The Trouble with Jesus: Was his final prayer for unity

among his followers answered? It depends on where you look.

You Christians! If ever there a more divisive movement in history, it’s yours! You people just can’t stay together. You guys just keep fighting among yourselves and splitting up and moving off in different directions. If you don’t like what’s going on in your church, you take your money and walk. Sometimes, a whole group of you jump ship and make your own deal somewhere else. There’s enough of this kind of thing going on; why would we ever need religion to show us how it’s done? May your God help you.

Fair enough. It’s happened before, and likely it will keep happening. Many times, it’s not pretty either. Point well taken. As to “God help you”, it comes much appreciated. But if anything, know God saw it coming.

One Last Prayer

Jesus spent his final hours with his friends, the ones who had signed up with him three years ago and been on an adventure they’d never have known otherwise. They’d seen so much, heard his teachings, knew more about miracles than no other would ever know. But that night was especially poignant, for on this night, Jesus prayed a final prayer for them.

The last words we hear from persons we know are significant, both to whom they were and who we were to them. These final words are ones we play over in our minds, holding them close for the gifts they are to us. Jesus had washed their feet, talked about returning to the Father, made a promise of sending a Comforter to be with them after he left. But the last thing he gave them was a prayer.

Jesus was grateful for these men, grateful not just because they followed him but in how they were given to him, learned from him, accepted, and believed him and his message. But since he was leaving, they would learn a new way of being with him, not dependent on a living presence, but one in which they would see him, see Jesus, in others who would learn, accept, and believe his message. In all of this, Jesus prayed that God would care for them so they “may be one as we are one.” Don’t we wish it were that’s the way it is?

Yeah, it looks pretty bad when even Jesus doesn’t seem to get his prayers answered. You’d think, what hope might there be for the rest of us when we pray?

If that’s as far as you want to go in this, make what you will of it and move on. But know, understanding what God does with people is never a simplistic story.

The Un-Uniting

Granted, nothing hurts God more than broken relationships between people or with him. That’s likely why Jesus prayed so hard for these guys that night. The coming pressures on them not only in the days ahead but for the rest of their lives would crush many a weak soul. They would need each other, and they would need others of like minds to sustain Jesus’ message and ministry. Persecution and martyrdom were their future. Established religion, culture, political regimes, literally the whole world would be out to get them.

Yet, it is internal divisiveness that really wrecks a movement, and that can crash it fast. When disagreements about matters large and small take precedence, the mission and purpose are diminished, and unity lost. Jesus knew this and what they were up against.

You might even say they were set up for failure. Even Jesus’ prayer names it. He says the world hates them because they do not belong to it or rather won’t be belonged by it, owned by it, just as Jesus wouldn’t. Yet, he also said he was not asking God to take them out of the world. Instead, Jesus sends them into the world. So what do you think would happen once he wasn’t daily with them?

It’s human tendency to adapt to surroundings. Therein is the danger. You go along to get along. You become part of the system. Jesus sent them into a system flawed in all the same ways as we know it today. Centered in that system is fear and protectionisms in place resulting from that fear. Ultimately, these systemic processes are majorly opposite what Jesus had come to change.

Big Example and More

Church splits have happened since what seems like forever. Martin Luthur and the Reformation may be well known but what resulted between Roman Catholics and those known as Protestants in the 15th century is near to the proverbial drop in the buck if you’re counting how many times believers have parted ways.

The Associated Press reported late last year on the Methodist denomination recent split:

"The United Methodist Church has been undergoing a major upheaval as more than 7,000 congregations across the country, one quarter of the total, decided whether to leave the denomination or remain United Methodist. This splintering resulted from a long-simmering debate over theological differences and the role of LGBTQ people in the church…But amid increased defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches, several conservatives decided to launch the separate Global Methodist Church…

"Some regional conferences have lost hundreds of churches, including large ones. The issue isn’t only dividing conferences. In some cases, the divisions go right through the pews of individual churches, separating Methodists who have long worshipped together…

"Many departing congregations are joining the Global Methodist Church, a conservative denomination that launched more than a year ago. Others are joining smaller denominations, going independent or weighing their options. Other churches in Europe and Africa are also joining the GMC." Read the full article here.

Keeping the Faith

As hard as it’s been on both sides of the controversy, it may be helpful to know Jesus prayed in his last hours for both his immediate friends and for those of us yet to come.

Though for some reason or by some miracle, with all their arguments, mistakes, failures, abuses, and just plain messes Jesus’ followers have made throughout the last two thousand years, they are still around, still telling Jesus’ story, still doing his work, still learning, believing, and accepting what he proclaimed back then. In the end, there’s a resiliency that lasts, flawed though they sometimes appear to be, sometimes not all that different from the system they are in. Yet, they last.

The point being, despite all the major/minor theological issues and quarrels of centuries, when the usual ways of coping, finding meaning, holding on to life are pretty much shattered, people still seek God and what God is doing in individual lives.

So was Jesus’ prayer answered? Like most questions today, it depends on who you listen to. It’s truthfully said that you can find evidence for whatever you want. Just put your own spin on it. Thus was another part of Jesus’ final words and prayer for his disciples. He knew what had to be at the heart and core of what these followers would bring to change the world of its system that bends toward injustice and oppression. So he prayed,

“Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth.”

John 17:6-19

The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away

by Constance Hastings

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