“This is God’s Table, and all who seek God or seek to be found by God are welcome here. Have you ever heard that before?You know the words that I say have much more meaning for me and I hope for you than just a laying out of a welcome mat for all of the people of God.They are also words of challenge.It is pretty easy to open the door wide and let all comers into the banquet – or perhaps the breakfast– the trick is to get everyone to pull together once we are all gathered.I am acutely aware of this difficulty as I watch the votes for the timing of our summer service coming in.I suspect that most of us would agree that voting and letting the majority carry is a fair way to make a decision for a group, but I wonder who will see the change as a reason to stay home, or a reason to be angry or upset. We have an amazingly cohesive Christian family here. We don’t always agree on scripture of liturgical praxis but we do try to honor each other and that is good. On the service times, well we will have to wait and see. Of course our struggles to be of one mind seem insignificant when compared to the questions facing the diocese, or the national church, or the Anglican Communion, or perhaps even Christendom.It is a real struggle today to find a time or a place people of faith are not in conflict.And those confrontations do not seem to be getting us very far.There are some in the church who would say that only baptized Christians may receive communion, there are some who believe that homosexuality is a sin and there are others who believe that the sin is to exclude those who are made in God’s image but not mine or yours.There are some who believe that accepting Jesus is the one and only path by which a person may know God.Conflict, conflict conflict. If the newspapers tell us anything about the church it is that conflict seems to be a core characteristic whenever people of faith come together.I say seems because there is at the core of our belief an awareness of God’s oneness with us in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.There is at our core an awareness of our connection to the past and to the future as we stand as one with saints before and saints to come in faithfulness and reverence for God.We sense as one that - God transcends time and place and is at once - with each of us and all of us.It is out of this transcendence that the unity for which Jesus prays is to come.“The glory that you have given me, I have given them so that they may be one as we are one.”(John 17:22) In this lesson from John today Jesus seems to be fully aware of how difficult that task of living fully into a life of faithful community can be.Remember a couple of weeks ago when Jesus told us that we are to be known by our love for each other?Today he returns to that theme in this prayer that he offers – not only for the disciples, but also for all of those who come to believe in God because of the witness of the disciples.Jesus prays for a unity that is founded in reciprocal love – love that is not controlled my one loud voice of one strong arm, but rather one that is characterized by cooperation, consideration, and mutual respect.It is characterized by the self-giving, reciprocal love seen in the relationship between God and Jesus and which Jesus lived as he taught and healed and loved in his ministry. Love that is reciprocal is felt and experienced by both parties.It is not one sided or heavy weighted.When there is conflict or discord – it is not unusual to find that at the core of that conflict is a lack of or failure of reciprocity – a lack of respect and honor that holds one person to be as valuable as the other.Instead of servant leadership there is despotism, instead of respect and mutuality there is contempt and antipathy.Reciprocal love is the opposite of conflict and conflict is the opposite of Jesus’ prayer for us as people of God. When I was on the Gulf Coast I heard a story that comes of Buddhist tradition.I believe it originated in Sri Lanka.The Jataka are a collection of tales of the Buddha’s former lives and make up a series of teachings familiar even to children.One such story begins….. Once the Buddha was a wise quail and the leader of a whole flock.One day a hunter came into the woods.He had learned to imitate the calls of the quail’s themselves and he used the calls to entice and to trap unwary quails.Calling his flock together the Buddha told them about the hunter and how many of the brother and sister quails were missing.He admonished them to be alert and wary and he offered a plan for working together to protect the flock.Please listen to my plan he said.If you should hear a whistling call, twe whee twe whee”.It may sound like a brother or sister calling, but if you follow it you may find darkness descending upon you.Your wings’ will be pinned so that you cannot fly and the fear of death may grip your heart.If these things happen just understand that you have been trapped by the hunter’s net and do not give up!Remember if you work together you can be free. Here is my plan.You must stick your heads out through the web of the net and then you must all flap your wings together.As a group- though you are still bound in the net – you will rise up into the air.Fly to a bush.Let the net drape over the branches of the bush, so that you can each drop to the ground and fly away from under the net – this way and that way.to freedom.Do you understand?Can you do this?