The Right Kind Of Unity

A Man Kneels In Prayer

In Gethsemane, there is a kind of focus. The clutter fades, the noise quietens. He has been praying for some time. In those final hours, his disciples come to mind as he considers their future. So much depends on them. So now he prays.

Jesus' prayer is strikingly simple and unsettlingly demanding: only that they would be one.

A unity that goes beyond polite cooperation, that is more demanding than loose alignment. But a oneness that mirror that of the Father and the Son. So let us wait here, as his words echo into our minds again. Because we may find that this prayer not only informs our theology of unity—but also asks questions that expose how we have arranged our lives, our churches, and our loyalties.

Surely we must pay serious attention to the way our Lord prays, just before going to the cross.

He then continues a little later to pray for all of us who follow him. You and me …

The phrase is repeated – that they may be one just as we are one. The unity between us cannot be broken by denomination, class, nationality, ethnicity, neither by attitude, intelligence or education. Jesus' request, and our Father's plan is that we become one, just as God is one. This begs the question, “How is God one?”

What characterises the unity of God?

Organic, Not Organisational

Much energy is spent trying to bring together organisations. While useful, we should recognise it is not the main point at all. We have the same Father! So we have been spiritually born into the same family and we breathe the same breath of life. We are already organically united. We are branches of the same vine. Let's recognise that and allow it to modify our allegiances.

Absolute, Not Partial

There is no danger of God fragmenting or there being any internal warfare within God’s being. And there is an absolute unity between that spiritual man or woman that is inside us, that born-again part, a unity with every other Christian on the planet.

And the more we allow that born-again spirit in us to control our minds, the more we will love other Christians far and wide.

In that sense, we have no need to get more united. Instead we need to let that new person inside us, who is already organically, relationally, absolutely united do the living.

Diverse, Not Clonal

The Father is leading, powerful, awesome, overwhelming. The Son is humble, serving, caring, tender. The Spirit is creative, dynamic, disruptive. I may be pushing the distinctions, but there are undeniable characteristics here.

Similarly, we are a body of many diverse parts – toes, fingers, eyes, ears, etc. The church needs treasurers, pianists, singers, speakers, listeners, carers, watchers, waiters, prayers. The list is endless.

Organic, absolute, yet diverse.

Relational, Not Conceptual

Jesus introduced to our Father God as “Dad”. The OT tradition has God as ‘Father of the nations’. It was truly shocking when Jesus evidenced God as a personal “Dad”.

When you pray, say ‘Dad’! Abba.

Augustine is credited with formalising many of our theological ideas. But for him, theology was never dry, to be extracted, analysed, ordered and written up in an academic thesis. It was part of his relationship with God.

If our theology does not lead us towards radically new community, centred on right relationships, if it does not lead us into relationship with God, then maybe we're too conceptual!

Our western thinking habits lead us to abstracting the stories of Jesus into pure truth, sterile principles that can be treated like maths.

But instead we should develop the passion of Augustine who wrote,

Mutually Serving, Not Controlling

One of the mysteries of God is why he is expressed in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Well I cannot claim any special knowledge about this, but it seems clear to me that a single individual, can only be self-serving, and selfish. But we know that God is loving, without being self-serving, and this is how this is possible within God. One part of the Godhead serves another part.

We can see this in the ministry that Jesus receives from the angels after his temptation – angels commanded by the Father to tend to Jesus needs. We can see this in the way Jesus serves the Father day by day, in listening to what he wanted, and saying what he told him.

Do you see it as a privilege to serve? I hope so. It is not a burden, or a drag. It is not inconvenient or intrusive. It is a huge honour to serve others, to be poured out for others. It expresses that divine life in you, so that others can see God at work. Jesus says that serving is the measure of greatness. And working together with others, and for others, develops love and committment and unity.

Organic, relationaly, absolute, diverse, mutually serving.

Our Unity Is Already A Spiritual Reality

That is not a cop-out! Jesus' own prayer in the garden proves the statement true.

So let his prayer move into your present world—a world quick to divide, to defend, to draw lines and stand behind them. Let this prayer expose whether you are willing to embody what is already true in Christ. Not to settle for a cosmetic unity, but to live in the reality that God has already parented in you.

The cross that Jesus moved toward was not only the place where sin was dealt with; it was also where a new kind of humanity was unveiled—one life, shared, given, poured out. To take him seriously here is to allow that life to unsettle our instincts and reshape our habits, until our lives together begin to echo this unity for which he prayed.

But before we get very far along that path, we will need to learn more of the depth of supreme love that this unity demands.

So we look next at Hosea.

.