I mentioned a few weeks ago how predictable the lectionary is through the Easter season. You always get the story of “Doubting Thomas” on the Sunday after Easter. Fourth Sunday of Easter is always Good Shepherd Sunday and the Seventh Sunday of Easter is always some portion of what’s known as the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus in John 17. Let’s be honest … did you find yourself a little confused with the circular referencing in that passage from John? If you did, you are not alone! The prayer in its entirety is a long and rambling prayer with lots of repetition: glory, glorify, yours/mine, mine/yours. It can be pretty overwhelming can’t it? It’s no wonder so many preachers just move the story of the Ascension, which happened last Thursday, to this Sunday … apparently preaching about Jesus flying up in the sky is easier!

But this prayer occurs here, on this Sunday between Ascension and Pentecost, for a good reason. The Ascension reminds us that we no longer have the bodily presence of Jesus in our midst to guide us. Even though Luke tells us the disciples were joyous at the Ascension, there is still a change in how they will relate to Jesus in a different way. His absence is felt. This prayer reminds us that Christ is still with us and still interceding for us to the Father. We can fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus is now gone and his time is somehow “over” and then the Holy Spirit comes and that’s what we are waiting for. That idea is the heresy of modalism condemned as heresy as early as 262 by Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, and addressed in the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. Christ is still active and present to the Church through the sacraments and continues to pray for us – both as a community and as individuals.

While this prayer is long and rambling, there is one point which kept coming up as I prayed with this passage – “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Jesus is praying for our protection and that we may be one. The latter sounds like a pretty impossible thing, doesn’t it? How can we possibly be “one” when we don’t see eye to eye? How can we be one if we disagree?

Back in seminary, I did an independent study course which evolved into a research paper contrasting the concept of unity with uniformity. The backdrop was comparing the current controversies over sexual orientation and LGBT inclusion in the Church with the Reformation era Vestments Controversy (yes, we Anglicans actually argued about liturgical clothing … think of it as “What Not to Wear: The Reformation Edition”). I realized I bit off more than I could chew with this paper, and it really has the beginnings of a doctoral thesis, but what came out of it for me was this idea that unity and uniformity are really two different ideas which sit on a continuum. In light of our reading, I’ll share with you my ideas on this … and as Rod Serling used to say, they are “submitted for your approval” – see if they resonate for you.

On the one end of the continuum, there is unity. The way I experience this is quite mystical. It is the idea that a group of people are brought together for a common purpose and in so doing that gathering incorporates and celebrates the diversity of its members. St. Paul spoke of this in his metaphor of the Body of Christ being made up of many diverse members. The Church, as an entity, has a common purpose – our final purpose is Divine union, both individually and corporately. This kind of unity is witnessed in stories like Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch that we heard a few weeks ago. This new Church made space and included people like the gender queer eunuch who had historically been excluded! Women, people with disabilities, the gender queer, Gentiles … people who otherwise would not have been brought together suddenly found themselves part of this mystical Body of Christ – finding a mystical unity which could withstand the tension of their diversity and even celebrated it as the gathering sought Divine union in Christ.

On the other end of the continuum, we find uniformity. We often confuse uniformity with unity because they share the same goal – bringing together a group of people for a common purpose. Uniformity differs from unity, though, in that uniformity does not have a high tolerance for diversity. Uniformity will sacrifice diversity for the sake of the common goal. Uniformity can be characterized by similarity of ideas and beliefs, modes of dress and behavior.

Human life is lived somewhere between these two poles, regardless of which groupings we consider. Each of the ends has its strengths and weaknesses. Unity embraces diversity but can also be very inefficient because of that diversity. Embracing unity can leave us stuck and unable to accomplish anything because we struggle to find common ground. Uniformity, on the other hand, is quite efficient but it will tend to cast out and exclude those who don’t fall in lock step with the group ideals. Every group, whether political or ecclesial, falls somewhere on this continuum.

Under stress, humans will tend to move towards uniformity to get to a resolution of whatever is causing the anxiety. We see that a lot in our political landscape – the pressure to “toe the party line” and make sure what you say conforms to the party’s “talking points.” When humans are less anxious, they will move back towards unity and an embracing of more diversity.

