The Power of One
Acts 1:6–14, John 17:1–11
Rev. Tom Quigley
May 4, 2008
University Christian Church, Seattle

Prayer: Gracious God, we seek now to open our minds and our hearts to the presence of Your Word among us. May these words, and may our thoughts during these next few moments, open our lives to your will and help us to join with you in shaping the kind of human community you would have us become. May what we do here strengthen the Church – your Church, the whole Church. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Last Monday morning’s Washington Post carried an interesting little story about Missing Teaspoons. It seems that the folks in charge of ordering supplies and equipment at some sort of a public health institute in Australia were noticing that they kept missing teaspoons from their common areas – the cafeterias and break areas where the staff would gather for coffee or tea. It had been a long-time problem, and so some of the researchers were asked to figure out “where had all the bloody teaspoons gone?” As the research team looked into the question they discovered that the workers faced a fairly common dilemma. Many felt that it would be nice to have a teaspoon right at their desk, ready and available for whenever they needed it. If they stole teaspoons from the common areas to use at their desks, they would have exclusive use of them, but of course there would then be a decline in the public supply and sometime, when they were in the common area, there might not be any left for them to use. If, on the other hand, they acted in the common good and left the teaspoons where they were supposed to be, other people might steal them and they would be left without either public or private spoons. Based on the experience in their workplace, the researchers calculated that 18 million teaspoons were stolen each year in Melbourne! Laid end to end, they would cover over 1,600 miles and would weigh 360 metric tons! But the researchers also noted something else that is very interesting. Although the teaspoons were disappearing from all sections of the institute, they were disappearing more slowly from common areas used by people who worked closely together, who had long-term relationships of trust, compared with the areas used mostly by strangers.

So, why was the Washington Post so interested in teaspoons missing from a public health office in Australia? Well, the newspaper was interested, as most of us are these days, in the protracted battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their presidential campaigns. And so the Post was dealing with the concept of what is called the “tragedy of the commons.”

A tragedy of the commons occurs when someone who is acting rationally pursuing their own self-interest, actually brings about collective ruin. As an example, the article reported on an experiment where volunteers were asked to play the role of timber companies. They were told they could harvest a certain number of acres per year, and they were told how quickly the forest could replenish itself. The question was whether the timber companies, on their own, would restrict themselves to taking less than half the timber they were allowed. If everyone did this, the forest would replenish itself forever, and that would create the greatest wealth over the long term. But because the volunteers didn’t know whether their careful treatment and long-term thinking would be reciprocated by others or exploited by their competitors, people raced to cut as much timber as they could and quickly ruined the forests.

The article concludes that we may be witnessing a “tragedy of the commons” in the Clinton/Obama contest. A perfectly rational Senator Clinton and a perfectly rational Senator Obama – each of them acting in their own self interest – may actually be driving their party over a cliff. The only way to prevent tragedies of the commons is to set up structures in advance that reward long term thinking and restrict, or punish, short-term selfishness.

This dynamic, this struggle between self interest and the common good seems to me to be a dominant theme of life in our world these days. In our discussions about global climate change, or energy independence, or the issue of budget earmarks in the federal or state budgets, or the way to lasting and genuine peace between Israel and the Palestinian people, or the future status of Jerusalem, the underlying theme is whether those with power will act in their own selfish interest at the expense of others and the future, or whether those engaged in a particular struggle can find their way together to a win-win solution that will benefit all and protect the future.

Looking out for “number one” or a concern about community. Independence or interdependence. Global north vs. the Global south. The growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Racial polarization. Issues around gender, or sexual orientation, or hostility toward immigrants. These kinds of issues are not only dominating our news and the television talk shows, but they are testing relationships within our neighborhoods, our congregations, our workplaces and within our families.