“We do understand answered all the quail as one, “and we will do it!We will work together and be free” Hearing this, the wise quail who was to be the Buddha was content.The very next day a group of quail was pecking on the ground when they heard a long whistling call.Twe whee twe whee.It was the cry of a quail in distress.Off they rushed.Suddenly the darkness descended on them and their wings were pinned.They had indeed been trapped by the hunter’s net.But remembering the wise quail’s words that did not panic.Sticking their heads out through the web of the net they flapped their wings together harder and harder and slowly slowly with the net still draped upon them they rose as a group through the air.They flew to a bush.They dropped down through the bush leaving the net hung on the outer branches, then flew away each in their own direction – this way and that -to freedom. The plan had worked.They were safe.They had escaped from the jaws of death and oh were they happy.But the hunter was not happy.He could not understand how the quail had escaped.And this happened not just once but over and over again.At last the hunter realized the truth.“ Why he said amazed, - those quails are cooperating!They are working together but it can’t last.They are only birds, featherbrains after all.Sooner or later they will argue.And when they do I will have them.And so he was patient. Now the wise quail had had the same thought.Sooner of later the birds of his flock would begin to argue and then that happened they would be lost.So he decided to take them deeper in the forest far from their present danger. That very day something happened to confirm the wise quail’s thought.A quail was pecking on the ground for seeds when another bird of the flock descending rapidly accidentally struck it on tit wing-tip.Hey watch it stupid!Called the first bird in anger.“Stupid is it?”responded the first quail.“Dumb cluck?” Talking of dumb it clear that you can’t even land without slapping someone in the face!If that isn’t dumb I don’t know what is!Who taught you to fly anyway – the naked-winged bats? Bats is it? yelled the second quail enraged.Bats”Why I’ll give you a bat -you feathered ninny!And with a loud chirruping whistle he hurled himself straight at the other quail.Chasing furiously after one another loudly hurling insults and threats back and forth, they flew twisting and turning between the great silent trees of the grove.An argument had started and as is the way of arguments – no end was in sight. The wise quail was nearby and heard it all.At once he knew that danger was again upon them.If they could not work together the hunter was sure to have them.So again he called his flock together and said ‘My dear brother and sister quail.The hunter is here.Let us go elsewhere, deeper into the forest and there in seclusion discipline ourselves, practicing our skill in working g together.In this way we shall become truly free from danger. Many of the birds said, “Though we love our present home we shall go with you, wise Quail.The danger is great and we wish to find safety.But others said, “Why go from this pleasant spot.You yourself have taught us what we need to know to be free.We just have to flap together.Any dumb cluck can do that.We’re going to stay. So some of the birds flew off with the Wise quail and others stayed.A few days later while some who had stayed wee scratching for their dinner they heard a whistling call Twe whee twe whee.They ran to answer the call when suddenly, darkness descended upon them.Fear gripped their hearts.They were trapped in the hunter’s net.One bird said.On the count of there we all flap – Ready?One two three” Hey called another bird, “Who made you the boss?Who said you could give orders?”I am the hardest worker and the strongest said the first bird.When I flap the earth trembles!Without me you'll never get off the ground.So I give the orders see!”No I don’t see said the other bird.When I flap the heavens ripple, that’s how strong I am.So if anyone should give the orders it should be me.No me!Shouted a third bird, me yelled a further. No No! listen to me screamed the first bird again rising above the din.Flap Flap Flap I tell you Flap your wings when I count to three!But no one flapped.They just argued and argued.And as they argued the hunter came along and found them and their fate was not a happy one.But the quail who had gone off into the safety of the great forest under the wise quail’s guidance learned how to really cooperate.They practiced constantly, until they were indeed able to work together without anger of argument.Though the hunter tried many times to catch them he never could.And if he never caught them well they’re still free today. Jesus calls us to oneness in God so that through us - others will know God.We can choose to put our differences aside so that we can join together in love.We don’t have to all be of the same opinion or practice to be in unity with God.We only have to recognize God’s image in each other and work together, so that all will be made free from sin and death in the loving embrace of Jesus.(from a collection of stories the Spirit of Justice and recovery Retreat, Chatawee, MS – sponsored by the MS Center for Justice) Let us pray,Lord, you made us all in your image, but sometimes we struggle to see that in each other.Open our hearts to listen to our brothers and sisters and not to get stuck in the muck of thinking that we have all the answers.Jesus, be present with us so that our divisions will cease and we will have love for each other as you have for us. Holy Spirit, come upon us so that our wings will flap with speed and power and unanimity.We pray in the name of God who is our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.Amen