Perfect Unity

“Perfect Unity”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, John 17:20-24

A Sermon Prepared for the Hollywood Presbyterian Church

May 15, 2010

Rev. Stephen A. Herring

Many areas of our lives and many areas of our world today are fragmented.  They are like broken pieces of glass, sharp fragments of what was once whole and complete.  We have lost friendships and relationships.  We have lost people we once knew and loved.  We have become mixed up and broken within our own minds.  We have brokenness in our work places, our schools, our homes, and our personal lives.  Things sometimes seem as if they are falling apart.  The divisions seem like they could overwhelm us. 

When things fall apart, we need to ask God to put them back together, and we need to take God’s word to heart where God promises us wholeness and healing. 

As I have looked at being broken and at being whole, I have come to realize that the business of being broken is only an illusion.  I have learned to call it the illusion of brokenness, or the illusion of division.  We all know what it is to be broken, and to be divided, but I am going to suggest based on our scripture lessons that this whole idea of brokenness is not real.  The brokenness and the divisions are an illusion.  What is real is the absolute, perfect unity of God in Jesus Christ. 

In order to explain this, we need to look a little more closely at the idea of brokenness and division.  There are several ways in which we experience the illusion of division. 

Personal division:  Our minds are plagued by indecisiveness, ambiguity, and the lack of focus.  We feel all mixed up.  We feel conflicting emotions, like we are of two minds on any given subject. 

Division in relationships:  This is the easiest to understand of all the forms of division we experience.  We feel separated from other people.  We do not have the closeness in relationships which we might want.  In many cases the people we have loved are just not here any more, and that is hard to deal with. 

Division within the social/political world:  This is totally obvious in politics and society.  Our society today is overwhelmed by division.  All we see in televised politics is division, division, and more division.    

Division within the practical conduct of our daily lives:  Another word for this condition is disorganization.  This is what you might call the “chaos and loose ends” department.  “Say, where did I put that form, anyway?” 

Division in our relationship with God:  Here we get to the very heart of the matter.  We feel separated from God, and so we feel fragmented.  What should be whole in our lives feels broken.  What should be a smooth, functional surface is a sharp set of shards and pieces.  We need wholeness in our relationship with God. 

Based on our scripture readings for today, I am going to suggest that none of these divisions are as real or as powerful as we might think they are.  I believe that there is a powerful illusion that captivates us most of the time.  This illusion is the idea that our lives are not whole.  By not being whole, I mean that we feel and we believe in the brokenness which rules our lives.  We believe in the power of that which divides us more than we believe in that which unites us.  We allow ourselves to believe that the power of division is greater than the power of unity.  

In order to make this claim I must step out completely in faith.  My faith is in a principle of unity, an idea of oneness which exists as a foundation for everything in our world.  For me personally this principle of oneness, this principle of unity is God.  I believe with all of my heart that there is a powerful cohesive force which brings all the disparate elements, all of the fragmented pieces, all the divided parts of our world together into one amazing whole.  What happens to us as we go about the practical business of living from day to day is that we forget all about the oneness we once knew, and we get completely distracted by all of the forces of division. 

In order to explain this principle of unity, I need to begin with a set of scriptures.  First, let us begin at the beginning. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  (John 1:1) A “word” is something which has meaning.  Therefore, this Word, or “Logos” which was at the beginning also has meaning.  The meaning of the Logos –Word, the “Word Principle” from the start of creation is the meaning that belongs to everything in the world.  Based on this scripture we can develop the assumption that everything in the created universe has meaning.  It all means something.  Everything belongs as a smaller part of a larger whole.  This larger whole is the ultimate meaning with which God has blessed the entire universe since the moment of its creation.    

One of the ways people get into serious trouble in the world is by allowing themselves to think that something has no meaning.  Say you had the opportunity to steal something.  No one would ever know that you stole it, and you would never get caught.  Would you steal it?  If the act itself has meaning for you, you would decide to do the right thing, and follow the commandment not to steal.  What I am suggesting is that crimes happen when people allow themselves to believe that their actions have no meaning.  Laws are ways we have in society of reminding each other that the actions we take do have meaning.  Laws remind us that there are certain basic principles which we have agreed to follow. 

