Seventh Sunday of Easter – Year C

June 1, 2025

Gospel Lectionary Text

John 17:20-26
17:20 "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,

17:21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, 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.

17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,

17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

17:24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

17:25 "Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.

17:26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Context

Welcome to the seventh and final Sunday of Easter. Jesus has been preparing his disciples for a certain kind of Presence — one that is available to all people, everywhere, all at once. The historical Jesus occupied one body in one place at one time. But the Spirit of the risen Christ is poured out on all flesh. This means that we (all of creation) become “the Body of Christ,” in whom and through whom God is present to us. What was once revealed through one person (Jesus) is now revealed in all things — everywhere, all at once, through the pouring out of his Spirit.

This week’s text gives us a glimpse into perhaps the deepest of all the Easter mysteries, which allows us to become what we receive in Christ. It is revealed in Jesus’ most intimate prayer. When Jesus prays that his followers “may be one” as he and the Father are one, he’s not urging us to work really hard at being nice to one another. Rather, he is praying that we might come to recognize what has been true since the “foundation of the world” (v. 24): that in Christ, we Are one, whether we recognize it or not.

There is one Body of Christ. It may be fractured and broken, but it is still one body. It includes willing and unwilling participants, friends and enemies alike. Next week, we will celebrate the Spirit of Christ poured out on all flesh, “one-ing” all of Creation, in answer to Jesus’ prayer.

Question

This week, Jesus prays that we become one, as He and the Father are one. What kind of oneness does He have in mind? Our world has tried a kind of oneness that is formed over and against the “other,” multiplying rivals. But what if Jesus' prayer is based on a God in whom there is no rivalry, who exists over and against nothing?

Reflections

Then the World Will Know

In all my time of writing for the Word From Below, in all the reflections I have submitted, I have never felt a text so relevant and impossible as the prayer of unity we find in our lectionary text this week. In my country, and in many places around the world, it seems that division...

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May they be One

Unity does not mean uniformity, but to remain in love, despite all tensions and all conflicts. It’s a love that creates a deep unity, like that which exists between Jesus and the Father. The unity in love revealed in the Trinity becomes the standard for our own relationships.

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Unity Without Enemies?

My favorite scientific experiment is the one conducted by Mark Twain. He placed a cat and a dog in a cage, and to his amazement they became friends. Encouraged, he added a rabbit, a fox, a goose, a squirrel and even some doves and a monkey. They too became friends and lived in peace. In…

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Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:

Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.

Poetry

excerpt from Jerusalem, Jerusalem
by James Carroll

“Christians affirm the Credo, Jews the Shema, Muslims the Shahada—all declaring that there is one God. But what does 'one' mean? In a scientific age, it is taken as a number. God is thought of as a solitary entity, standing apart from all others, and therefore, it is thought, against all others. If this is the meaning of monotheism, then yes, such belief is inherently a source of conflict, not peace..."

“Moses Maimonides, the twelfth-century Jewish sage, rejected the idea that God’s 'Oneness' is a category of quantity. In that sense, he wrote, “the term ‘one’ is just as inapplicable to God as the term ‘many.’” Instead of a unit, the 'Oneness' of God affirms a unity. Oneness in this sense means not the being who stands apart, radically different and superior, but the being who is present as the reconciliation of all oppositions. That God is One means, as Isaiah saw, that the God of this people is the God of all people. Monotheism in this sense is not the source of conflict, but the source of conflict resolution..."

“The Oneness of this God is not a number but a relationship with what exists. Later, the followers of Jesus would recognize the same quality in his intimacy with the one he called Father, as in 'The Father and I are one.' Jesus’ embodiment of God’s Oneness was what his followers recognized as his divinity.”

Prayer

This week's call to prayer includes a story from our global community that helps ground us in the everyday reality of those we serve:

God of all creation, in you, all things are one. There is nothing that is outside your love, nothing that is not related. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., "We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality…" And so Holy Spirit, we yield to the One that is one-ing all of creation, in Christ.

We pray this in the name of the Father who is for us, the Son who is with us, and the Spirit who unites us all in the never-ending dance of Love.

Amen.

Listen to the complete call to prayer below: