Readings: John 17: 6-19; 1John 5: 9-13 Today, in this sermon, I want to talk about unity. Not a unity where everyone believes the same thing but a unity that combines who we are biologically with our spiritual connections. One in which all the parts work together harmoniously as a whole to produce a single general effect. And that effect is love for others and our world. As Barack Obama said, finding common ground based on our common humanity.

I realised when I was thinking about this topic that there were three things that were influencing me. Two were books I have read over the last month and the third is the reading from John. All three focus on unity, how we live that ideal in our own lives and how we influence the lives of those around us.

The first book is a rather small little hard back book entitled, Evolution and Christian Faith. It was written by an evolutionary biologist called Joan Roughgarden who has spent all her professional life researching and analysing the principles and evidence for evolution. She has some very interesting points to make, but the most profound involves two facts, which are indisputable in the twenty first century. The first fact is that all life belongs to one huge family tree. This is not just about humans but about all living things, animals, plants, insects and even bacteria. We share genes with all other living creatures, not just one or two genes, but thousands of them. From 50-99 percent of all our genes are shared in common with other species, depending on how closely related they are to them. When we look at humans, we are even closer, belonging to the same species, and all containing the same DNA. The idea of race and nationality as separate entities is therefore completely false.

Her second point is that species change. The size, shape and colour of animals and plants in a species are not cast in stone but change through time and space. This change is the product of natural selection, whereby those organisms that are better adapted to their environment have a greater likelihood of surviving to adulthood and passing their characteristics on to their offspring. While many people believe that evolutionary biologists do not see direction in this process or see it as purely a competitive environment where only the strongest survive, this is quite wrong. Firstly it is not the fittest, but the most adaptable that survive and reproduce, so strength has very little to do with it. In addition many biologists do see evolution as having a direction, one in which species becomes more complex and advanced as natural selection continues. This complexity is revealed in Roughgarden`s own research, which looks at the possibility that cooperation is just as important as competition in the overall survival and growth of species. She has found that members of a species can and do display teamwork, or the art of working together, which is not just for the survival of individuals but for a shared interest. This development is seen as a more progressive adaptation and contradicts the idea that our genes are geared only for individual success rather than group success.
This later point, one of interdependency rather than individualism, together with her first of a single tree of life presents us with a biological view of unity. It is impossible to imagine that we are not linked to other humans, just as we are linked to all other living creatures and that by cooperating rather than competing we are continuing the evolutionary pathway of life. As Roughgarden suggests,

I trust few readers will be troubled that we and other living things are one another`s kin. Many of us have been dismayed to discover previously unknown brothers and sisters. We can`t choose our parents or kin. Starfish, worms and plants, even rose bushes and redwood trees, are our distant relatives, whether we like it or not. Rather than troubling, for me it`s appealing to think that all of life is united into one body through membership in a common family tree.

Is God within this process? Many, including me, would say a resounding yes, that God is immanent in the ongoing process of evolution, as a spark of divine creativity integral to the ongoing development of our world. And in that creative spark there is a spark of unity. The process of evolution reveals our organic links to one another, in which God is manifest in the process. Both spiritually and biologically we are connected to the rest of the created order in a way that is deep, universal and everlasting.

In this view of the world, we have a responsibility to engage in the ongoing creative process with God. As Michael Dowd puts it,

The meaning and purpose of one`s life is how he or she contributes to the well being of any of the components of the universe. For us that includes family, community, secular and religious institutions and creative pursuits that make civilisations possible and persistent. Similarly the meaning and purpose of humanity is how we as a species contribute to the larger body of life both now and seeded into the future.

But what is the reality in our world today? A lot different.

Rather than unity we get disunity, rather than people working together, we see many disputes, from minor ones to all out war. Instead of seeing one great family we are divided into black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, ghettos and suburbs, worker and unemployed and between those that are safe and stable and those persecuted and fleeing.

