Have you ever wondered what Jesus thinks is most important?  It can be argued that there are four main things which Jesus considers most crucial.  First, he wants us to have a trusting and saving relationship with God through him.  Why do we say that this is one of the most important things?  It’s because he became incarnate to live among us and died to atone for our sins and to win our trust and faith in himself.  Second, he wants us to live a Christian life as his followers and disciples.  Jesus spent much of his ministry teaching about the Christian way of life and inviting people to follow him.  Third, Jesus wants to meet the human needs and problems of hunger, illness, physical deprivation, and injustice.  The evidence for this is that he performed miracles in relief of hunger and illness and he reminded us that, in the final judgment, we will be judged based on whether we met the needs of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner.  For in meeting those needs, we minister to Jesus himself.  There is a fourth and final thing that Jesus considers among the most important of all.  It is that his followers be one as he and the Father are one.  Why is this on such a short list of things that are most important to Jesus?

 

On the night before he died, in what is now known as his “High Priestly Prayer” recorded in John 17, Jesus prayed: “…that they may all be one: even as thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that Thou has sent me” (17:20-21).  It seems to be a prayer that we who love Jesus may be at one with him and with the Father and that, somehow, the world’s believing in him depends on our witness to him in unity.  That is to say, if his followers are splintered into many varying and conflicting entities, the witness that could draw people to him is greatly diminished.  This is not an accident – this is crucial to Jesus!

 

We Christians give a lot of attention to salvation, Christian living, ministering to the needy and seeking justice, but we often give too little attention to Jesus’ desire that we, his followers, be “one” as he is with the Father.  A short retelling of the history of Christ’s followers reveals periods of greater and lesser Christian unity.  To begin, there was a period of three or four hundred years of oneness as the Church struggled with its basic understanding of its faith and wrote the “Ecumenical Creeds,” such as the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, which have helped to bring Christians together through the centuries.  The latter years of the first millennium, however, saw the alienation between the Church in the West and the Church in the East, climaxing in the “Great Schism” in 1054 – the first official division in the Church.  Later the Church was splintered during the Reformation of the 1400’s and 1500’s, resulting in thousands of denominations by the early 21st century.  Beginning in the early 20th century, particularly with the efforts of world missionaries who experienced the ways in which division between them diminished their witness, the modern “Ecumenical Movement” was born.  

 

Here in North Carolina, the ecumenical movement manifested itself in the organization of the North Carolina Council of Churches in 1935.  The World Council of Churches was formed some thirteen years later, in 1948, with the National Council of the Churches of Christ following on its heels in 1950.  Later, the movement received welcome support during Vatican II, which was held in the 1960’s.  In 1982, the World Council of Churches published a groundbreaking ecumenical study entitled “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.”  To this day the ecumenical movement continues in bi-lateral and multi-lateral talks between and among denominations who are entering into “full communion” covenants and inter-changeability of clergy.

 

The various “statements of purpose” of these entities of the conciliar movement are both edifying and unifying: “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confesses the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures and, therefore, seeks to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”  The NC Council of Churches asserts that it “is a spiritual fellowship and cooperative agency of and for Christian churches in North Carolina.  In the Council, member churches are brought together in study, prayer and action…  The Council welcomes to its membership all those judicatories that accept Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God and Savior of the World, and that sincerely purpose to bear ecumenical witness to him...”

 

These statements continue to be embodied by these different groups in their acts of service and unity.  The NC Council of Churches, for example, undertakes work in the areas racial justice, child and family advocacy, restorative justice, the treatment of farmworkers, public education, legislative advocacy, and efforts to promote Christian unity in North Carolina.  The National Council of Churches organized Church World Service, which in the spirit of solidarity “meets basic needs of people in peril, works for justice and dignity with the poor and vulnerable, promotes peace and understanding among people of different faiths, races and nations, and affirms and preserves the dignity and integrity of Creation.”  

 

There is no doubt that the basic documents and worship literature of our various denominations call us with inspiration to the ecumenical calling – a calling we share because of our need to fulfill Christ’s prayer for unity and the Apostle Paul’s vision of a united Body.  I will conclude by offering some of those words of inspiration from my own Church, the Moravian Church in America.  I encourage you to discover what your own denomination has said about Christian unity and our ecumenical calling.

 

“We confess our share in the guilt which has manifest in the severed and divided state of Christendom.  By means of such divisions we ourselves hinder the message and power of the Gospel.  We recognize the danger of self-righteousness and judging others without love…  We realize that it is the Lord’s will that the church of Jesus Christ should give evidence of and seek unity in him with zeal and love.  We see how such unity has been promised us and laid upon us as a charge.  We recognize that through the grace of Christ the different denominations have received many gifts and that the Church of Christ may be enriched...  It is our desire that we may learn from one another and rejoice together in the riches of the love of Christ and the manifold wisdom of God.  We welcome every step that brings us nearer the goal of unity in him.”  This doctrinal position and this standard of Christian living gives rise to the following prayer in a liturgy of Christian unity: “May the variety of traditions and customs of your whole church become a multitude of lights to reveal the good news needed by people everywhere.  May the variety of our ministries and service convey your redemptive love and bind us ever closer to one another.  Grant us grace to unite in essentials, to accept diversity in non-essentials, and to love one another in all things.  Amen.”

 

BY REV. BILL MCELVEEN,

PASTOR OF  VISITATION, TRINITY MORAVIAN CHURCH, 

WINSTON-SALEM