Many and One

Easter 7

Fr. Tim Nunez

June 1, 2025

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

John devotes 5 chapters to all Jesus said and did at the Last Supper, from washing his disciples’ feet to lots of teaching and instruction, closing with what we call his “High Priestly Prayer.” Today’s Gospel is the very end of that prayer. After this Jesus will cross the Kidron Valley to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he will be arrested.

He closes by praying fervently that his disciples would be One. He says it three times, not to drive the point home with God, but to drive it home to them. He frames this desire in the most profound terms, that they should be One as he and the Father are One. And he says he is praying this not just for those gathered with him that night, but also on behalf of those who will believe in him through their testimony.

That means you and me! Which raises a real question, the Dr. Phil question. How’s that working for you? Are we One as Jesus and the Father are One?

There are over 45,000 Christian denominations in the world as well as thousands of non-denominational churches; really too many to count. Here in the Lake Wales area, there are somewhere around 72 churches, depending on how we define the Lake Wales area.

Let’s bring it in closer. If we were to interview all of our members, we would undoubtedly find a lot of variances in opinions and emphases about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the church, our mission, and on and on.

That is a huge issue for those looking at us from the outside. What does it mean to be a Christian? It would appear to depend on whom you ask! On that basis, our faith can seem incoherent. But at other times it looks entirely coherent and clear. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

A little over forty years ago, the Lake Wales Ministerial Association determined to establish a means by which our local churches could work together to better serve our community for a number of reasons. The various agencies in Polk County largely overlooked Lake Wales at the time, as they do now. The churches wanted to minimize duplicating ministries and establish new ones. They wanted to structure their help as much as possible to address the root causes of the person’s need, to give people a hand up, not just a hand out. They wanted to create a centralized database of people seeking help to minimize scams.

And so the Lake Wales Care Center was born 40 years ago, on May 30th, 1985. Over these 40 years it has grown tremendously in every way.

Its ministries have grown in size and to meet a diverse range of needs, from meals on wheels to transitional housing for the homeless, job training and placement, their thrift stores, home repairs, a medical clinic and a pregnancy clinic. It’s a long list! These ministries each began rather organically, which is to say God brought various needs to them over the years. They responded in faith. God provided the people and resources to help them flourish.

It has also developed into a leadership training ground. The Care Center has leadership development opportunities for middle and high school students, college and graduate students. And they endeavor to attend to leadership development for all of their employees. That began with Rob Quam, who was hired as an intern and one of two initial employees, then two years later became the executive director. He’s still doing his on the job training!

The Care Center now has upward of 70 employees and an annual budget of over $3 million.

One of its blessings is that people in need have essentially a one-stop-shop here. While they do have ministries in many locations, everything is run out of 140 Park Avenue. That’s very helpful, because people in need usually have several types of need at once. If you’re homeless, you may need food, job training and placement, budgeting, clothing and so on. Anywhere else, each need is a different agency, which complicates everything starting with transportation.

And every bit of its ministry is Christ centered. The staff in the various locations and departments pray together - at the start of the day and when they hit stress points, and for the people they serve. They study the Bible together. They are not a church, but they are a beautiful manifestation of The Church.

I use the word “they” several times in that summary. But we should think of the Care Center as “we.” Fr.  Dick Scheffer was among the local pastors who created it. Fr. Harold Warren, Fr. Tom Seitz and Fr. Tim Nunez have each supported it wholeheartedly, as has our Archdeacon, John Motis. We’ve had dozens of members serve on its board and dozens more volunteer in its ministries.

We provide space for their staff lunches twice a month as well as many other meetings.

And then there are the kids. Dozens of Good Shepherd youth have participated in the Care Center’s “Stay at Home Work Camps” and their annual “Thanksliving Camp.” Dozens of our adults feed these kids breakfasts and lunches.

All of that works, all of that is blessed by God. In all these ministries “we” includes people from any and every church in town at one time or another.

As we’ve been reflecting on these 40 years, I realized another blessing in the Care Center. It was born out of the ministerial association 40 years ago. Today, it is the binding agent among us. I have good, active relationships with many of my colleagues because of the many ways the Care Center brings us together, just as it brings lay volunteers together. Jesus pulled us together to make a vision happen, and now that vision keeps us together.

Jesus prayed that we would be One. When we are One in him - in him - his grace, his truth and his saving love pours out for his people in profound ways. Through our shared witness, being One in him, the world may see him.

We’ve got thousands of people moving into this area in the coming years. The vast majority of them will be unchurched or de-churched. (De-churched means people who drifted away from church for whatever reasons.) It may just be that encountering a vibrant, effective and truly loving Christ-centered ministry in our Lake Wales Care Center will be a profound witness that draws them to Jesus and to seek Christian community.

Likewise, they may find in us a community so bound together as One in Jesus that they see him. They may see in us a church which truly manifests the love with which God loves Jesus is in us. They may see us truly bound together in his love. They may then come to know him.

I found out yesterday that we would be blessed with a group of Camp Wingmann staff this morning. What I said about the Care Center is certainly true for the camp. They are we. The community they form with staff and campers each summer manifests Jesus’s prayer for us to be One. It doesn’t matter where they are from, what church they attend. Maybe they don’t have a church and just came with a friend.

Counselors, I charge you with doing your level best to be One in Christ, to love each other through the stresses and strains of long, hot days, difficult campers. To be peacemakers when conflicts arise among you. To honor Jesus in the ways you lead the campers and serve each other, and in the ways you act when no one besides God is looking.

We are to be One as Jesus and the Father are One.  AMEN.