We see this in the various expressions of Christianity too. Some denominations land closer to the uniformity end of the spectrum and others towards the unity end. Many of you here at Grace have come from churches which lie more towards the pole of uniformity. An example of this is how the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod exclude from Holy Communion anyone who does not belong to their church. I have debated Roman Catholic priests on this topic because the official teaching from the Pope and Magisterium states that the Eucharist is a symbol of Christian “unity” and because we are “not yet one”, those outside the Roman Catholic Church may not receive Eucharist. I suggest this is an attempt to disguise a demand for uniformity as unity. I’ve posed the question that if the Last Supper is the pattern for Eucharist (with which we agree) and if the Eucharist is a symbol of “unity” (with which we agree) then why was Judas not excluded from the supper? He clearly was not at “unity,” as they define it, with Jesus in that moment. Jesus, even knowing Judas would betray him, dipped the bread in the dish and handed it to Judas! I have yet to find a Roman Catholic priest who can give me a reasonable answer to my question. I suggest it is because this is a case where “unity” and “uniformity” are being confused. If Jesus had demanded “uniformity,” Judas would have been excluded and driven out of the group. But Jesus did not demand “uniformity” – his inclusion of Judas was that mystical “unity” which could even embrace the deep pain of betrayal … and that is a truly scandalous Gospel!

There are times when people come to the Episcopal Church and get frustrated because we seem to lack hard and fast answers for their questions. This is because we land more on the end of unity on this spectrum than uniformity (although we do like to dress alike and color code our clergy shirts). It can be maddening for some when they ask about whether we believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation and I reply, “Yes … and we even make space for those who see it as memorial only … and even for those who really don’t know what they believe but know there’s something mystical going on. We call that the ‘Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist’ … but we don’t spend a lot of time defining it.” We make space for a lot here … and that can be terribly inefficient and at times very frustrating.

Jesus prayed that we all may be one as he and the Father are one. We can do it but it will be imperfectly and our efforts will swing between these two poles of unity and uniformity throughout our earthly days. But in the end, Jesus’ command to “love one another as I have loved you” becomes the most important ethic on which to move into union – both with each other and with God.

“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last …” Some of you have been a part of our icon writing workshop at the Brunswick Public Library these past few weeks. We are writing Christ the Teacher and in the basic drawing for this icon has the book Jesus is holding has blank pages. As you write the icon and pray, you meditate on what scripture quote should go in the book. I worked on the prototype for this when I was at Holy Cross Monastery earlier this year and when it came time to finish it with the scripture quote, I found myself reading through the Gospel of John and … this was the quote! I promise I wasn’t reading ahead in the lectionary.

“You did not choose me but I chose you.” Hear those words spoken to you … “You did not choose me but I chose you.” What goes through your mind when you hear the words “I chose you”? I confess on first blush it makes me feel special … really special. Being chosen really feels good doesn’t it? I know for me, being that I was always the last kid who was chosen for sports teams, it feels pretty good to be chosen. I was one of those kids when it came down to the wire, not only was I not picked for the team, the teams would walk away and leave me there! Yeah … P.E. was a personal hell for me throughout my school years. But being chosen … wanted … loved … yeah, that’s pretty special for anybody.

But if you just stay with this sense of being “special” because you are “chosen”, you end up pretty distorted. Being chosen can give you a pretty swelled head if you stay with just that part of it. I’ve met clergy who are stuck in how special they are in being called or chosen. I confess I get nervous around clergy who tell me they had a call to be a priest as a 12 or 13 year old and “never doubted” their call. They tend to be stuck in that special stage … which is called narcissism. The clergy I find most grounded and holy are the ones who struggled with their call and moved beyond how “special” they felt. They took in the full implication of what it means to be chosen. It comes with responsibilities and risks. It can be daunting and if we think we can do it alone, we will fail and it will be an epic failure. Only God can sustain us and give us what we need to live into the challenges and responsibilities of our being chosen to bear fruit that will last.

Being chosen can lead to some confusion too. One thing we often wrestle with is the fact that being chosen does not make us immune from being hurt and from bad things happening to us. The ancient Israelites learned this during the Babylonian exile when they had to wrestle with the question, “If we are God’s chosen people, how could God have let the Babylonians defeat us?” We may not face Babylonians literally, but we do face them figuratively and sometimes they are even in the Church.

This past week, many of us saw the Facebook posts about the gay couple in Orlando Florida who were told their adopted son could not be baptized at the Cathedral of St. Luke – and Episcopal cathedral. There was a great outcry about this online and this is where social media brought some positive pressure to bear to support this baby and his parents. No question this family suffered hurt at the hands of the Church whose leadership was trying to accommodate members of the congregation who disapprove of same sex relationships. The parents in question, Rich and Eric, met with Bishop Brewer this week and little Jack’s baptism will take place this summer. There have been those in the LGBT community who have asked Rich and Eric why they will have Jack baptized in a church “which has rejected you.” Rich responded in a grace filled post on Facebook essentially saying that he believes in the goodness of the people of St. Luke’s and wants to be a force for reconciliation and healing. What grace! These two dads are living the message of the cross. It would be easier to cut and run – leave that church and shake the dust. Instead, they have chosen to stay and bear fruit that will last – the fruit of healing and love.

This weekend was our Diocesan Convention and we were blessed to hear the Rev. Becca Stevens, founder of Thistle Farms. Thistle Farms is a community of recovery helping women escape sex trafficking and rebuild their lives. Thistle Farms makes amazing products which are centered on healing – oils, candles, lotions, and soaps. These women have much to healing to do. Not only are they victims of sexual trauma, they are often addicted to drugs and, while held in virtual slavery by their pimps, they are usually the ones arrested for prostitution and serve time – victimized by their pimps and again by the legal system. Their stories are horrific. Becca+ spoke of forgiveness and how she learned it: first from watching her mother forgive the truck driver whose negligence killed her father who was also an Episcopal priest and second how she found a way to forgive the lay leader in their church who, after the death of her father, began sexually molesting her. When you hear Becca+ speak, there is no question she is chosen and is bearing fruit in her ministry at Thistle Farms. There are, however, those who relapse and go back on the street, often with tragic outcomes. Some are brutalized and even killed by their pimps in retaliation. Becca+ spoke of identifying bodies only by their tattoos. But for those who stick with the program, there is hope, healing and recovery. Their motto is “Love heals” and we saw it in action.

“You did not choose me but I chose you.” Being chosen doesn’t mean life on easy street. It doesn’t mean we won’t be hurt. Sometimes life hands you a bucket of crap. The question is what will you do with it? Rich and Eric didn’t ask to be initially rejected in seeking baptism for their son – that was a bucket of crap! Becca+ didn’t ask to be sexually abused either. And I do not believe for one minute that God caused these things to happen! If I did, I’d be preaching about a pretty sadistic jerk of a God. No, most of the bad things that happen to us are a result of living in a broken world full of sinful people who hurt each other. But that does not change the fact that Jesus chose you and appointed you to bear fruit which will last. Now, I know a little about fruit trees … they need fertilizer don’t they? So what if you take that bucket of crap life handed you and turn it over … turn it over to the God who redeems it through Christ. Turn it over, let it go, and just see what God can do with it so that you can bear fruit … fruit that will last.

