“The Church” John 17: 11-19

Introduction: William Barker once told about a small town in Tennessee that had a place of worship with a sign in the front which read: “Left Foot Baptist Church.” A student had passed it many times and had often wondered about the meaning of the name of the church. Finally, one day, while waiting for his bus, the student asked someone in the town the significance of the unusual name for the church. It seems that there had been a split in the local congregation which practiced foot-washing. The break up occurred over which foot should be washed first. The group insisting on the left foot withdrew from the congregation and organized its own church, and named it accordingly … “The Left Foot Baptist Church.”

Such a division in the body of Christ would be funny if it were not so tragic. The tragedy of a bickering church occurred in 1917 in Russia. That year the Bolshevik party was ruthlessly carrying out its plans for overthrowing the present government and placing it with communism. At the same time the largest Christian denomination in Russia was holding an all-day meeting. The meeting was filled with harsh, vindictive conflict all centered on one divisive issue. What was the issue? Was it how the church should respond to the new government? Was it about how the church would carry out its mission? No … the issue, believe it or not, was about the candles in the sanctuaries of the Russian churches! The church was bitterly divided over whether they should be 18 inches or 22 inches high!

You know, it must break God’s heart to see us carrying on as we often do. So much is often at stake in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Scripture: Thus we come to today’s scripture lesson from the book of John. Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your name … the name You gave me … so that they may be one as we are one.”

1. We Should Be Unified: That’s the first thing Christ wants for His church, that we should be unified. Remember how He said it on another occasion: “A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13: 35-36)

Folks, it is impossible to overstate how important love is in the body of Christ. Now, this does not mean that we will agree on everything. That would be both impossible and unhealthy. It does mean, however, that, regardless of our opinions on various matters, we will respect one another and support one another. This is our primary witness to the world we live in. If we who are the body of Christ can’t get along with one another, what hope is there for our world? If we are going to be such a church we need to work hard at loving one another.

But there’s something else we must do if we are to be what Christ means for us to be. Listen to His prayer for the church: “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world anymore than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”

2. True To Our Mission: The second thing Jesus is doing in our scripture lesson is that He is praying that we will be true to our mission in the world. Folks, if we are going to be a church that Jesus can be proud of, we need to be true to our mission in the world.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Memorial Day. This is the day we honor all those young men and women who gave their lives in service to our country. It is only fitting and right that we do this. We are grateful that those brave young soldiers who stayed true to their mission. By their sacrifice we enjoy our freedoms in this great country called America. In India there is a cemetery where the bodies of American Soldiers have been laid to rest. Over the entrance to the cemetery are these words: “Tell Them We Gave Our Today’s For Their Tomorrows.” That’s sobering especially when there are still young men and women on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan sacrificing themselves. We do not glorify war when we remember the sacrifice those young soldiers made. We of the church of Jesus Christ recognize that there are evil forces in our world. War is evil.

Pastor Robert Schuller tells about a night many years ago when his daughter Christina, now a television actress, was 4 years old. He tucked her into bed and waited to hear her good night prayers. They got into a conversation and she said, “I hate bad guys.” And so Schuller asked his daughter, “Who are the bad people?” She responded that they were the guys who shot everybody and stole everything. “So,” said her dad, “If you hate the bad people, that makes you one of the bad people.” Then Schuller added,

“So we must love even the bad people.” Christina thought about this for a moment and then she said, “Then I’m going to pray for all the bad people that God will turn them into good.” Schuller says his daughter, now a young woman, still prays the prayer she learned those many years ago, “Dear God, help the bad people to turn good. Amen”

That’s a great story. But I would add one thing to it: Out mission as the church of Jesus Christ is not only to pray for bad people but to also do whatever we can to help bad people become good. We are to reach out to those who would do evil with the love of Jesus Christ that they might turn to the good. Some of those people are badly damaged themselves. Remember we are not a home for saints, but a hospital for sinners. Jesus prayed that we might be unified and that we would remember the mission He has given us. Here’s what is interesting:

3. A Unifying Force: If we are true to our mission, then there will not only be unity in the church but we will be a unifying force in the world. This is what is beautiful about the Gospels. We are engaged in helping bad people become good. We do that by making them part of our family.

A Bishop of the United Methodist church, Bishop Minerva Carcano, tells about being raised on a small farm outside the South Texas town of Edinburg. There was an empty field directly to the east of their farm. One day a man bought the field. He had plans to put his cattle there. That didn’t bother Bishop Carcano’s family. What was disconcerting was the he was a black man. That made him different; they had no experience with black people. Well, her father, the man of the house, would have to deal with it. There was one big problem. Her father spoke no English and that Mr. Johnson, the African American spoke no Spanish.

The day Mr. Johnson moved his cattle next door, Minerva’s father went out to meet Mr. Johnson. When Minerva’s father returned he reported that Mr. Johnson was a decent man. For the next ten years when Mr. Johnson came to feed his cattle Minerva’s father would meet him at the fence and they would visit for 30 minutes or so. The day Mr. Johnson died Minerva Carcano’s family went to his funeral. Minerva was in awe of what she saw. The church was filled with blacks, Hispanics and Anglos. The entire town was represented. Friendship and love was possible in spite of the obvious barriers because Mr. Johnson was a man of God, an incarnation of Christ’s love. “Being one,” says Bishop Carcano, “As Jesus and God are one is not so much about who we are, the language we speak, or the color of our skin, or even where we’ve come from, where we are, or where we would like to go. Being one in the unity of God and Christ is about incarnate love of the kind that Jesus teaches and models for us.”

Conclusion: Incarnate love … love made fresh … that is how we become a church Jesus can be proud of. Love for God. Love for one another. And love for the world outside, even those of whom we might not approve. It’s our job to help bad people become good and to bring them into the body of Christ. Christ is still praying for us that we will be unified and that we will be committed to our mission … unifying the world in Christ.