SO WE MAY ALL BE ONE May 4, 2008
Scripture: Acts 1:6-14, John 17:1-11
Today I will preach the first of two sermons on my belief that we are all one, a beautiful unity in diversity. Our gospel reading from John 17 is the beginning of what is known as Jesus high priestly prayer. In the portion assigned to today’s lectionary Jesus is praying for a small group of followers, the ones that God gave to Jesus as his disciples. He prays about how all mine are yours and yours are mine and further asks that the Holy Father will protect them in his name, “so that they may be one, as we are one.” (11 b) Later in this same chapter in verses 20-23 Jesus says he also asks on behalf of others, not part of these known followers that they may all be one.
I want to share with you the image of oneness as a spoked wheel, a image that has been used at least as far back as Lao Tzu in Chapter 11 of the Tao when he writes, “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.” The Christian desert fathers, the early Christian mystics of the third century also used this image. Let me share with you the way Mark Nepo,a Jewish Buddhist describes this wheel:
“Imagine that each of us is a spoke in an Infinite Wheel, and though each spoke is essential in keeping the Wheel whole, no two spokes are the same. Clearly, in a spoked wheel, the spokes separate as they each move out to support a different part of the rim. And clearly, they are all connected in a central hub that gives them the strength to form a wheel.
We could say that the rim of that Wheel is our sense of community, family and relationship, and the common hub where all the spokes join is the one center where all souls meet. So, as I move out into the world, I live out my uniqueness, but when I dare to look into my core, I come upon the one common Center where all lives begin. In that center we are one and the same.” (The Exquisite Risk, p. 144),
What Nepo describes is an image for how we are all linked together and at the center is the source of all being, God—by whatever name we call that Source. It is the shared sacred unity of all life, the soul, the heart. The Hindus say Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, the Spanish have the word El Meollo—that which is deeper that connects the one to many, for Christians it’s the Holy Spirit, that same Holy Spirit that Jesus promised us as he left us in the first chapter of Acts, the same Holy Spirit that came on Pentecost with the sound of a violent wind. This center, this hub of the Wheel signifies that deep realm of being where all souls meet. This happens when we pursue the truth of who we are. As we mysteriously look deeply into each other, we find ourselves. My belief is that no matter the outward diversity that identifies us, deep inside we have common desires and fears. The Beloved Community happens when we allow ourselves to reach out humbly in love and openness. No one, no religion, no one way in my opinion, holds all the answers. To quote Mark Nepo again, “All ways inform each other. Inevitably, all parts are necessary. Without the rim, there is no wheel. Without the center, the spokes cannot support a rim. Without the spokes, the center and rim are useless to the living…Without Spirit and a common ground of being, there is not enough strength in who we are to support any kind of community. And without our beautifully unique selves, Spirit and community will never inform each other.” (p. 142)
Unity does not mean sameness. Jesus was not specific in describing how we would all be one but his prayer clearly was for oneness not sameness. I never heard Jesus pray that we would all be the same in our beliefs. It is clear in both Acts and Paul’s Epistles that the early Christian communities had many disagreements. Just because we do not agree doesn’t mean that we have to build fences and not relate to each other. I’d like to think of that ‘Promised land” as a place where we will all be safe in sharing our disagreements, our differences. If we acknowledge the Hub as the center of our diverse lives, if we honor and respect each other in spite of our differences, I believe that process and that diversity will be a source of strength and joy. If we can listen to and show agape love to others, if we can be authentically whole hearted, all embracing, I believe we can create that Beloved Community that Dr. ML King talked so much about. For him the Beloved Community was a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. As King became more exposed to oppressed peoples of many races and in many nations, he became more and more focused on the unity of humanity. He liked to talk about a “worldhouse”, a metaphor which captured for him the ideal of a world based on love, justice, and equal opportunity where loyalties to race, class, sex, tribe, religion, political differences, ethnicity and nationality would be transcended.
This notion that we are all expressions of the same Original Being, this Divine Presence that keeps expressing itself uniquely through all beings as we search for a shared truth is at the heart of the Hindu concept Thou Art That which teaches that we need to die to our smaller selves in order to rise to a vision that we share the same human nature with all others. In truth as hard as it is to accept, we are indeed each other—as beautiful and as brutal as the other. About 20 years ago I heard a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh titled “Call Me by My True Names”. It made such an impact on me and may have even been influential in my beliefs about oneness today. In the poem, which he wrote after a long mediation, there are three characters: a pirate, a girl, and himself. It’s a long poem but I would like to share it now:
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood"
to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Although this poem may be disconcerting, it certainly was to me the first time I heard it, it says to me that as I work on myself to be more loving, more compassionate, more peaceful, more respectful I influence the core of all that is. I believe in a God that loves us all, forgives us and strengthens us. In our reading from Acts, Jesus asks us to be his witnesses in the world, much like that great commissioning that comes at the end of the gospel of Matthew. After Jesus left the disciples, they returned to Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. They went to the room where they were staying and they devoted themselves to prayer along with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus. I urge you not to forget the importance of prayer as you strive to recognize truth for you. Remember that one of the ways that prayer works is that it changes the person that prays. As I pray to see the Christ in all I meet, I believe that God opens my eyes in a new way and I am able to get closer to helping bring about the Beloved Community. I pray that as we participate in Holy Communion as the body of Christ that we will open not just our eyes but our hearts to the Oneness of Creation. Let us ask for the courage to pray with Jesus that we may all be One. Amen.