My mom started growing African violets when I was a kid. We had a number of them in her garden window in California. I now have several in a south facing window in our home in a garden tray my husband gave me for Christmas one year. They bloom constantly - even through the winter which brings color to our home in an otherwise colorless time. This little African violet came to me last December. It had been left behind by its previous owner and wasn't in the best shape. The leaves were small and discolored and there were no signs of any blooms on it at all. It would be easy to blame the condition of this violet on the prior owner’s neglect, but that would not be true. The prior owner watered and fed it and I have a “brown thumb” – I have even killed cactus! I mean, who kills cactus? Well … I do! It wasn't neglect, it was isolation. You see, these are “social” plants. They flourish when grouped together and wither when isolated from others. This week, on the same day the Baltimore riots started, this little violet bloomed. This made me I think about what this little plant and the readings this week say about Christian community.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Abide in me.” He didn't say, “Abide with me” or “Abide next to me” or “Abide somewhere over there at arm’s length.” No … he said “abide in me.” In so doing he makes it clear that to be a Christian means being incorporated into a mystical connection to him and with each other. It means being connected to people not like you and me – even people we may not like very much, people we don’t understand and people whose world view is very different from ours. It reminds us that this week’s riots on the heels of Freddie Gray’s death while in the custody of the Baltimore City Police affected us. Maybe the riots did not directly affect us but because we abide in Christ with our sisters and brothers in West Baltimore, the riots affected us. Perhaps they spurred some sense of outrage over how a man whose only apparent “crime” was to make eye contact with a police officer could end up dead. Maybe the riots made you angry at the rioters because you don’t understand why they would trash their own neighborhood. They affected me because I served a church in West Baltimore and I count the people of St. Luke’s as my friends. They were caught up in it and I was concerned for their safety. They have deep  seeded problems in their neighborhood – neglected schools, drugs and addiction, crime, lack of decent paying jobs, lack of access to fresh food, and a legacy of segregation. There is a lot of frustration and it reached an explosive point this week. I cannot excuse what happened, but I can understand why it happened. As Martin Luther King once said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” These sisters and brothers who abide in Christ with us have been unheard for years … and we have been complicit in ignoring the problems. When I saw people who consider themselves good Christians posting comments on Facebook calling the rioters “thugs” and “criminals”, the words of John came roaring back to me: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” Posting things on social media which label and call names isn’t part of the solution – and I can assure you many of our sisters and brothers in West Baltimore were as angry at the rioters and looters as we are.

It has been relatively safe for us to sit back and observe the riots and violence done to our sisters and brothers in Baltimore from a distance and it is hard to approach the enormity of the problems they face … it can lead us to be paralyzed where we are and do nothing. I confess I am overwhelmed by it. I asked some friends on Facebook message what we can do besides pray. They told me they don’t even know yet, but prayer is a good place to start. I think also we can take a hint from today’s story of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Here is a story of Phillip encountering someone vastly different from himself. Think about it … we are talking about a story of the baptism of a gender queer African! He’s different from Phillip on at least three points: he’s African not Jewish, he’s a eunuch, and he’s in a different socio-economic status as a high court official. Phillip is led by the Spirit to go down to Gaza from Jerusalem when he is guided to approach the chariot. The Ethiopian eunuch is apparently headed the same direction. He may share the Jewish faith as he is reading from the prophet Isaiah and while we don’t know for certain, he may have been at the temple while in Jerusalem. Phillip is guided to approach the chariot and, before he engages the eunuch, he hears him reading. This is crucial because he now has a visual confirmation this person is different and, upon hearing his voice, Phillip would have known he was gender queer – a grown man with a high pitched voice would have pegged him as a eunuch immediately. But this didn’t stop Phillip from reaching across what obviously divided them to engage the eunuch. He accepts the invitation to get into the chariot and takes the opportunity to begin a relationship with this man by first listening to him! They discuss the Isaiah passage and Phillip shares his faith that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic text. When they come upon some water, the eunuch asks the million dollar question: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” It’s a profound question because of his gender queer status. You see, as a eunuch, even if he were a devout Jew, he would have been only allowed into the outermost Court of the Gentiles in the temple compound. He would have known exclusion based on his gender queer status. While it brought him the privilege of working in the queen’s court, it also came with a burden. Phillip doesn’t let any of that get in the way – they go down into the water together. The answer to his question isn’t, “well, baptism is for everyone except …” This answer is “Nothing … absolutely nothing prevents you from being baptized.” Nothing prevents you or anyone else from abiding in Christ … and he came up out of the water rejoicing!

Phillip followed the Spirit’s call to reach across the divide of race, gender identity, and socio-economic strata to engage someone very different from him. Engaging is listening … not apologizing or defending your view, but listening first and remembering you abide in Christ with these sisters and brothers whose lives are very different – you are part of their community and we are part of theirs. Like this little African violet, we flourish when we are in community – and not just with people who look like us and live in our same zip code. We are called into deeper communion with Christ and each other when we enter into deep and meaningful connection with others who are different and who challenge us.

This morning, we have been asked to step outside our houses of worship for a moment of silence and prayer for our sisters and brothers in Baltimore. As things progress over the next few days, weeks and months, other opportunities to engage will emerge – but today we can begin with prayer … and we can begin to be like Phillip and reach across that which divides us to be a community who more fully abides in Christ.