 18:1
The collect appointed for this Sunday makes perfect sense in light of our Lord’s prayer:
“Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, they Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by they help from all things hurtful, and led us to all things profitable to our salvation…”
Indeed, we know the goodwill of our Lord toward his Church and we are secure in the goodwill of his Father. After all, the Son has made our existence, mission, and our destiny the chief intention of his prayer as his last act before entering into his passion:
“When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.”
Jesus entered his passion first by entering into the Garden of Gethsemane. There he poured out his heart to the Father and as he did, his faculty of emotion so profoundly moved his body and soul that he began sweating great drops of blood. That, by the way, is a known medical event called “hematridosis” — in which blood is excreted through the sweat glands by a person who is suffering extreme physical and emotional stress. And who better than Luke, the Beloved Physician, to inform us that Jesus experienced such agony? The word Luke uses here to disclose our Lord’s interior experience is the word “agonia.” This word was used to describe the agony, the stress, the terror that a gladiator felt as he waited his turn to enter the arena and fight wild beasts to the death. St. Luke records the fact that our Lord prayed so intensely, anticipating his struggle with the evil one upon the Cross, that the capillaries in his skin burst, as his sweat and blood mingled in great drops that fell to the ground. But before that — not much more than an hour or so, he was concluding his prayer:
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
First of all, as we have already seen, Jesus last prayer with his disciples is focused entirely on the Father, the Son and the Church. As Augustine wrote, the Holy Spirit is the bond of Love between the Father and the Son and he is present eternally proceeding from the Father. But it is Jesus, the Son of the Father incarnate, who is our Savior. Note for what he prays:
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word…”
Jesus entwines his whole Church with this prayer to include not only the disciples and Apostles present with him in the Upper Room, but specifically he means to include those who will believe on Jesus through the preaching of the Church in the world. When Jesus says, “for them also which shall believe on me through their word…” he is praying for those of us here today, for our children and for our children’s children. And what does Jesus petition the Father?
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
This has probably been one of the most misunderstood, misapplied, and exploited verses in the Bible — right next to “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” The petition occurs two times in John 17. The first is verse 11:
“Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”
And the second time is verse 21:
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…”
Ecumenical movements over the last sixty to seventies years have used this verse — That they all may be one — as their much repeated slogan to weave a specific narrative: The suggestion is that the answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is in our hands, not the Father’s. And if we will but humble ourselves and put aside our differences the Body of Christ will be made one, organic whole, just as Jesus wants it to be. And when that happens, when the Church is made one organic whole, the whole world will believe in Jesus. To repeat, the logic is that we, not the Father, have the power to answer this prayer.
What I am saying to you is that reading, that narrative is absolutely not true to the text. Yes, it is true that we need to always be praying and working for unity among orthodox Christians and it is true that we ought to always be praying for the conversion of the world to Christ. But it is false, a grave misreading of this chapter, to assume that if we woke up tomorrow morning and every Church or faith group in the world that claims to be Christian were completely, organically one whole Church, then the world would convert to Jesus. In typical, modern fashion these commentators read the Bible through the lens of instrumentalism and utilitarianism.
This is what I want you to see: that Jesus’ prayer, “That they all may be one…” has already been fully and completely answered by the one Jesus addresses, namely God the Father. So let us explore fully the meaning of these last few sentences.
First, what is our Lord’s petition concerning the Church?
“that they may be one, as we are.”
The word that we have translated as “one,” is the cardinal number “one.” It may mean one of a group or one of a bunch, as in the sentence, “Please give me one of those tomatoes.” Or it could be “one” to indicate singleness as in the sentence, “There is only one tomato on the vine.” But it may also mean “one” as in a unity, like for example a unity of purpose, as in the sentence, “We worked as one to grow the best tomatoes.” Now if you believe that there is one and only one, single Church there is a problem because there are obviously multiple Churches claiming to be the Church. Ultimately we must affirm that the Church is “one” in two ways. The true Church must be one, visible, organic whole and it must be one in the sense of being a perfected unity. Let me explain: When we recite the Creed and our belief in “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” then we have to say it is this or that visible Church. If you are Roman Catholic you have no problem identifying the Roman Church as the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church” to the exclusion of other Churches. To be in communion with the Bishop of Rome is to be in communion with the one Church Jesus prayed for in John 17. But for Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox Churches to recite the Creed and to grasp the meaning of our Lord’s petition, “that they may be one…” is not so cut and dried as our Roman brothers and sisters would have it. We will affirm that the Bishop of Rome is truly united to the one Church, but we will not affirm that he is the only true bishop united to the one Church. Ok, here is our question: If the “oneness” Jesus petitions his Father to bestow upon his disciples is not the “oneness” of the Roman Catholic Church then what kind of “oneness” is it?
By the grace of Christ, the Beloved Disciple has documented and archived for us the exact nature of the “oneness” our Lord petitioned the Father:
“that they may be one, as we are.”
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…”
The exact nature of the “oneness,” the unity, that our Lord prays for is the oneness, the unity that already exist between the Father and the Son: “That they may be one, as we are one.” “As we are one…” Our “oneness” is the divine “oneness” of the God who is God.When we profess our belief in the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” we declare that our “oneness” is the “oneness” of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is not a “oneness” that we can achieve, nor is it a “oneness” that abolishes the many for a singularity. The “oneness” of God does not render the three eternal Persons of the Trinity into one, single Person. Our’s is the “oneness” that is eternally manifested in the God who is God in three real Persons and yet there is only one God. This is unity of the Church that Christ prayed the Father to bestow and which he most certainly did bestow.
The unity that Jesus prayed for in the Upper Room is the mysterious sacramental reality that is at work in our lives yesterday, today, and forever; a supernatural reality that binds us to one another and binds us to Christ our Lord. This supernatural, sacramental reality does not come from us, it comes from outside ourselves and it unites us to one another and to Jesus in a way that all our good deeds and good will could never accomplish. This is the unity of Christ’s Apostolic Church:
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us…”
It is an ontological, really real unity that is supernatural and sacramental, binding us to one another and to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There was never a time when the Father and the Son were not in perfect union and Jesus’ narrative is that this eternal, divine unity has now been communicated to humanity by his holy Incarnation of the Virgin Mary. And now we individual persons may, by the grace of God, enter into sacramental, true union with the Father through the Son by our baptism into the Incarnate Son. We are grafted into Christ and through our participation in him you and I are bound to one another and we participate in the true life of the Blessed Trinity. This is the unity of the Church: it is none other than the eternal unity of love of the Blessed Trinity gifted to humanity. Our Lord’s concluding words in high priestly prayer places before his disciples the bestowal of our participation in God’s divine life: