Summer is coming, and the season reminds me of sunglasses. We wear them especially now to protect our eyes from the brightness of the sun, and not all sunglasses are the same. Some lenses are green, some blue, some brown. Each one changes how we see the world. Through green lenses, the world takes on a leafy shade. Through blue lenses, everything feels cooler and deeper. The lens shapes not only what we see, but how we feel about what we see.

Faith can be like that. We see God and the world through lenses shaped by culture, memory, experience, wounds, and hope. No single person sees the fullness of God completely. And yet here is the mystery: we do not look alone. We look together. And in looking together, we see more than any one of us could ever see alone.

This is the ground of the prayer we hear today in John 17. It is the night before the cross. Jesus knows what is coming. He has washed the disciples’ feet, shared a final meal, and spoken tenderly of the love between himself and God. Now, he lifts his eyes to heaven and prays, not for himself, but for them. For us. The prayer is intimate, even vulnerable. It is the prayer of a shepherd who knows his flock is about to be scattered, and who entrusts them, one last time, into the hands of God.

And the centre of that prayer is this: that they may be one. Those words are at the very heart of who we are as the United Church of Canada. That phrase, “that they all may be one,” is not simply a motto. It comes from this very passage in John. It is carried on our crest in Latin, and it has shaped who we are from the very beginning. These are the words upon which this church was built. On June 10, 1925, three great streams of Canadian Christianity came together: the Methodists, the Congregationalists, and a large portion of Canadian Presbyterians. They decided that their unity in Christ mattered more than what divided them. It was a bold and hopeful act. Nothing like it had ever been attempted in the English-speaking world. The prayer of Jesus became the founding covenant of a church.

So what does Jesus mean by unity? He is not praying for uniformity. He is not asking the disciples to dissolve their differences, silence their distinct voices, or forget where they have come from. Jesus himself declares, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” The relationship within the life of God is not sameness. It is a communion of mutual love, distinct and yet inseparable.

To understand this, we need to understand two words that run through John’s Gospel: to know and to believe. In modern English, knowing often means knowledge or information, and believing often means agreeing with an idea. But in the biblical world, these words are far richer. The Hebrew word for to know is yada, meaning entering into deep, mutual relationship. It is the word used in Genesis when we hear that “Adam knew Eve.” To know someone, in this sense, is not about knowing facts. It is about being genuinely present with another, vulnerable, trusting, joined in shared life. To believe in God is not simply to say that God exists. It is to give your whole self to God. Your heart. Your fear. Your hope. Your future. This is why Jesus says: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” For John, eternal life is not a distant reward. It is not something we wait for. It is life lived in communion with God and with one another. And it is available now.

This was a daring claim for John’s community. By the time this Gospel was written, many believers were exhausted. Jesus had not returned as quickly as they hoped. Some faced persecution, exclusion, and grief. They were asking: has God forgotten us? John’s answer is bold and tender: No. eternal life has already begun, and Christ is already among you. Whenever compassion overcomes hatred, whenever the stranger is welcomed, whenever truth is spoken with love, the life of God becomes visible among us.

It is into this vision that Jesus prays for unity. He knows how fragile human communities can become. We divide ourselves by race and skin colour. By language and culture. By age and class. By politics and fear. We create insiders and outsiders. We mistake difference for threat. And Jesus prays these words in verse eleven: may they be one, as you and I are one.

And yet we do not face this alone. Last Thursday was Ascension Day, when we remember the risen Christ ascending into heaven forty days after Easter. But the Ascension is not abandonment. It is expansion. Jesus, no longer bound to one body, one place, one language, one culture, becomes present everywhere through the Holy Spirit. We are not abandoned. We are held in prayer.

And this brings me back to sunglasses. Each of us comes here wearing a different pair. Our lenses have been shaped by where we were born. By the language we first prayed in. By the wounds we carry and the hopes that sustain us. Some of us learned to meet God in ancient liturgy. Others encountered God in rice fields. On the slow crossing of an ocean. At kitchen tables far from home. Each lens is real. Each lens carries truth. And no single lens captures the whole of God.

This is precisely why intercultural ministry is not simply a programme or a policy for the United Church of Canada. It is a theological calling, rooted in this very prayer. To be an intercultural church is to believe that we need one another’s lenses in order to see more fully.

In our own life together, we have been living this out this month. Two weeks ago, we celebrated Asian Heritage Month. Worship was led by many Asian worship leaders. Each one brought their own voice, their own tradition, and their own lens of faith. And last week, we did something even simpler and even more profound. We shared rice! Rice brought and cooked from many different parts of Asia. Each variety had its own flavour, its own colour and texture, its own memory of home. And yet there it was. All of it together on one table. Each grain distinct, and all of it nourishing, all of it one meal, all of it shared.

That rice tells a story of what we are called to be. No one needs to stop being who they are to belong here. We bring who we are and place it on the table together. And we find that the meal is richer for every variety present. This is intercultural ministry. This is the unity Jesus prays for.

And Jesus still prays for us. He prays that we hold our different lenses with open hands. That we see in one another not confusion or competition, but the many colours of one grace. That our differences bring us closer to God, not further apart.

The God who spoke is still speaking. We are invited to listen. Not only to God, but to one another. When we do, we begin to see something we could never find alone. The love that holds every lens. Every language. Every story. Every grain of rice. The love that calls them all, together, one.

Thanks be to God. Amen.