Sermon - Easter 7 "singing as one"

Sermon – Easter 7
John 17:20-26
May 16, 2010
“singing as one”

You can tell its campaign season again with all the campaign adds going out. It’s clear that our political situation and our nation is polarized and divided and this the situation in Washington continues to prevent progress on legislating.
Often our differences divide us, drawing borders and building walls. We divide into camps and like-minded groups. We build physical borders, walls, fences, barriers. We also build figurative walls between ourselves based on our differences real or perceived.
We have a long history of division in the Church, the fact that there are hundreds of denominations, and that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in the week. In the ELCA there are divisions, particularly now with churches leaving and withdrawing support from the ELCA. Even here at Trinity we have divisions.

Amid such bitter polarization in our nation and divisions in our Church, in today’s Gospel (John 17:20-26) Jesus prays, and this right before he was to die. What was Jesus’ main concern and deepest prayer for the Church right before he died?
Jesus prays: “that they may all be ONE, as we (Jesus and God) are ONE.” This was the deepest prayer of Jesus’ heart before he died: that we would be ONE.
Jesus was very aware that when he left, his disciples might in some ways look like the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He knew the human disposition to build walls, and divide into smaller likeminded groups. He knew that these divisions among his disciples were all the more likely because of the persecution they were sure to face. He also knew that the Church in 2010 would be faced with the same problem of division.

On this last Sunday of Easter, we eagerly anticipate next week, the Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. We recognize our inability to be ONE on our own, and that it is the Holy Spirit that makes us ONE, just as God and Jesus are ONE. The Holy Spirit, the one who intercedes, reconciles and mediates between us and our broken relationships. No border we build can divide the unity that Christ established through the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Holy Spirit breaks down the barriers we build to divide us.

Throughout the book of Acts we see the Holy Spirit breaking down barriers. The Holy Spirit in Pentecost gives the people the ability to understand other languages. The Holy Spirit breaks down barriers between the Jews and Gentiles. And in today’s lesson (Acts 16:16-34): Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten with rods and thrown into prison, in the innermost cell, with their feet fastened to stocks. Stuck in this cold, dark prison cell, it couldn’t get much worse for Paul and Silas, with this barrier of the prison door right in front of them.

But what did they do? They started praying and singing hymns to God.
Even though they were divided from the other prisoners, they were listening to them. Then there was an earthquake, that shook the foundations of the prison,
which opened the doors and unfastened the chains. This occasioned the unity of Paul and Silas as prisoners with their jailer, and he was baptized, and then washed the wounds of Paul and Silas.
The Holy Spirit makes us ONE and shakes our foundations, breaking down our walls, and then brings us together in baptism and the washing of wounds.

As we worship together as a diverse community, we sing with one voice, the Holy Spirit is actively breaking down walls and uniting us in the peace of the risen Christ. As we sing together and pray together, may we hear the Holy Spirit uniting us. And as we go up to the table, may we taste in the bread and wine, what real unity in Christ tastes like.
As Paul and Silas sang, when we sing, may the Holy Spirit shake our foundations, freeing us from what binds us, and breaking down all the barriers that divide us, and then bring us together in baptism and the washing of wounds. May the Spirit of the risen Christ that makes us ONE, be with you now and forever. Amen.