A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on
Sunday 2 June 2019, Seventh Sunday of
Easter, by Timothy Chan. The scripture readings that day were Acts 16:16–34; Psalm
97; John 17:20–26.
Good morning church, it has been six
weeks since we celebrated Easter in April. According to the Bible and the
church calendar, after Jesus’ resurrection, he stayed on earth for 40 days
before ascending into Heaven. He demonstrated to his followers that he is
indeed alive, and he was using these days to prepare them for his ascension.
The disciples would wonder, “Why you are resurrected, and you have to leave
again?” The scripture we read this morning is a prayer of Jesus for his
followers, and also for us. Let us pray before we read closer:
Heavenly Lord, thank you for
remembering us in your prayer. Help us to understand how we can be one in you
and through you. Help us to understand your word, so our life can be
transformed, to honor you. In Jesus’ name we pray.
How many of you believe that prayer
can change things? It is not a theological question, but it is more a question
of faith. I did not really believe in this idea, I mean, how can my prayer
change anything?
Until I began to study how Jesus
prays, he prays a LOT, and he prays for his disciples, and he prays for you,
for me, for Kowloon Union Church, and he prays for the world! Why he would pray
if he can just perform miracle and make everything done according to his will?
It is because God respects us, our autonomy and our decision. Even most/some of
our decisions are far from His will, he still prays for us. This is the case of
his prayer we read just now: he prays that we may all be one, because we are
not very good at it. Not at all.
In fact, the reality is not very
encouraging. We witness division in church because of money, power, and
different theology. It happened among the audience of the Gospel of John too.
It was written in the end of the 1st century, where there were a lot
of different theologies dividing the church, and Christians were being
persecuted by not only the Romans, but also by the Jews. Churches were facing
challenges uniting with each other, there were Greek speaking churches, Hebrew
speaking churches, Arabic speaking churches, with different practice and
theology.
They were waiting for Jesus’ return,
but most church leaders did not live long enough to see, that’s why they have
to address this issue. Among the 4 Gospels, John is the book which contains the
prayer of Jesus after the last supper. He gave commandment that we should love
another, and then he prayed that “we may all be one”.
The foundation of becoming one is
not how we share same theology, same idea, or same practice. The foundation
of us becoming one is the love between God the father, and Jesus the son.
As verse 20 said “I ask … that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me
and I am in you, may they also be in us”. We are all called to enter into this
relationship of God. Once we enter into this relationship, we realize there are
other people sharing the love of God too. We are one because we share the same
love.
One of the reasons why we experience
divisions and conflicts today, especially in the church, is because we think
some people are not loved by God or they are loved less by God. We try to create
barrier and criteria for God’s love. We used to think God loves men more than
women, we used to think God loves the rich more than the poor, we used to
believe that God loves the straight more than gays. There are differences all
over the world, even in our church, look around and see this diverse community,
but God’s love is unconditional. Only if we can recognize and see how God loves
our neighbors or enemies, we wouldn’t be able to become one. When we look at
someone who is different from us, before we judge, let us think of how God
loves this person, how God dies for this person and how God accepts us and
forgives us.
Our church motto “Where all are one”
is not calling or demanding everyone to share the same theology and idea before
becoming part of the community.
In KUC, we may disagree on certain
issues, but we also accept that we would have disagreement. “Where all are one”
invites people from different background, tradition, and belief to share the
love of God together. We can be different, but no one can deny how much God
loves each one of us. “Where all are one” cannot be achieved by erasing
differences, on the contrary, only when we are celebrating diversity, we can
truly experience what “Where all are one” means.
In the Jewish tradition, the word
“One” ehhad, has another meaning, which is “to unite”. It is not a
static and fixed status, instead, it is a movement, it indicates a continuity. Therefore,
“Where all are One” is not only a slogan, it is a movement, an action. We
are all loved by God and forgiven by God, yes, we are one in God. However, this
is not the end of story, as we are all called into building a relationship with
God, we need to cultivate it and we need to commit to it.
In the same way, as a community, we
should not be content by our own unity shared among ourselves. It may begin
with meeting new friends in the fellowship hall sharing tea and coffee. Then we
may learn together in different church activities, to share about our faith and
our testimonies. Then we may build a fellowship and companionship to support
each other in this faith journey. Then we can also welcome people to
participate and join this community of love.
Loving one another and being in
union with God and one another are not the end goal. In verse 25, Jesus said to God
“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know You.” Therefore, we
are called to make God’s love known to the world, in verse 23 it says “so that
the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have
loved me.” God is Love, when Jesus said “the world does not know you”, he means
“the world does not know love”.
I am not saying we Christians know
what is love, and others do not. I believe as we are all created in the image
of God, we all have this ability to love. However, we may not know how to love,
and sometimes love has turned into jealousy, manipulation, hatred and division.
This is exactly why Jesus prays that we can be one, to show the world even
though we are different, but we don’t have to kill each other, even though we
do not believe in the same thing, we can still respect and love each other.
Even though we are rejected, God still loves us. Jesus is calling everyone to
join this fellowship of love, to be one, so that God’s love is known through us.
Friends, we are all living in a
world of division, even in the church. That’s why Jesus prays for unity among
his followers. However, the foundation of unity is not based on the same
doctrine or theology, the foundation of being one is the love of God for
everyone without distinction. Being one with God and with each other is a
continual journey and movement, that we are called to witness God’s love to
this world. I pray that “Where all are one” is not only a slogan for our
church, or a motto for the ministers, but a calling to every one of us here.
Let us embrace this calling together, to build a community to witness God’s
love for us and for the world. Amen.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, June 02, 2019
