One of the vital signs of an alive Christ with us here is whether this live body out of the grave is seeking unity, oneness with other members and other denominations and other families of God.

Because our Lord prayed for it, because it was so evident during his earthly ministry, and because it is the very heart of the gospel, we know a vital sign of an alive Christ is an aggressive seeking after unity. It is the very nature of an alive group of his disciples. Let’s check the vital sign in our own church.

We quote it when we install a pastor: “… I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (v. 16).” It’s a beautiful sight -- the shepherd gathering his sheep into the sheepfold. In the Middle East, shepherds own a sheepfold in common. It’s usually constructed of a stone wall in a circle with brambles on top to keep anything from climbing over. To one side is an opening in the wall where the sheep and goats from several flocks go in and out. Late in the evening, the shepherds will build a fire close to that hole and will lie down right in the hole and use their bodies as a door to the fold. In the morning, you can see those same shepherds riding donkeys out through the fields, playing on their bamboo pipes and sometimes calling out in a beautiful voice, “mena.” The sheep know the voice of their shepherd and follow him out to the green pastures for the day.

Jesus tells this story and we use it often to plead for unity in following our pastor -- an under-shepherd. We use its rich imagery in talking about the “Good Shepherd.” We talk about God as our Shepherd and that we will never have any want as long as the situation is that way.

But shepherds and sheep and folds aren’t very much a part of our lives today -- only a few of us are farmers; and those use fences instead of shepherds, and barns instead of folds! Let’s concentrate today on that sentence that Jesus adds at the end of this beautiful passage about sheep and shepherds. Because, if we take it seriously, it scolds us and calls us to task for our behavior as one of the sheep in one of the folds of the Good Shepherd.

Jesus says: “...And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (v. 15, 16).” Notice Jesus says one shepherd and one flock, but not one fold. One of the hardest things in the world to unlearn is exclusiveness. Once a people or a group of people get the idea that they are different from other people, it is very difficult for them to realize that the privileges which they believe belong just to them are, in fact, open to all people.

When I was director of a Lutheran church camp in Ohio, I used to read the campers’ postcards on the way up the lane to the mailbox. They gave me a good idea of how camp was going that week. One postcard read: “This is the place where the Indian braves threw their old fathers -- wish you were here.” Another postcard read: “Dear Mom, I changed my underwear today. Having a wonderful time!” But the third postcard was the most interesting. It went like this: “Dear Sis -- They make you walk in a pan of chemical water every time before you go in swimming. I think it’s so you don’t get Catholic’s foot.”

Paul wrote to his church at Ephesus: “We are no longer stranger...Christ has broken down the walls that separate us.” Jesus has said that there is only one shepherd and one flock but many and other folds. Let’s say it here, then, that there are many denominations. That is, there are many organizations of Christians. One of them is certainly as legitimate as another. So we have United Methodist, United Presbyterian, Christian, United Church of Christ, Church of God, Nazarene, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic.

Jesus prayed for his disciples in John 17:18-20a: “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth…. That they may all be one.” Yet it is true that five orders of Christians fight over the top of Calvary in Jerusalem to decide who will maintain the building. They fight over which group gets to worship where in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself. Our separation in the family of God is a scandal. God intended for us to be friends. We need to know that genuine disciples of Jesus believe that other denominations are blood brothers and sisters of ours, and belong to the same flock, even when they don’t see us in that way. Just as we show our love in different ways (not all husbands get their wives flowers or all wives send cards with sentimental poetry), down through the years as we have become aware of our God and what he did for us on Calvary, we have worked out different ways to get together and express our thanks.

Lloyd George, the British statesman, once remarked: “The church I belong to is torn in a fierce dispute. One section says that Baptism is in the name of the Father, and the other that it is into the name of the Father. I belong to one of these parties. I feel most strongly about it. I would die for it, in fact, but I forget which it is.”

