Easter 7C
John 17:17-24
May 29, 2022
Grace, mercy and peace to you in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Today is the final Sunday in the season of Easter. But instead of a resurrection story, our gospel reading today takes us back to the evening before Jesus is arrested, tried and crucified. In John’s gospel, Jesus seems to know what is coming. He knows he is headed towards suffering. He spends time trying to prepare his disciples for what has to happen, and refuses to avoid the pain of death. And so, after demonstrating love through washing his disciples’ feet and after instructing them to love one another as he has loved them, Jesus now spends time in prayer—not for himself, but for his disciples and for all who will be impacted by the disciples’ witness.
While this is not the first time that we’re told Jesus takes time to pray, this is one of the few times where we’re given the specifics of his prayer. And in these words, we are invited again to be caught up in God’s heart for God’s people. Granted, there’s some confusing sentence construction in this prayer, and you can get a bit tripped up in trying to distinguish Jesus the human from Jesus the Son of God, as you sort through all of the “I in you and you in me and they in us” language. In a few weeks we will observe Holy Trinity Sunday, and I’m sure that Pr. Courtenay will answer all your questions about the Trinity. But for now, I invite you to dwell in this prayer Jesus lifts up to his Father. Jesus is praying for his disciples, and asking that they and all who come after them know the one-ness that he knows in his relationship with God…that they would be one as the essence of God is one. If you’ve ever had the gift of hearing someone pray for you—really pray for you, not just say they’ll pray for you—you know that there’s something incredibly profound in someone standing with you in your uncertainties and struggles, and claiming on your behalf hope and promise that sometimes you can’t claim for yourself.
Jesus must know that in the days ahead there will be plenty of reasons for the disciples to turn on one another and be divided. One will betray him. Another will deny knowing him. Some will flee in fear. Others will watch from the sidelines in confusion and heart break. There will be lots of reasons for the disciples to turn on one another and be divided, and so his prayer for them is that they will choose unity and relationship with one another, and that they will continue to witness to the message of hope and reconciliation he has tried to share throughout his time with them. He prays that just as they came to know God by getting to know him, the world would come to know him by getting to know the disciples…and in that way he hopes that what binds them together will be stronger than what tries to pull them apart.
Today we don’t have to look very far to find forces seeking to separate and divide us. Even within the church—unity, community, harmony and reconciliation feel like aspirations more than lived realities. We separate ourselves based on creed, background, culture, tradition, and context. We draw lines between those who are ‘in’ and those who are not, and we maintain subtle and not-so-subtle attitudes of prejudice and criticism of those who are not “like us” in some way. We don’t have to look very far to find forces seeking to separate and divide us.
But Jesus gives us another way. Throughout his ministry, he consistently crosses boundaries and draws people into relationship and community. He challenges stereotypes and assumptions, and points towards an understanding of God that opens doors, expands welcome and inclusion, and embraces difference and diversity. And as he is facing his own experience of suffering and pain, he prays that those who have been impacted by his life and have heard his teaching will continue to be drawn together into relationship and community that reflects the breadth and vastness of the one-ness of God.
Here’s something that Jesus seemed to know that I am still learning…one-ness isn’t something we achieve for ourselves. One-ness cannot be forced. Rather, one-ness the way Jesus visions it is something that originates in the essence of God who IS one with humanity and all of creation, and who draws us into that one-ness. In the divine mystery of things, one-ness is a result of RELATIONSHIP between Creator and Created, between the source of Love and the Be-loved, between divine and human.
THAT IS GOOD NEWS!!
It means we do not work for this one-ness, we experience it and get caught up in it as we deepen our relationship with each other and with the ONE who knows us and loves us. Jesus prays that the disciples would come to know that they are not alone. He wants them to know connection and community with God as well as with each other, and he prays that this experience of connection and community would be a witness and a welcome to all those who do not yet know that they can also be caught up in connection and community. But this is a prayer, not a lecture to the crowds. So the one who is being asked to do the work is God, as the one who answers prayer. That means that God is the one who makes us one. We do not achieve one-ness in our own strength…we experience it and get caught up in it as we deepen our relationship with each other and with the ONE who knows us and loves us. God is the one who MAKES US one.
How might this congregation be being invited to witness to the unity we have in Christ? How might this congregation experience more fully that that which draws you together in relationship with God and neighbour can be stronger than that which seeks to divide and separate you? How are you experiencing and celebrating the God who makes you one?
In this prayer, we are reminded again what John tells us at the beginning of the gospel—the Word of God has been made flesh and dwells in the midst of humanity. God has come into the world and is being made known in and through relationship and community. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh—who reaches out to the sick, the lost, the lonely and the destitute with a word of hope, healing and promise. And now, as Jesus prepares for his physical journey to come to a close, he prays that those who have heard and been transformed by the Word will see themselves as the messengers who now get to be the physical presence of God in the world. He prays that what he has received and given away will now also be received and given away so that the world will continue to know that the Word has been made flesh and continues to dwell among us as each of us participates in connection and community with God and with one another.
One of the key messages in the gospels is that we know God because we know Jesus. While there is plenty we might not understand about the specifics of the God-Jesus relationship, as the Word made flesh, Jesus embodies the heart of God through word and deed, and we can know God because we can know Jesus. Similarly, our neighbour comes to know Jesus as they come to know us. Next week we will hear the story of Pentecost and celebrate the way that the Holy Spirit empowers the church—the called, gathered and sent ones—to be the word-made-flesh in the world. The Holy Spirit draws the disciples together beyond the boundaries of their fears and insecurities and sends them with the very breath of God to be the message of hope and life. “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Jn 17:23).
As Jesus faced the realities of suffering and disruption, he prays for the disciples—that they would come to know in each other what he has come to know—that one-ness is a gift and reflection of the very heart of God. He prayed that this one-ness would move the disciples beyond all that threatened to divide them and draw them together in a deeper commitment to each other and to those around them, so that just as they had come to know God by knowing him, the world would come to know God by knowing them.
What makes us one is not the work that we do, the traditions that we cherish, or the ideas we agree on. Those may be ways that we deepen our connection to each other and to this particular place. But what makes us one in the way Jesus is talking about is the love that God has for us, made known to us in Christ and shared with the world through our love and care for one another.
Dear friends, as you face the questions and uncertainties of tomorrow—either personally or together as a community—I pray that you will know that you are not alone. Just as Jesus prayed for his disciples, so now through the Holy Spirit who strengthens and sustains you, he continues to pray for you, and joins you in those sighs that are too deep for words. Sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ, you face the fears and uncertainties of tomorrow held firmly by the one who defeated the forces of death and draws you into the One-ness of God. And called into new life as a child of God, you are made one with one another—with those who have gone before you and with those who will come after you.
“And so this season of Easter culminates where the gospel begins: with Jesus making God known so that the world may know that every soul and all creation has come from and has a place in the creative love of God” (Meda Stamper, workingpreacher.org).
Amen