Today’s reading from the gospel of John is the beginning of a long prayer of Jesus as he and his little community of disciples were finishing their dinner conversation on that night when he was arrested. The prayer of Jesus invites us, I think, to reflect on the importance that Jesus placed on the nature of that little community and what it would take for them to continue his mission in the world. “Protect them in your name, so that they may be one, as we are one,” he prayed. And later he prayed, “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.” Jesus prayed for the protection and the unity of his disciples, so that the world might believe, so that their witness would be credible.

Jesus had spent that evening preparing his disciples for what would come after he left them. He began the evening by washing his Disciples feet, showing them, demonstrating to them the life of service he wanted them to lead. He gave them the new commandment of love – “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another, and by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” He promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit in their future ministry. They shared their last supper together, and then Jesus prayed that God would protect them and that they would find the kind of unity with each other that Jesus and God shared. He then went to a garden with a few of them, was arrested there, and soon thereafter was brought to trial, quickly convicted and sentenced to death.

So this prayer provides some important insights into what Jesus was thinking about and what he cared most about as he faced the ultimate threat of his own death. Listen again to some of his words.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.” Jesus acknowledges that his close followers weren’t particularly outstanding people. They were from “the world.” They were the common folks, like us, unsure of themselves, at times unsteady and indecisive. He probably could have complained about their mediocrity, but instead he spoke of them respectfully, as if they were a treasure that God had given to him.

“…and they have kept your word” he prays. They have been faithful. Actually that was quite a generous assessment that he was making about them, from what we know about their doubts and confusion over what Jesus was really all about or what his message really was. But then, maybe it makes sense that he would call God’s attention to their good qualities and sort of gloss over their shortcomings.

“…Protect them, Holy Father, in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” It is almost a pleading for God to protect them and make them one. Jesus knew that they would need to be strong together to face what would be coming in the next few days, and whatever would come next.

I wonder sometimes if Jesus had any clue at all about how divided and divisive the Church would become in the years and centuries that followed. Did he even have an inkling that the church would become so fractured over issues of theology, worship practices, biblical interpretation, authority, nationalism, racism, sexual identity, gender and on and on? Did he foresee that the Church’s witness would be so suspect, and that its claims about the unity of the human family, and the commandment to love one another, would seem so incredible to those on the outside who watched the scandal of division within the Body of Christ?

For centuries the history of the Church was marked by hostility and division. The modern ecumenical movement, beginning in the middle of the last century, in the aftermath of the two world wars, is an attempt to overcome some of those divisions. In fits and starts over the past sixty years, some insights have been gained about the nature of the Church’s unity and the importance of unity for its mission in the world. There is a long way to go, of course, but there is now some emerging consensus about some of the issues that have divided the churches in the past.

There is consensus, for instance, that unity is a gift. Unity is not so much a goal to be achieved, but a gift to be received. The Church is one through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. There is consensus that unity and diversity are not in opposition to each other. Unity does not imply giving up identity or blending into a blur through some sort of corporate merger of denominations or congregations. It has more to do with recognizing the gifts that the churches bring to each other –from their unique and particular histories, from their traditions, from their closely held values – and by bringing those gifts to each other strengthening the whole. Unity does not mean uniformity.

The insights that have led to the current consensus about Christian unity are grounded in that prayer of Jesus in John’s gospel. Jesus prayed, that the disciples “may be one, as you and I are one.” Jesus wasn’t assuming a kind of blurring of identity. Just as he and God were separate and distinct but were deeply and forever united, he was praying that the disciples would remain distinct persons, with their own unique gifts, but that they would recognize that they were one with each other, and therefore one with Jesus and God.

