Seventh Sunday of Easter, cycle C

John 17:20-26

As you undoubtedly know, we are going to probably have to choose between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton for our next president. Nine months ago, every respectable political commentator predicted that Trump wouldn't last all that long and the Republicans would nominate Jeb Bush or maybe Marco Rubio. Nine months ago they said Hilary would win the Democratic primary in a walk, and Bernie Sanders was just a flash in the pan. It's rare when there is so much agreement about something that was totally wrong.

The columnist David Brooks wrote last week that he thought he was wrong because over the years he had increasingly associated with people like him – affluent, educated, and moderately liberal. He began to think that what was only a small part of the country resembled the whole. He thought he and others like him had to get outside their ghettos and re-discover the rest of the country if they were going to be able to make any sense out of politics.

When Jesus prays for unity in the gospel today, we usually think to ourselves that he is talking about all the divisions in Christianity, a scandal to many. But while I feel good when someone from another denomination becomes a Catholic, I am not ecstatic; I have met so many people who are members of other denominations who are better Christians than I am. I can't help but admire other Christian bodies who continue to give rise to saintly people. And while there were violent conflicts between different groups of Christians down through the ages, right from the beginning, I think that the degree of strife between Christian denominations is probably at its lowest point, and the amount of ecumenical cooperation has hit an all time high. In ways that truly matter, Christianity today is more united than in the past. And of course it would be odd if Jesus, who was talking to twelve Jewish guys who had no concept of the fact that they were going to form a new religion, was referring to divisions that were still about a thousand to fifteen hundred years off.

But maybe Jesus is talking about a different kind of unity. Most of us are like David Brooks. We have a comfort zone. Many years ago my wife and I had a brief vacation in Jamaica. Most of the people there are descended from African slaves. We stayed in a place where we were the only caucasians. We ate in the dining area with our fellow guests. I didn't feel uncomfortable. But one day we stopped in at a beachfront hotel – a Hilton, I think. We went through a gate into the garden-like courtyard. We stepped into the lobby of the hotel – and saw that everyone, from the guests to the bellhops, was caucasian. It was only when it fell away that I noticed I had been vaguely uncomfortable before. I tell this story simply to illustrate that all of us have a comfort zone, and we are biologically programmed, I think, to stay in that zone. It takes a lot of effort to leave.

And yet that is what Jesus demonstrated in his own life. He left the little town he grew up in, for starters. In those days where most people never ventured more than a few miles from where they were born, Jesus wandered all over Palestine, confronting people in the big city, people in Samaria, people who worshiped the gods of Rome. Jesus conversed with lepers and beggars and people with chronic illnesses. And the early Christians tried, with varying degrees of success, to imitate him. The Jerusalem community had some difficulty integrating the Greek-speaking Jews with those who spoke Hebrew, but they did. Later, some adjustments had to be made so that the Gentiles would not be made to feel like second class citizens by not following Jewish laws. And later we hear Paul say, “In Christ Jesus there is no male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave or freeman.” The rapid growth of the Church was due in part to the fact that anyone and everyone was treated like a member of the family.

There were several moments in Christian history when the growth of the Church was explosive. When I was young we were at the tail end of one of those periods. I went to the Catholic University of America and my classes were filled with young men and women who were members of religious orders. We were all thrilled to hear about famous movie actors and sports figures who converted to Catholicism. Missionaries were going all over the world – the Maryknolls were an order that grew right in our own soil, and had missions all over the world, the seed which they planted is still bearing fruit. But now the order is just a shadow of what it once was.

It seems as though whenever the Church grows, it's because people are willing to leave their comfort zone, willing to leave people like themselves and become part of other societies, other social groups. And when the church falters and stops growing, it's because we fall back into those little ghettos where everyone looks like myself. If you go around many of our communities in Western Massachusetts, you find churches which are no longer in use – the Irish church, the polish church, the Italian church – all built by people who couldn't stand the thought of leaving their comfort zone. And now no one uses those churches.

Do you and I listen to the prayer of Jesus, that all may be one? Do you and I know the names of anyone who sleeps under the memorial bridge at night? Or some of the Somali refugees who have moved into our towns? Or even our fellow Catholics from Puerto Rico or Viet Nam? Or are we content to let our communities never come into contact with each other because to do otherwise makes us feel uncomfortable.

I think this is the unity Jesus wants for all of us – that we recognize that we are all children of the same father, brothers and sisters of the same Jesus, temples of the same Holy Spirit. And if we live with that in mind, if to us it doesn't make a difference whether you are Jew or Greek, Male or Female, Slave or free, then people will once again say, “See how those Christians love one another!” and want we have, and want to become one with us.