We now live at a time when the world is a global village, and information is readily available day and night, when the internet connects us to every conceivable piece of information, and to every conceivable shopping mall. One would think that with this ability to communicate and interact we would reflect greater unity within our human family, but not so. Even within the church itself, which confesses to follow the spirit of God and the example of Jesus, we find deep divisions. Divisions that lead to a mixed message, or a message so watered down by the pressures of modern culture that it is difficult to hear. The creative love of God and the support and compassion for our brothers and sisters and for the rest of the creative order is lost amongst the need for comfort or personal salvation.

Yet if the entire universe is evolving and we are part of the process, then knowing, loving and serving God, who is the great creator and unifier, is the only way into the future. We are to be co-creators with God in this great commission.

The reading today from John, announces this truth through the words of Jesus, and although Jesus had no knowledge of evolution or even much about biology, he understood the nature of God.
This reading is a prayer from Jesus for his disciples and for those that would come after. It looks at both the responsibilities and the consequences of those responsibilities for his followers and the wider church. But as Jesus says, these words are not words of despair but words of love, of calling forth the love that Jesus has known from the father to sustain his disciples. The relationship that binds Jesus to the father in unity is the relationship he wishes for them. `may they all be one . . .that the world may believe it was you who sent me . . . that they may be one as we are one, with me in them and you in me.` But this relationship is not without danger, and in the prayer Jesus sends a cautionary note, `I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world`.

It is a prayer reflecting John`s belief that we are sustained by the love of God as reflected in Jesus but also the need to call the church community to be accountable for its actions in the world. He knew God was to be our strength and our sustainer, but that serving God would not be easy.
Yet the world is what we are connected to. We are not separate from it, rather we are part of it. And we know more so today that at any other time, that individualism is the norm, conflict and tension the overwhelming response to one another, and that the idea of unity is a dream only held by a few.
John Perkins suggests, however, that The great calling and witness of Christians in times of conflict is that when every one else is choosing sides, we are reconciled across national, racial, cultural and economic barriers. We are to be unified in responding to the conflicts in the world and to the disunity that fragments families, villages, cities and nations. We are to be examples of how the relationship between God and between each other should work.

This is the role of the church, which is not some club one joins, but an outward reflection of the love of God and the action of Jesus. It is to challenge the idea that we can survive as individuals and still develop and grow. Rather fullness of life can only be achieved through a unity, seen biologically and spiritually, which seeks to support, nurture and connect with one another.

As Richard Rohr says, God`s basic building block for his self communication is not the saved individual, or the rightly informed believer, or even personal careers in ministry, but precisely the journey and bonding process that God initiates in marriages, families, tribes, nations, peoples, and churches who are seeking to involve themselves in love.

Rohr continues, The body of Christ, the spiritual family, is God`s strategy. It is both medium and message. It is both beginning and end. There is no other form for the Christian life except a common united one. Until and unless Christ is someone happening between people, the gospel remains largely an abstraction. Until he is passed on personally through faithfulness and forgiveness, through bonds of union, I doubt whether it will be passed on at all.

Unity is not just a spiritual claim for those in the Church, it is a claim for all of humanity. It is a claim based on our common ancestors and our common biology. But it is claim with a spiritual dimension. We are linked to each other and to God, who calls us to love and reconciliation both within the church and in the world. To draw all those physically and emotionally separated into the common body. It is not just the church that needs to be unified, it is all of creation.

This idea of a common body brings me back to the third influence for this service, which reflects on one of the major sources of disunity, pain and suffering in our world. One for which as people of faith we are called to oppose. I have also read in the last month another book, entitled `The Other Hand`, by Chris Cleave.

It is the story of Little Bee, a Nigerian girl of 16 who flees her home after her village and her family is destroyed by men, working for an oil company, who are seeking the land on which they lived. She is hounded by them until her sister is brutally killed and she manages to escape the country and flee to the UK, where she is subsequently interned for two years in a detention camp. She has an encounter on a beach in Nigeria with an English couple, a very profound encounter, which enables her to reconnect to them in England once she is suddenly released. The book is a fantastic insight into the journey of some one, traumatised and alone, who seeks to start a new life in a foreign very alien world while at the same time still connected to their old life. It is only through her own efforts to seek a new beginning and the love of the English wife, and her son, which gives Little Bee hope of a future. The book is about reconciliation and unity, about seeing someone as a member of both our biological and spiritual family, a relative with a story.

