That They May Be One
What a joy and honor to be part of today’s celebration of the installation of the Reverend Dr. Andrew Keuer as senior minister of First Protestant Church! Thank you for the invitation to be here, to create a new piece of art to mark this occasion, and to speak to you today.
Throughout scripture, we read about transitions in leadership. Moses and Joshua. Elijah and Elisha. Eli and Samuel. Deborah and Gideon. Each of these successions occurred between individuals. One person had been in charge, and then another person was selected to continue in that role.
When Jesus began to prepare his disciples for the pending changes in his own ministry, it soon became obvious that his was not a traditional succession plan—with leadership shifting from one individual to another. Instead, as John tells us in chapters 13–16, Jesus talked about going to the Father and sending the Holy Spirit. A couple of disciples asked questions for clarification and seemed confused by his answers. As John noted, Jesus finally began “speaking plainly,” reminding them of his and the Father’s love for them. And then Jesus began to pray.
Jesus didn’t pray for his friends to be wealthy, or for their lives to be easy, or for them to be “successful” by any cultural standard. Instead, he prayed for their protection from the enemy of their soul, for them to be sanctified and saturated in truth, for them to have joy, and for them to be one.
This work of art focuses on that last component of Jesus’ prayer in John 17, and has the entire chapter hand-written as the first layer. It is part of a series of paintings called “Companions,” which explore what happens between individuals or groups of people when the Holy Spirit is among them. It is a recognition that we cannot achieve holy unity on our own. Instead, when we are infused by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can become women and men of God who are marked by a common purpose. What is that common purpose? It is that the love of God be evident in our lives—a love expressed in unity.
In preaching to a group of ordinands, Anglican Bishop NT Wright exhorted them to rise to Jesus’s call for unity by saying, “Don’t settle for the cheap unity where nothing really matters as long as we vaguely get on with one another. Go for the hard one, the high one, the costing-not-less-than-everything one, that unity in holiness and truth for which Jesus prayed.” I echo that for you today. Go for the hard one, the high one, the one for which Jesus prayed.
As Pastor Andrew and I talked about your church last week, I learned some of its history—how a group of people came together with a common purpose and rather than identifying themselves as smaller subsets of the faith, chose to unify—chose to be one congregation. Unity is in your DNA. Let your lives together as a community of faith continue to be marked by unity. Work for it. Pray for it. Struggle for it, even when it seems elusive or impossible to achieve. Remind yourselves that Jesus prayed for you to be the living reminder of the love between himself and the Father by the way you love one another and are unified in common purpose.
My prayer is that when you see this painting, your hearts will be quickened to remember your high calling to be one in the Spirit of God. Amen.
Homily written and delivered by Joy Fitzgerald Hilley on Sunday, March 19, 2023, at the installation of The Reverend Dr. Andrew Keuer as senior minister of First Protestant Church, New Braunfels, Texas
Quote by The Rt. Rev. Dr. N T Wright available via this link.
