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The Rev. Laura Matarazzo
May 20, 2007 -  Seventh Sunday of Easter

There is an old and probably overused story about a little boy who was walking along a beach littered with starfish. The tide had carried the delicate creatures to shore where they were stranded, just out of reach of the water they needed to live; and so the boy begins to pick up the starfish, one by one, and throw them back into the sea. A stranger—an adult, to be sure--happens upon the little boy as he is gently lifting a starfish up from the sand and just as gently carrying it to the water’s edge. The stranger scoffs at the little boy and says, “Do you really think you’re going to make a difference? There are thousands of starfish on this beach!” The little boy looks down at the starfish in his hand and then looks up at the stranger and says, “I’m making a difference for this one!” as he tosses it into the life-giving water. 

One by one, one on one, one to one…the power of one. Again and again we hear the lesson that one person can make a difference. Last week, we heard from Lucy Wise who, about her time in New Orleans, wrote, “I am walking away from this experience with the attitude that one day of your time can help change one person’s life forever.” One day, one person, one at a time. 

One sounds solitary, a single number denoting a single unit…of persons, of days or of years. And yet, there is another dimension of one…a collective one…as in, for instance, a trinity of persons in one God, or a unity of persons in one body of Christ…. 

Jesus prays for us—we who believe in him through the word of the apostles--that we all may be one; that our devotion to him will bind us together in mutual love and support of one another. So that, he prays to God, “so that the world may believe that you sent me,” so that “the world may know that you have loved them even as you have loved me.” Jesus wants for us to be one as he and God are one—a sacred unity empowered by love. This is Jesus’ prayer for us. 

Our story from the Book of Acts illustrates the potential for this Oneness to heal and grow God’s creation. In it, we are presented with many of the ways in which people are at odds with one another or “not-one.” It begins with the altercation between the slave owners and Paul which reveals the power of human greed over against the testimony of human faith. When the slave girl’s owners drag Paul and Silas to the marketplace we see the clash between civil and religious authority, and when the crowd joins in attacking them, we see the power of the majority over the minority. Finally, we witness the beating and imprisonment of Paul and Silas. In all of this we see what our scripture calls “the powers and principalities of this world” and how they divide us and frustrate the potential for a liberating, loving unity. 

In the prison, these powers are overcome. Prayer and praise to God pierce the darkness and the power of God breaks down manmade walls. The love of Christ in Paul allays the jailer’s fear of his superiors, and the truth of God’s word exposes the lie of his conformity to powers that harm. The jailer is transformed from oppressor to healer as he dresses the wounds inflicted upon Paul and Silas. The power of love has trumped every other authority in the jailer’s life, and baptism bonds him and his whole family to the community of faith. 

This is what the oneness of which Jesus speaks is all about—liberation, healing, restoration, and growth. The oneness of God and Christ testifies that relationship is the primary characteristic of those who will follow him; our love for one another is to be a model for the world of that divine love that always seeks the wellbeing of all creation.  

ONE is the name of a campaign recently launched by Americans to rally Americans to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. The ONE Campaign derives its name from the belief that allocating an additional one percent of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world's poorest countries. Members of the One Campaign believe that this lofty goal is within our reach if we take action together as one. In their declaration of purpose, they commit themselves—one person, one voice, one vote at a time—to make a better, safer world for all. This secular One Campaign is expressing the way in which the singular one-by-one merges into the much greater, collective One that will enhance the lives of all persons on earth. 

ONE Episcopalian ™ is a grassroots partnership between The Episcopal Church and the ONE Campaign to rally Episcopalians to the cause of achieving these Millennium Development Goals.  Perhaps our Outreach Forum this morning will take a look at how Calvary might become a One Episcopal congregation. 

And, speaking of our Episcopal Church, we all know that we are having a heck of a time being “one” right now. Our unity in diversity is sorely threatened by those among us who deem our differences deep enough to separate us. This is not the model of which Jesus dreamed. We who are divided in our faith are not modeling for the world the love that makes Jesus, God and us one. Shame on us! As Protestant theologian H. Richard Niebuhr said some years ago, “The road to unity is the road to repentance. It demands resolute turning away from all those loyalties to the lesser values of the self, the denomination, and the nation, which deny the inclusiveness of divine love.” 

And you know what it means to be one with another. You need look no farther than your most significant human relationships, where you seek the greatest good for those you love. Your love calls you to share, to walk with those persons, and to sacrifice. Look at each other, now, this moment, and realize that it is this gathered community of individuals that Jesus calls to model a holy, collective ONE, “…that the world may know that you, O God, have loved them even as you have loved me.” 

The Greek words for the phrase, “that they may become completely one,” can be translated, “perfected into one.” Such perfected unity is possible only by the grace of God. This sacred unity empowered by love depends, ultimately, upon our relationship with God. Like the starfish on the beach, we each are saved, one by one, by the love of God in Christ. Surely, then, as followers of Christ, we will do what we can to be one with each other, trusting that the grace of God will perfect the Oneness we have begun. 

www.episcopalchurch.org/ONE
www.one.org

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