The Logos, or “Word Principle” teaches us that every single aspect of our created world has significance within the mind of God.  The ancient Greeks went to great lengths to understand, to develop, and to explain this “Word Principle.”  If you want more information about it, I would direct you to read the works of Plato, Aristotle, and the rest of Greek Philosophy. 

This “Word Principle” would be hard for us to understand all by itself were it not for John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, the Book of Revelation, and the Three Letters of John.  What John did was to help us to see that the “Logos”, the “Word Principle” of Ancient Greek Philosophy is the same as JESUS.  What John’s Gospel does is to explain to us that Jesus IS the primordial Word.  Jesus is the Logos.  Jesus is the “Word Principle.”  Jesus, in and by his person, embodies the very essence of that idea by which all things in heaven and on earth have their meaning.  Jesus is the meaning, and he is the giver of meaning to all things we experience.  That is why it is so important for us to have a personal relationship with him. 

A really easy way to understand this is by looking at what Jesus teaches us about death.  Without Jesus, death has very little meaning.  With Jesus, death has full meaning.  It is the way we return to God.  The same thing holds true for suffering.  Without Jesus, suffering has little or no meaning.  With Jesus, and by virtue of his suffering, our suffering all has meaning.  His suffering gives meaning to our suffering.  His death gives our death its ultimate meaning by showing us the way to eternal life.  Without Jesus, there is precious little meaning to life.  With Jesus, it all has meaning. 

Another easy way to understand the idea of the essential unity of all things is by the power of light.  Regarding the ‘Word Principle”, John says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  (John 1:4-5)  John also says this later on:  “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.”  (I John 1:5)  What gives meaning to all things in the created universe is the principle of light.  Even living things, like plants, or animals, or germs all define themselves by their relationship to light.  They either move toward it or they move away from it.  They are either going to seek light or stay away from it.  Light is what lets us perceive the meaning which is behind every object in our world.  Light transforms a world of meaninglessness into a world of meaning.  Light gives meaning, so God is light.   

The Logos, or “Word Principle”, and the “Light-which-is-God”,  all work to show us the essential perfect unity which is at the basis of all created things. 

The next scripture we can look at is Deuteronomy 6:4-5.  “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.”  Another way of translating this is to say; “Yahweh our God, Yahweh is ONE.”  This is an amazing verse in Hebrew because it takes the sacred four letter name of God, YHWH, and it proclaims that this Tetragramiton, this four-fold concept of God is actually and ultimately ONE.  The ancient Hebrews had developed a system based on the four letters of God’s name, called Kabala.  This system used the four directions and the four seasons, and several other ways of understanding the number four to explain the nature of God and the nature of the created universe.   In this passage though, Moses is reminding us that the essential and absolute unity of God comes first.  Moses explains that we are supposed to respond to the perfect unity of God by loving God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.  In other words, God is totally ONE, and we must respond to God’s ONENESS by loving God with one heart, one mind, and one strength. 

Jesus returns to this unity teaching in his prayer to God before his crucifixion.  In this prayer, which Jesus offers the moment before everything would seem to be falling apart, Jesus says; “The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they might become perfectly one...”  (John 17:22-23)  Another way to translate this verse is to say; “…that they may be perfected in oneness…”  Jesus is praying for us here that we might wake up from our illusion of division.  He is asking God to help us to realize that our world is only divided if we choose to see it as divided.  Our world is only divided if we allow it to be divided.  Our minds are only divided if we allow them to be divided.  Our relationships are only divided if we allow division to have power.  The Universe exists in perfect unity according to the Word of God.  This unity is complete.  It is perfect.  It lacks nothing.  It is completely whole and completely at peace.  This unity is the Light, the Glory which God gave to Jesus and which Jesus gave to us.  All we need to do is to accept that glory, that Light, that ultimate meaning, that Logos-Word, and make it part of our lives.  Then we will not believe so much in all that could divide us within or without.  With the absolute unity of Jesus Christ, we can move toward wholeness in every corner of our lives.  In Jesus we can find our perfect unity.  Now that illusion of division will still be there.  Things will still seem to be broken, and less than whole in our lives.  What we can do though is to use God’s word to help ourselves focus more on the unity than we do on the brokenness.  We can celebrate, magnify, and love that essential unity which is in and through all things.  Jesus is our Lord.  Let us love him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might.  Amen.