Indwelling

[A reflection on the Gospel for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, being the Sunday after the Ascension, June 1, 2025. The readings may be found at this link:

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/easter-7c/]

"That they may all be one," (Jn. 17.21) receives much press this day. It is one of Jesus' final prayers before His Ascension for His followers. It is for His followers a blessed dream, a command, a source of frustration, and our shame. Held up as His request of the Father, we look around us and see anything but. Some say we have not seen it in a long time, not since we apostatized from the fellowship of the Apostles. I would say that is ignorant of the evidence of the New Testament, which showed division even then.

This unity is a tall order, for Our Lord did not call for an institutional unity. I will leave the quagmire of doctrinal and creedal unity alone. He did not even call for a missional unity. He called for a unity that He shared with the Father and that His followers be one even as the Father and the Son are one. At the same time He prayed that His followers be one with Him and the Father in the same manner.

And here is where we come to the crux of what it means to be human, that is, to be created in the Image of God: indwelling. Indwelling, the selfless outpouring of love that binds the Persons of the Trinity together in their one Being and Nature, that binds Jesus to His followers and His followers to Him, that binds them in turn to the Father, indwelling is the core of this prayer. This is another name for Love, that which is patient and kind, does not inflate its ego, does not put itself first, always seeks the best for the other, always seeks the other (see 1 Cor. 13). That is what Jesus asks for His followers, that they LOVE each other, and in so doing love Him and the Father, as they love us.

If we love Him, we would keep His commandments, to love each other, to love our neighbours, to love even our enemies, and is so doing become more and more like Him, putting on the new nature He won for us and letting the old corrupted nature pass away. For it is in becoming like Him that we grow in love for Him, and that is by loving all those around us.

Indeed, let us be one, even as the Holy Trinity is one. Come, Lord Jesus.