When Jesus Prays

Young at Heart Message

Did you know that there are an estimated 45,000 different Christian denominations across the globe?

45,000!

By comparison, there are only 195 countries recognized in the world.
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If distributed evenly among all countries, each country could have 230.76 Christian denominations.
 
Of course, that says nothing of non-Christian faith traditions.
 
I don’t know about you, but this absolutely fascinates me.
 
So much so that I have a poster in my office titled “Christian Denominations Family Tree.”
 
Here’s a picture of the full poster:

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​Obviously, you can’t see anything in that photo, and I did take photos of the different sections, but I still don’t think you can see much if I share those.
 
So, if you want to look at the full chart, pop into my office and have a look.
 
Now, I will say that I have no idea how we get to 45,000 different denominations. There are 165 colored boxes on this chart which represent different denominations.
 
45,000 is mind-blowing!
 
Just to give us an idea of what the denominational splits look like, let’s just look at the Roman Catholic Church, which most of us are at least somewhat familiar with.
 
Under the Roman Catholic Church, we see the Maronite Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, Coptic Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Union of Utrecht, Aglipayan Church, Sedevacantists, and SSPX.
 
Who has heard of all of those?
 
I certainly haven’t. In fact, other than “The Roman Catholic Church,” I really hadn’t heard of any of the others.
 
For what it’s worth, the Moravian Church falls under what I would call “Protestant-Adjacent.”
 
Here’s where we are on the chart (and, it’s worth mentioning that it’s impressive that we made the chart at all!).

It would be fascinating to do an in-depth study of the different denominations to understand what really are the differences between all of these different denominations.
 
My guess is that if you asked the leadership of each denomination, they would all say there are important differences between their theologies and polities.
 
But, if you ask individual church members, I bet many would say they really don’t know or see much of a difference.
 
Now, the much bigger question is, what would Jesus think about all of our different denominations?
 
Would he be happy to see such diversity among Christians, or would he be saddened to think that we’ve split into so many different denominations over likely very minor differences in theology or polity?
 
What about the churches that split over social and cultural disagreements that have nothing to do with theology?
 
Unfortunately, we can’t truly answer these questions because Jesus isn’t sitting here with us today.
 
But, let’s look at Jesus’s prayer and see what we can gain from him anyway.
 
The Message
 
Today’s scripture reading is actually Jesus praying to God at the Last Supper.
 
He’s not talking to his disciples, although they certainly overhear the prayer.
 
He is talking directly to God, which makes this passage extremely powerful, both to the disciples and to those of us reading it still today.
 
Jesus starts out by saying “I am not praying just for these followers. I am also praying for everyone else who will have faith because of what my followers will say about me.”
 
Everyone else. Including, presumably, those of us sitting in this room today. That’s a powerful prayer.
 
Jesus gets right to the point: “I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me. I also want them to be one with us.”
 
He repeats this again further on in the passage.
 
“I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me.”
 
If you’ve ever wondered about your own unanswered prayers, I would go out on a limb here and say that even Jesus had at least one unanswered prayer.
 
If our discussion about denominations taught us anything, it’s that we are far from “one with each other.”
 
In fact, there are some Christian denominations that will go so far as to say that their denomination is the only true and right path to God, and all others will lead to hell.
 
This certainly doesn’t give us warm and fuzzy feelings of unity and oneness with each other, does it?
 
On the other hand, there are many denominations, including the Moravian Church, that believe strongly in our oneness despite our differences.
 
This is one of the primary reasons I landed in the Moravian Church.
 
I was drawn to what many call the “Moravian Motto.” It goes like this:
 
“In essentials, Unity;
In non-essentials, Liberty;
In all things, Love.”
 
What does this mean, exactly? Let’s break it down.
 
“In essentials, Unity”
 
On the surface, this sounds easy enough. We can be united in the essential things!
 
But… what exactly are the essential things?
 
Probably not what you’d think.
 
The essential things, according to the Moravian Church, are: A belief in God as creator, Christ as redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer.
 
And, it is essential that we respond to those gifts of God with faith, love, and hope.
 
That’s it. Those are the six essential things.
 
I’ve done a whole sermon series talking about each of these things in the past, and I don’t have time to do that today, but as you can see, those six essential things are common among many – if not all – Christian denominations.
 
Therefore, we see ourselves as united with other Christian denominations.
 
And of course, there are individual churches within the Moravian Church who have decided to split from our denomination over certain social issues.
 
But by and large, across the globe, the Moravian Church has managed to remain a unified church because of our deep-rooted belief in these essentials.
 
We may disagree on some things – like whether or not we should ordain women, or people who aren’t heterosexual, or people who don’t conform to traditional gender identities.
 
“In non-essentials, Liberty”
 
But, none of those things are essential.
 
And, the second line in our well-known phrase is “In non-essentials, Liberty.”
 
In other words, with regard to the things we don’t agree on outside of the six essential things, we believe in the freedom to choose.
 
So, we might disagree on some of those social issues I mentioned – either with another denomination or, sometimes, within our own church.
 
“In all things, Love”
 
But, our approach to these disagreements is to approach these things with love.
 
Are we perfect at it? Of course not, because our church is still led by human beings who have their own biases, flaws, challenges, and ways of thinking.
 
In general, however, we try to approach these kinds of disagreements with love.
 
This philosophy has allowed the Moravian Church to develop strong connections with other denominations, not just in Canada and the US, but across the globe.
 
So, back to the comment I made earlier about Jesus’s prayer being unanswered…
 
I wonder if it truly was unanswered, or if he simply couldn’t have anticipated the trajectory the church would take?
 
Jesus clearly recognized that people are very different and unique, and he could tell even from his relatively small circle of the world that people really struggle to be unified.
 
But, if we can at least be unified in the six essentials, we can expand our notion of “unity” further and recognize that many other Christian denominations see those same things as essential.
 
We can continue to live out our faith within our own context while also recognizing that our way isn’t necessarily the only true and right way.
 
And that’s OK!
 
Because at the end of the day, as always, we are called to love.
 
Simply love. Love first, and the rest will fall into place.
 
May we work to honour Jesus’s prayer for us, that we would be one with each other, just as Jesus is one with God and God is one with Jesus.
 
And may we do this with love. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
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God of compassion, thank you for loving us deeply and unconditionally, even when we miss the mark. Thank you for sending your Son, Jesus Christ, to pray for us, teach us, guide us, love us, and show us the path that you set before us. Help us to continue loving one another, even when it is difficult, and help us to learn to live in unity with each other so that we can work to live out Jesus’s prayer for us. All of this we pray in your Holy name. Amen.