Today I will preach the first of two sermons on my belief that we are all one, a beautiful unity in diversity. Our gospel reading from John 17 is the beginning of what is known as Jesus high priestly prayer. In the portion assigned to today’s lectionary Jesus is praying for a small group of followers, the ones that God gave to Jesus as his disciples. He prays about how all mine are yours and yours are mine and further asks that the Holy Father will protect them in his name, “so that they may be one, as we are one.” (11 b) Later in this same chapter in verses 20-23 Jesus says he also asks on behalf of others, not part of these known followers that they may all be one.
I want to share with you the image of oneness as a spoked wheel, a image that has been used at least as far back as Lao Tzu in Chapter 11 of the Tao when he writes, “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.” The Christian desert fathers, the early Christian mystics of the third century also used this image. Let me share with you the way Mark Nepo,a Jewish Buddhist describes this wheel:
“Imagine that each of us is a spoke in an Infinite Wheel, and though each spoke is essential in keeping the Wheel whole, no two spokes are the same. Clearly, in a spoked wheel, the spokes separate as they each move out to support a different part of the rim. And clearly, they are all connected in a central hub that gives them the strength to form a wheel.
We could say that the rim of that Wheel is our sense of community, family and relationship, and the common hub where all the spokes join is the one center where all souls meet. So, as I move out into the world, I live out my uniqueness, but when I dare to look into my core, I come upon the one common Center where all lives begin. In that center we are one and the same.” (The Exquisite Risk, p. 144),
What Nepo describes is an image for how we are all linked together and at the center is the source of all being, God—by whatever name we call that Source. It is the shared sacred unity of all life, the soul, the heart. The Hindus say Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, the Spanish have the word El Meollo—that which is deeper that connects the one to many, for Christians it’s the Holy Spirit, that same Holy Spirit that Jesus promised us as he left us in the first chapter of Acts, the same Holy Spirit that came on Pentecost with the sound of a violent wind. This center, this hub of the Wheel signifies that deep realm of being where all souls meet. This happens when we pursue the truth of who we are. As we mysteriously look deeply into each other, we find ourselves. My belief is that no matter the outward diversity that identifies us, deep inside we have common desires and fears. The Beloved Community happens when we allow ourselves to reach out humbly in love and openness. No one, no religion, no one way in my opinion, holds all the answers. To quote Mark Nepo again, “All ways inform each other. Inevitably, all parts are necessary. Without the rim, there is no wheel. Without the center, the spokes cannot support a rim. Without the spokes, the center and rim are useless to the living…Without Spirit and a common ground of being, there is not enough strength in who we are to support any kind of community. And without our beautifully unique selves, Spirit and community will never inform each other.” (p. 142)
Unity does not mean sameness. Jesus was not specific in describing how we would all be one but his prayer clearly was for oneness not sameness. I never heard Jesus pray that we would all be the same in our beliefs. It is clear in both Acts and Paul’s Epistles that the early Christian communities had many disagreements. Just because we do not agree doesn’t mean that we have to build fences and not relate to each other. I’d like to think of that ‘Promised land” as a place where we will all be safe in sharing our disagreements, our differences. If we acknowledge the Hub as the center of our diverse lives, if we honor and respect each other in spite of our differences, I believe that process and that diversity will be a source of strength and joy. If we can listen to and show agape love to others, if we can be authentically whole hearted, all embracing, I believe we can create that Beloved Community that Dr. ML King talked so much about. For him the Beloved Community was a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. As King became more exposed to oppressed peoples of many races and in many nations, he became more and more focused on the unity of humanity. He liked to talk about a “worldhouse”, a metaphor which captured for him the ideal of a world based on love, justice, and equal opportunity where loyalties to race, class, sex, tribe, religion, political differences, ethnicity and nationality would be transcended.
This notion that we are all expressions of the same Original Being, this Divine Presence that keeps expressing itself uniquely through all beings as we search for a shared truth is at the heart of the Hindu concept Thou Art That which teaches that we need to die to our smaller selves in order to rise to a vision that we share the same human nature with all others. In truth as hard as it is to accept, we are indeed each other—as beautiful and as brutal as the other. About 20 years ago I heard a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh titled “Call Me by My True Names”. It made such an impact on me and may have even been influential in my beliefs about oneness today. In the poem, which he wrote after a long mediation, there are three characters: a pirate, a girl, and himself. It’s a long poem but I would like to share it now:
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood"
to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Although this poem may be disconcerting, it certainly was to me the first time I heard it, it says to me that as I work on myself to be more loving, more compassionate, more peaceful, more respectful I influence the core of all that is. I believe in a God that loves us all, forgives us and strengthens us. In our reading from Acts, Jesus asks us to be his witnesses in the world, much like that great commissioning that comes at the end of the gospel of Matthew. After Jesus left the disciples, they returned to Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. They went to the room where they were staying and they devoted themselves to prayer along with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus. I urge you not to forget the importance of prayer as you strive to recognize truth for you. Remember that one of the ways that prayer works is that it changes the person that prays. As I pray to see the Christ in all I meet, I believe that God opens my eyes in a new way and I am able to get closer to helping bring about the Beloved Community. I pray that as we participate in Holy Communion as the body of Christ that we will open not just our eyes but our hearts to the Oneness of Creation. Let us ask for the courage to pray with Jesus that we may all be One. Amen.
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 6:43 AM
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