Breaking Chains -- A Message for May 29, 2022

 

            Last week, our worship service was focused on Jesus’ Ascension, when he departed the earth after 40 days of resurrection appearances. At the Ascension, Jesus essentially passed the baton to his disciples, and told them that with his departure, it was their responsibility to start spreading the faith.

            This morning, we will read a portion of the prayer Jesus said before his Ascension. These words reflect Jesus’ dreams for the church, for the people who would become members of the Christian faith. Jesus prayed for us to be united, to join together as a body so that we could stand fast against the arrows and rocks the world would sling against us. We are still working towards living up to the hopes Jesus expressed in his prayer. Please hear the words of Christ as they are recorded in John 17:20-26:

Scripture Reading                        John 17: 20-26

‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 

that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 

I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 

Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 

I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer for Understanding

Prepare our hearts, O God, to accept your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own, that, hearing, we may also obey your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

            When William Penn established Pennsylvania, he made our state a place where all believers in God could freely practice their religious beliefs and not be forced to practice in ways they disagreed with. Penn’s decree of religious freedom brought exiles and refugees from Europe and the Mediterranean world to our humble state.  Here, they could freely practice their faith.

            Since 1682, our state has been home to people who practice many different versions of Christianity. The earliest residents in Skippack were a reflection of the exiles that flocked to Pennsylvania: Mennonites, Quakers, and Reformed Christians were the earliest European settlers here.

            Not only have different religious groups come to our country, but once they were here, Christian group have splinted off of each other; new denominations were born out of old ones.

            Early in the twentieth century, Christians in our country and throughout the world began to question our history of splitting off into new denominations after theological disagreements. Christian leaders began to meet together to talk about our past history of division. They believed Jesus called us to be united, and that the goal of the future Christian church was to collaborate and work towards unity. So, different branches of Christianity began to do more and more work together – Sunday school curriculum was written together and church camps were shared, training seminaries were supported by Christians of different persuasions and ministers began to be called to work in more than one denomination.

            The United Church of Christ, the denomination of our church, was born out of this movement. We were the merger of two churches who themselves were mergers of two churches: the formerly Congregational church of the Puritans and the Christian church of the Middle South and the German Evangelical Synod of the Midwest and the German Reformed church of Pennsylvania. We came together in 1957 and our motto comes straight out of today’s scripture reading: That they all may be one.  We were formed with the goal of uniting Christians together.

            And, why is it important for us to be united? Why did Jesus pray the request and hope that all Christians may be one, as he was one with Jesus?

            Faithful, practicing Christians are a minority in our world. Throughout history, at various times in the last 2000 years, in Europe, we may have been in the majority, but that time is over. Gallup reported in 2021 that US church membership e is 47% of the population. In the UK, church attendance is less than 8%. In Germany, only 10% of the population attends worship weekly. Fewer and fewer people consider themselves Christians, consider themselves one of us.

            Now, more than ever, we need to be united.  As St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.” We are one body and we need each other. We are called to support and encourage each other when we are suffering. We are called to support and encourage people in our world who are vulnerable and under stress. We are called to lift each other up, to work together to study our faith and listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Together, we worship God, we baptize new believers, we bury our dead, we pray for each other.

            The people of world are suffering. We pray for the victims and refugees from the Russian onslaught in Ukraine. We struggle together with the effects and casualties that come from wave after wave of Covid-19. We grapple with each act of domestic terrorism that happens in our country as we reel from Buffalo and Uvalde.  We deal with rising food and gas prices, political conflict within our families, vulnerability in our professional situations, and loved ones who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We are suffering. Our neighbors are suffering.

            We need each other. And, we need to be united with the whole of the Christian people. Jesus prayed that we would become completely one with each other and that we would feel the full love of God within our hearts. We can’t do this alone. We need each other. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he knew humanity would always have trials and tribulations. He knew practicing Christianity in a hostile world would be difficult. So, his prayer was that we would be one, so that we will be able to support each other and care for each other in the midst of our trials.

            Let us work to live out Jesus’ prayer, and work together as one accord.

May we do so in love. Amen.