"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous
talented and fabulous?
Actually - who are you not to be?
You are a child of God
Your playing small does not serve the world
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone
And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give
other people the right to do the same
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others."

I often say this prayer to myself when I forget why it is I am doing what I am doing. I say it to myself when I realize that the profession I am in is not one everyone chooses. It is not a profession or lifestyle or vocation people always understand. I say this prayer to myself when I don’t feel as though I am good child of God or when I don’t fit in. Sometimes I say it to myself when I fit in too much into society. I remind myself of this prayer when I want to take the small road out of things, when I want to play the lesser part. These words of Marianne Williamson are often recited at graduations or even in a card to give someone hope. They are words to remind us why we should be who God has created us to be. They are words to remind us when we confused on who we are to be, to go back our baptismal calling and live loudly in this world being who we are uniquely created to be.

In the moments before Jesus was to be handed over to death, to be betrayed by his disciples he goes to pray. He prays for his disciples. He prays that they might come to know the unity between him and the Father. He prays they too might come together, to join with one another, to be unified together. He prayed that in a broken world the disciples would come together to be unified just as he and the Father are unified. In a world filled with violence, hate, persecution, and prejudice, Jesus prayed for not only the disciples, but also for those who come later, to live in unity. Our world still today is broken; it is filled with jealousy, hate, violence, and persecution. People do things to other people that hurt them without a second guess. We are broken, we live in a society with war, homicides, hate, prejudice, bullying, killings, and yet those things do not even being to touch on all the brokenness in our world. Yet, Jesus has prayed to God on our behalf for unity. We view unity in our society in a variety of ways.

Some people view unity as all of us being the same. Where everyone in the community dresses the same, acts the same, believes the same, works in the same jobs, and laughs at the same jokes. Some others view unity as being or behaving as the other view to be valuable. In our society we too often allow what other people think of us to dictate how we act in this world and sometimes even how we view ourselves. Max Lucado in his book, “You are Special” comes to terms with this very issue. All of the characters live in the same town where if you are perfect people give you gold stars and if you are not perfect you get a grey dot. The main character, Punchinello, feels bad about himself because all he is are grey dots, until he meets a girl who doesn’t have any dots at all. When he asks her why she doesn’t have any stickers she says it is because she visits Eli, the man who created them (they are wooden puppets). When Puchinello goes to visit Eli, Eli reminds him that he makes no mistakes and that he is created as a very special and unique child. For this community, it doesn’t matter to the creator what others say about them, but what matters is what the creator thinks about all of them. They are uniquely created. They are created as individuals each with special gifts and special tasks to help the body of Christ work together as one body.

Jesus prayed for a unity among the disciples and for all who come after them. It was not a unity of sameness, it is a unity of diversity. Jesus prayed for our unity with God, which means we have to trust Jesus. We have to trust what Jesus has done not only for us, but for all of our brothers and sister in Christ. Being united with Jesus, means that we love, we serve, we humble, and we give of ourselves just as Jesus gave to us. When we are in relationship with Jesus it means we allow for everyone to be who they are created to be. We accept them just as they are created. We not only accept them but we love them. We watch them as they grow into who they will become. We support them when they do not fully know who they are. We celebrate with them when they figure it all out. We allow our brothers and sisters to be who they are as children of God.

We are united with our brothers and sisters because we recognize who we all are- children of God, children who have been created in God’s image. Pastor Luke Bouman once said, “Being united with Jesus allows each one of us, and each one of you, to explore how to be the best individual God has created us to be. This is a harder way toward unity, because it demands of us the very tolerance, forgiveness and love that God gave to us in Jesus. But ultimately it leads both to our being “real” with ourselves, with God, and with each other. We don’t have to pretend to be something we are not. We are free to be what God created us to be, his children.”

Jesus prayed for his disciples and for us that we may know what it means to be in united and by being unified we know what it means for each of us to be in relationship with God as God’s created children. For each of us to know how it is God has called us to live in this world. Jesus knew for us to be unified it would all have to reach beyond our comfort zones. We would have to open ourselves up to those who are around us and get to know them who they are as children of God. Jesus knew that the world he lived in was a broken world. He knew it was going to be hard for them to be unified. He knew it was going to be hard for all of us to be unified; it was going to be hard to look past the differences and see those things that make us different as gifts.

It is hard to look past those things that make us different. We sometimes just want to fit in. It is easier to just be like everyone else sometimes then it is to be diverse. Some of us have learned those to pick on someone because of qualities they have. Yes, it isn’t the nicest thing in the world and it doesn’t promote unity, yet not being nice has almost become a way of life for us. By using stereotypes to divide people who are different from us has become a way of life almost. I sometimes wonder what Jesus would say if he was here today, knowing that we have to have conferences and meetings on what unity means and how it looks. I wonder if Jesus would be proud because we are working towards unity or I wonder if he would be upset because even after all these years we are still broken as children of God.

When I originally read this text, I thought it was an interesting text for today, especially in light of everything that has been going on in the media. That night Jesus was praying he was not only praying for the unity of the disciples or even the immediate community around him. Instead Jesus realized this concept of unity was going to be challenging for everyone to follow. Jesus knew for us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, meant we would have to realize we are all alike. We would have to realize that each one of us has been created in God’s image. We each have God within us, which ties us together, it unites us all as a part of God’s family. We have been created to be someone special, someone who is loved by God as if there was but one of us to love. Unity is not an overnight achievement, sometimes it takes thousands of years, and who knows maybe we won’t even see it in our lifetime. Yet, that doesn’t mean we should stop working for it. We shouldn’t stop being who we are, instead we should live as we are created, as children of a loving and uniting God. Amen