All religion and worship are a response to a victory already won for us -- over ourselves, our sins, our death, over fear and loneliness. One family of God may sing sentimental, experience-centered hymns, which another may use Greek and light candles, and yet another may roll in the aisles and speak in tongues! Still one more denomination may use beautiful classical music and revel in liturgies of ages past. It’s not a matter of one being wrong and the other being correct. It’s not a matter of one being God’s family and all the rest being the devil’s. These are God’s people celebrating an Easter victory together in the way that best expresses them.

It’s a little like it was the day when World War II was over. I remember in the little town of Greenville, Ohio, where I grew up, that some just sat and cried; others shot off fireworks and shotguns into the air; others hugged; and I even remember the firemen drove the fire engine into the park lagoon with the siren still running. All rejoicing about the same thing but in their own way. Paul puts it in 1 Timothy 2:3-6a: “This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself a human, who gave himself a ransom for all -- that was attested at the right time.”

That’s the healthy thing about different churches and denominations -- we reach all kinds of God’s people. Jesus said it, “… one flock and one shepherd… and I have others I must lead also.” Knowing this to be true, there are some severe warnings for us and our fellow Christians:

1. Don’t base your religion on just what you are against. That’s Old Testament alone. The “thou shalt nots” belong to the Law and the Old Testament. The New Testament talks more about “blessed are they…” and “how much more!…” Christians of any denomination are never haters of another. Because of the bitter fight in the church in the 16th century, Protestants sometimes still carry the stigma of being “Catholic haters.” How foolish and how shallow that kind of discipleship really is.

Thomas McCaulay, the English historian, returned from the Orient saying: “In a country where people pray to cows, the differences that divide Christians seem of small account.” When Isaac Casaubon, the great French scholar, was being shown the Hall of the Sorbonne on the occasion of his first visit to Paris, his guide told him, “This is where the theologians have disputed for 500 years.” “Indeed,” was the reply, “and pray, what have they settled?”

I find that there is more difference in theological beliefs between members of one congregation because of their refusal to study the Scripture and deepen their spiritual lives than there is between official beliefs of different denominations! After all, what one of us can claim that we live the life of a disciple so correctly that only our religion is correct? If you base your religion only on the negative, that is, what other churches and practices you are against, when you need positive content to get you through, you don’t have anything. When you lose a loved one or go through a divorce or get laid off or become lonely, it just doesn’t help to be against another denomination.

But what a comfort! What a companionship! What a presence if your fellowship in the family of God has helped you genuinely to know the Good Shepherd.

2. Beware of basing your Christian faith on a person or a church building or a denomination. Buildings can be sold, relocated, burned down, crumble, or fall down. People can build highways through them. Preachers can come and go. They are human and make mistakes. Denominations may merge or go bankrupt. God works through them in different ways. Some are a lot better than others. But so are members!

Don’t worship the pastor or the building. Your faith is much bigger than that. In so many instances, those who were the closest friends to the former pastor give the next pastor the most trouble. So beware of getting your loyalties all mixed up. It’s easy to confuse love of a person and sweet memories of what happened in a building for love of the God whose house it is. The early Christians gathered in one cave and then another. They gathered in one person’s house and then still another one. The risen Christ was with them, and they were with each other no matter where they met or with whom they met. Paul seldom stayed more than a few months as their pastor. But Christ had risen and was with them wherever they were and in whoever came forward to lead the worship.

When you move to another community, the greatest compliment you can pay your home church is to transfer immediately into another congregation of God’s people.

3. Watch out for any Christian faith whose pastor and people claim a monopoly on heaven. Be careful of the pastor who claims his church is the only fold. We preachers are in a position that makes us very vulnerable to becoming ego-maniacs, jealous of each other’s parishes. We can become self-centered, manipulators of people. It’s always easier to persuade our people to be against something; it can become a mental illness with us. In fact, because we are sinners, it’s easier to teach hate than love and acceptance.

