I Want to Know What Really Matters

© 2013 by Rob Krabbe

Unity, does that mean all of us?

I pray that what matters to God matters to me. Unity must have been important to Jesus. Unity, not just among the disciples, and his family and friends, but unity amongst all of us. It must have been important because the night he was to be arrested, Jesus, knowing what he was looking ahead to, prayed for unity, and for all of humanity.

I look around today, at the church, the body of Christ, the whole lot of us, denominations, non-denominationals, warts and all. While we jostle and maneuver around theological points, and styles, and traditions, war over worship styles and points of doctrine, and while the entire lot of us judge those that are not of us, Jesus, well, I wonder if he shakes his head and asks “were you even listening?” As I meditate on unity or the lack of it, I go back to the bible for wisdom, specifically to the book of John to read again, Jesus own words.

I pray that what matters to God matters to me.

John 17:20-26

New International Version (NIV)

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

I am left with the slightly poignant understanding that on the night when Jesus was to be arrested, tried and crucified, he did not ask for more time, or complain, or express fear or misgivings. He did not ask for God to slay His enemies, which He had the power and authority to do. He did not ask for God to help each of us discern which pigeon holes to slap each other into, or to identify the “true” followers, but He prayed for UNITY. In fact, the NRSV says “so that they may be brought to complete unity.” I don’t know about you but the word “complete” seems . . . pretty complete.

The word complete reminds me of the word “all” in 1st Timothy 2:1 “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—.” Not some, not a few, not those we agree with. Not partial unity either, or unity amongst the Presbyterians, or the Lutherans, or the Jews for Jesus, or the “God is a great almighty cosmic muffin” believers either, but all, in complete unity.

I am on a new study this year I think. At fifty one years old I want to look through the scriptures and Identify all the things I thought God said but it turns out He did not. I want to locate all the things that I thought mattered, that it turns out don’t And I want to find all the truths that mattered enough to God that as Jesus kneeled ready to give up His life for us, He thought enough to take the time to pray for.

I pray that what matters to God matters to me.

I pray for unity. Amongst all of God’s people, even those we disagree with. Unity is a closed ended word, a simple word. It means unified. Not a little, but completely UNIFIED.