And this story, one of fleeing one`s homeland, being interned and blamed for being present in another country, is a regular occurrence in our world. You might be amazed and horrified at how many people, seeking help and safety away from their homelands, are in detention camps. While in Australia there are fewer people detained now that we have a Kevin Rudd led government, we still take in very few refugees, 13,750 a year at last count. However worldwide approximately 7 million of the world`s estimated 17 million refugees are warehoused under conditions of confinement. In the USA alone 440,000 people are in immigration custody, while in the UK at least 25,000 are in detention centres with numbers rising as they adopt similar policies to what we had here in the Howard years. The problem for many of these people is that they are detained not just for months but for years, with no possibility of returning to their homeland.

When John in his reading suggests as Christians we will be at odds with the world this is one of the situations he was referring to. We are called to shout our revulsion at policies that lock up people for indeterminate periods because they seek refuge. We must remember both our biological and spiritual connection to others, and seek reconciliation and relationship and a common voice. We all need to be active in seeking justice and equity for so many people, with stories such as little bees, while on the other hand welcoming those who appear on our shores and in our cities, homes and churches.

Last week when I was pondering all this in Church, rather than listening, I glanced across the room and saw Eddie, sitting quietly opposite me. I suddenly realised we had in our church a person who has a personal insight to what is happening to many people around the world and that his story was probably unknown to some people here.

With this in mind I asked Eddie if he would share his story with us, and he kindly agreed.


Life in a refugee camp - My journey from Congo to Uganda and Australia

In 2000 my brother, his family, and I were forced to leave our homes in Congo because of the ongoing civil war in which our father was killed by rebels. Our father was a traditional chief who was responsible for looking after the land belonging to the community, so we were a well-known family. For this reason we also were targeted by the rebels.

We were able to go to the Red Cross for assistance and they transported us to the border of Uganda.

From there we walked to Bunagana in Uganda which took us a day and a half. We then took a bus to Kampala. It was very hard to live there because we didn`t know anyone and didn`t speak the language. My brother left us at the bus station, leaving me (at the age of 22) to look after his wife and five children, while he went to the UN High Commission to find out what to do next and for protection.

On the way to the bus station, he lost his way and didn`t return to us until after 10 pm. He arrived in a car driven by a UN staff member and took us to a big house - mattresses everywhere - a room shared by 10 or 20 people.

The following day, he went to the office again to get help and was told that we would have to go to the refugee camp in Umvepi, on the border of Uganda and Sudan - 2 days` travel on the bus.

When we arrived at the camp we were given a tent, some basic cooking pots, some oil, beans and rice, and a machete to chop wood to make a fire. Because we had a little money, we were able to buy some extra food in a small town nearby.

After four months, we were given a small simple basic house. It was better than a tent, but it was still very hard especially for my sister-in-law, who had to look after five young children.

This was the hardest thing I`ve ever done in my life. There was no clean water, no food, no electricity, no medicines and for most of the time no hope for a better life. And this lasted for four years.

It was so hard that we asked the UN staff if we go back to Congo, but we were told that we would have to go to another country for safety reasons. We were accepted to come to Australia which - to us - was like going to the moon. We knew nothing about Australia - except kangaroos! And of course, we spoke French and Swahili but not English.

It is quite amazing for me to see the way I`m living today. Six years ago it was very hard - it seemed there was no future for me and my family, but since I arrived in Australia my life has been turned around. I was sick for years with my lung - it has been fixed which would have been impossible in my country. I met wonderful friends who helped me to settle in to this country and to bring my wife from Uganda. We have learnt English, we`ve been to school, we`ve found jobs and our children have become little Aussies.

I`m looking to the future and have a dream to study and become a nurse, so that I can help other people in the way that I was looked after.


As we seek to be a unified community, embracing those from many places, let us reflect again on our common humanity and seek to work for justice and peace in those places that only know conflict.
Amen