So often all we do in church is rearrange our prejudices. Sure, it’s tempting as a pastor to ignore the touchy issues like war, politics, ecology, race relations, the poor of the world, world hunger, and prison reform. One of the easiest ways to gather a large congregation and insure plenty of money for yourself and your own church is to tell people what they want to hear, to reinforce their old prejudices, to rant and rave about everyone else and thus stay off the really sensitive spot: our own shortcomings.

When a devoted old black man applied for membership in a fashionable church, the minister told him to give added consideration to his desire to join. The old man said he would go home and pray about it. When the minister saw the old black man a few days later, he asked, “What did the Lord tell you to do?” “He told me it wasn’t any use,” said the old man. -- “He said, ‘I have been trying to get in that same church for ten years and I still can’t make it.’”

The more we claim exclusiveness and pour out our wrath against another denomination or race, the further we stray from the New Testament teachings and the influence of the risen Christ. “Now, Johnny,” said the teacher, “if there were 11 sheep in a field and six jumped the fence, how many would there be left?” “None,” replied Johnny. “Why, yes there would,” said the teacher. “No, ma’am, there wouldn’t,” persisted Johnny. “You may know arithmetic, but you don’t know sheep.”

Sheep belong together and do just that. Johnny knew it. It’s more a matter of heart and not so much of head. All sorts of disciples saw Jesus between Easter and Ascension and in all kinds of places! On the Emmaus Road, in the upper room, in the garden, along Lake Galilee. All sorts of persons worshiping in different ways still sense his presence. Let’s try in every way possible to extend our hand in fellowship to all God’s families. If there is any suspicion, let it not be from our side. We can make a grand witness of the way God would have his family join hands.

When we are baptized, we are adopted by God into a great fellowship. It’s called the Communion or Fellowship of Saints. I always tell my people not to say that they have been baptized Lutherans, or Methodists, or Baptists, or Roman Catholics. I instruct them to say that they were baptized Christian and that they are now part of the Christian flock and have Christ for their Shepherd.

Many years ago, Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, in addressing a conference of ministers, said, “If you are trying to shut yourself in behind your own denominational walls, I suggest that you climb up occasionally, and look over to see how many splendid people you have shut out.” Paul says: “We are no longer strangers… Christ has broken down the walls that separate us.” Jesus put it: “I have other sheep who do not belong to this fold. I must lead these also, and they will hear my voice. So there will be one flock and one shepherd.”

I take great heart today in the fact that:

• we are baptized into God’s fellowship;
• beware of Christians who claim a monopoly on heaven;
• beware of basing your Christian faith on a person or a church rather than Christ;
• don’t base your religion on just what you are against;
• we have one shepherd and one flock and we rejoice in the many folds.

It’s an old story and I have told it many times. Somewhere out further west than we are here in Iowa, a little girl, who had become ill, had strayed away from the farmhouse into a large field of weeds. The mother and father had searched and searched in the field, but could not find her. They knew if she remained there very long in her thin nightgown, she would die of exposure. They rang the dinner bell which signaled all the neighbors to come in for an emergency. Farmers from all around came to the farm and walked through the large acreage of weeds, criss-crossing back and forth trying to find the little girl. It was to no avail. Then someone had a brilliant idea. They all lined up along one fence, joined hands, and walked through the field in an orderly fashion. About three-quarters of the way through, one man screamed that he had found the little girl. It was too late. She was dead. When the father got to the scene and saw the little thing curled up in the weeds, he exclaimed: “For God’s sake, why didn’t we join hands sooner?”

Let’s you and I join hands now with all of God’s people. It’s a vital sign that our Lord does not still lie murdered in a dark rock tomb halfway around the world. The fact you and I pursue friendship and discipleship with other Christians is a vital sign that he came out of that grave -- the heart beats -- he is alive. We have a heart that produces a pulse; and the pulse of the matter is we care and try our best to join together with all our brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen.