That all may be one
Pete Phillips
June 07, 2025
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John 17: 20-26 (NIVUK)
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.’
In Jesus’ prayer at the end of the four-chapter long Upper Room sermon, he calls for a unity among the believers which reflects the unity between him and his Father. We might talk about a unity which reflects the nature and purpose of the Trinity, with the purpose being that the world will be aware of the Father’s love for all.
In other words, the purpose of our creativity is made to demonstrate, to exhibit, to reveal the love of God for all of his creation. Often in human terms, human creativity is diminished to be about profit (personal, corporate or territorial) or power (personal, corporate or territorial). In Paul’s moral paradigm yesterday, we saw a call for good and a call for community – a call that whatever we did would lead people closer to God not further away.
In our thinking around idols, we come back again and again to our role as servants of the most high God. Made in image of God, we are called to re-present him into the world as ambassadors of God, called to re-present his message of love and compassion in a world beset by the idolatry of greed and power. We are called to be co-creators fashioned in God’s image and motivated by God’s love – Christ within us, the hope of glory.
Prayer:
“Lord Jesus Christ,
who prayed for your disciples that they might be one,
even as you are one with the Father;
draw us to yourself,
that in common love and obedience to you
we may be united to one another,
in the fellowship of the one Spirit,
that the world may believe that you are Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Amen.”
— written by William Temple (1881-1944)
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