Seventh Sunday of Easter, rcl yr a, 2023
ACTS 1:6-14; PSALM 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 PETER 4:12-14; 5:6-11; JOHN 17:1-11
that they may be one
A few people have remarked, and it takes me aback a little when I hear it—a few people have recently said that I preach on community a lot. I myself hadn’t noticed! I suppose one of the vocational hazards of being a preacher is that you don’t get to hear many people preach other than yourself.
I’m sure though that we should really blame Bonhoeffer. Church-community is one of Bonhoeffer’s most central and abiding concerns, and as a result, I suppose it’s become one of my own.
The importance of community, though, whether it be the fact that I’m concerned about it, or that Bonhoeffer is concerned about it, doesn’t come from nowhere. In Scripture, community is assumed to be a central part of life, sometimes in ways that are surprising for us.
Let’s take Acts as an example. We hear that one of the first things the disciples do, after arriving back in Jerusalem after the Ascension of Jesus, is that they continued to share a common life, going back “to the room upstairs where they were staying,” and that this shared life together included “constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” We will learn more in later chapters of Acts about the community life of the disciples and the many new followers of Jesus. The community of followers of Jesus in Acts would do more than just pray together, they would also regularly break bread together.
We do this too, right? We join in worship, pray together during the week; we share bread at the eucharistic table, and we share together at coffee hour. The community of followers of Jesus in Acts did what we do, but to an even greater degree. That community, we are told, even shared their wealth with one another, not giving simply what they wished to give, but it was a community holding all their wealth together in common.
And while it’s quite likely that some aspects of this might be at least somewhat exaggerated, many Christians have, and continue to live life much like that early community of believers—in monastic communities, for example.
We don’t all have to be monks or nuns, though, to understand, and even experience, some of what Scripture assumes about life together—that it is difficult to take part in community, but that ultimately it is good to take part in community, precisely because we do not choose one another, but because we are given to one another; and we are given to one another in order that we might be changed, in order that we might be sanctified.
And so when we hear something in our passage from Acts today—hearing about the followers of Jesus, that, “When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying,” there’s good reason for Luke to list off all the names: “Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James … together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”
When we hear this list of names, it’s not just a bunch of people who happened to be in the same place at the same time. Acts is telling a story of a community of people given to one another, people with names, people with histories, people with baggage (we might say).
Andrew is there, the one who didn’t believe that five loaves and two fish could feed the crowd, and who must have turned in amazement to see that five loaves and two fish were, indeed, enough. Peter, James and John are there, the three who were present for Jesus’s Transfiguration; the same James and John who were rebuked by Jesus for wanting to bring fire down on a town for their lack of welcome; and the same Peter who abandoned his Lord. Mary the mother of Jesus was there, the one who thought herself too small to bear the Son of the Most High, but nevertheless trusts God.
And none of this would have been forgotten, right? We can imagine there were some tiresome jokes about whether Andrew, the one who didn’t believe about the loaves and fishes, could ever get his portions right when he cooked dinner. Or jokes about James and John, the ones who wanted it to rain fire on a village, always wanting to put too many logs on the fire. Were there jokes about just how fast Peter could run?
Probably. And the jokes probably weren’t that funny; they may have even been hurtful.
So Christian community is made up of people with checkered pasts, sometimes even more colourful presents, but all of whom are brought together in this very strange community that is the church, and not because the community is easy, but because community is difficult; and in this difficulty we learn, or have opportunities to learn, over and over sometimes, how to respond to others with kindness and love, grace and forbearance, even in those times when our face burns.
Church-community, though, isn’t just about us, and us getting along or not getting along. “Abiding” is the word John’s Gospel uses, in translation, to get across this idea of hanging out together, of staying with one another, of remaining with one another. It’s not a word used simply to describe Christian community, though; it’s first used in John to describe community with Jesus.
John will also use this word “abiding” to describe the relationship, the community, that Jesus has with the Father. And this remaining, this abiding, this community between Jesus and the Father is illustrated in our reading. What we heard this morning from John is part of a long prayer that Jesus prays expressing the depth of this relationship.
What’s extraordinary though is that what Jesus does, as he gives a prayerful demonstration of the way the Son abides and remains with the Father, and vice-versa—is that we, as church-community, are invited into the community that Jesus has with the God of Israel. And what this prayer tells us about Christian community, is that Christian community goes much deeper than simply being a bunch of misfits who have found some sort of belonging with one another; we are a bunch of misfits who can find deep belonging with one another because we have first been invited to belong with Jesus, and through that belonging with Jesus, we belong too with the Father and Son in the depth of their belonging to, and with, one another.
What Jesus asks for his community of losers and failures and misfits is that we be one just as he and the Father are one. And that taking us all in, and sharing that belonging with us, would be part of God’s own glory shared not simply with Jesus, but with us.
And so let’s end on a note of thanks today—thankfulness for a community to which we can belong. And not because we are perfect, or because we are socially intelligent, or because we are charismatic, or because we always know just what to say, just what to wear, or just what to believe—our belonging here is a belonging that bears our sin and sorrow, it bears our imperfection, it bears us as the misfits most of us are.
We belong here not on our own merit, but on the merit of another: the merit of a Jesus who has welcomed us here, and a Jesus who prays for us, a Jesus who clears a space for us within the very life of the Holy Trinity.
The Revd Cannon Dr Preston Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.