The congregations of the University District have been fashioning some new ways of being Church together which are grounded in the insights of this prayer and the emerging consensus of the ecumenical movement. Last week our congregation approved the basic documents of the University District Ecumenical Parish. The preamble to the constitution leads off with a reference to Jesus’ prayer: “Hearing Christ’s prayer that all who follow him may be one and building upon decades of cooperation among the churches of the University District of Seattle, the University District Ecumenical Parish is a visible expression of the essential unity of the Church as the Body of Christ…We covenant with each other to witness to God’s gift of unity by drawing upon the insights and commitments of our diverse traditions as we gather for worship, …fellowship, to do justice and to pursue peace…”

And the challenge and opportunity that will be before us as later this year we consider our participation in the University District Ecumenical Campus is how we can bring to each other in very concrete ways our unique insights and gifts and at the same time strengthen the witness of the whole church within the life of this community as we learn and support each other and as we serve together in response to the needs of others. By sharing the gifts of our separate traditions, and at the same time retaining our particular identities, can we offer a more credible model of ministry to a broken and divided world?

After she was installed as our General Minister and President, Sharon Watkins convened a group of people to work on a brief statement of identity for the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. We printed that as our meditation for this morning’s service. “We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.”

I really like it. I think it says in a few very compelling words what we are about as Disciples and it identifies one of the unique gifts that we bring to the broader Church, and through the Church to a broken and hurting world.

For Disciples, the unity of the Church is most clearly represented at the Table. We are not naïve about whether the church’s unity is being expressed in the Eucharist. We know that our divisions within the Body of Christ are most evident and most painful in the fact that we are not yet able to share together in the Lord’s Supper. But we claim as one of our insights in our identity statement that “as part of the one body of Christ we welcome all to the Lord’s table, as God has welcomed us.”

This gift of our Disciples movement was made visible most clearly to me a number of years ago during communion at First Christian Church in Minneapolis. Some of you know that I am a product of an ecumenical marriage. My father was a life-long Disciple and my mother a life-long Roman Catholic. When they were married, they decided that they would each continue in their own churches and they promised that they would raise their children to be Roman Catholic. So I was baptized in the Roman Catholic church as an infant. But when I was four, my sister was born. She had a brain injury in the birth process and was subject to seizures. So, on Sunday mornings, in order to keep me out of my mother’s hair so that she could care for my sister, my father started to take me to the Disciples church with him. And when I was about six, and could have resumed my participation in the Catholic Church, my father, and probably my grandmother, were unwilling to give me up. As a result, my parents were violating the promise they had made. And they also had begun to practice birth control so that other children would not be conceived. For both of those reasons, my mother believed and was told that she could not participate in the Eucharist when she attended Mass. For the next forty years, she worshiped every Sunday, but when it came time for communion, she would sit in the pew and feel the pain of exclusion. When she visited us, occasionally she would go to church with us. So she was familiar with the Disciples and with our different understanding of who was welcome at the table. She had probably heard on many occasions an invitation that said something like, “this is the Lord’s Table and all are welcome here.” But on a particular Sunday in Minneapolis, my mother heard those words clearly addressed to her. And when the bread and cup were passed, she ate and drank. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe what I had witnessed. And when we talked about it later, she said she heard those words and she felt that the invitation was directed to her. When she returned home, she made an appointment with the priest at her parish, and went in to tell him what she had done and to ask him to help her figure out what had happened to her. She told her story of forty years of feeling she was denied the Eucharist at her own church. Even after I was grown and ordained as a Disciple minister, and after my Father had died and birth control was no longer an issue, she was still feeling the pain of being excluded from the table of the Lord. The priest was able to give her a different understanding of the Church’s teachings than she had received so long ago, and for the remainder of her life she was reconciled with her Church and was able to participate in the Eucharist every week. Those simple words of hospitality and welcome uttered at the Table in a Disciples congregation had made it possible for my mother to be reconciled and to become a full participant in the life of her Church. For me that is a powerful witness to the value of one of the unique insights and gifts that our movement brings to the whole church.

I am convinced that there are unique insights and particular gifts in the histories, the traditions and the perspectives of other churches as well, and that as we are able to find creative ways to offer those gifts to each other and receive those gifts from each other, the whole Church will be strengthened in its witness to a broken, hurting and warring culture. The prayer of Jesus, that we may be one, is not just a prayer for the unity of that little band of mediocre followers. It is a prayer for the well-being of the whole of creation, for the world that God so loved that he sent his only Son.