Easter 7C
John 17:20-26
Brothers
and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
I ask not only on behalf of these gathered here, but
also on behalf of all who will come to believe through their word, that we may
all be one. As you, Father, and your Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all one
in relationship with each other, may we also all be one in You. Amen.
This
morning, we don’t hear Jesus preach. We don’t hear him tell a parable. We don’t
see him perform a miracle, or heal the sick, or stand up to authority. Today we
have the distinct privilege of eavesdropping on an intimate moment in which
Jesus talks to his Father. That is, we have the opportunity to hear Jesus pray.
What
is particularly remarkable about this, though, is not simply that he is praying.
What is remarkable is that he is praying for us! In Jesus’ conversations with God the Father, the
creator of the universe, the highest most holy – they are talking about little
ol’ us. Wow. That we would be a topic of conversation among the Trinity!
Question:
How many of you have ever been prayed for? … How many of you have ever been
prayed for in your presence? … How many of you have been prayed for by name in
an intimate setting, maybe while someone is holding your hand? How do you feel
when that happens? …Humbled? Embarrassed? Touched?
One
part of the ordination process for me was a requirement to spend a summer being
a chaplain in a clinical setting, like a hospital. When I did this I was
assigned to the oncology unit, and talked with people of many ages at many
different points of their lives. Often, the people I talked to were not
Christians, and when I asked if I could pray with them, it was sometimes the
first time they had ever been prayed for, at least to their knowledge. More
often than not in these cases, I would finish the prayer and look up to see the
person’s eyes filled with tears. In that moment, in that prayer, something had
touched them more deeply than any words that I could have said directly to
them. I don’t know if it was a sense of the divine, or simply being touched
that some person they didn’t even know would talk to God on their behalf. But
the tears were real and they were often.
What
happens in prayer that elicits such a response? There are lots of reasons to
pray, and lots of different things happen in prayer. But in this passage we
hear today in which Jesus prays to the Father for his disciples, we see and
hear clearly two purposes:
1)
Prayer brings us into
relationship with God.
2)
Prayer brings us into
relationship with one another.
Let’s
focus first on how prayer affects relationships between people. I certainly
think this effect was clear in my encounters in hospital rooms that
summer. But it is even more far-reaching than this. United Methodist theologian
Marjorie Suchocki writes, “No matter how remote two persons may be from each
other, there is a sense in which they ‘meet’ in God… When I pray for another
person’s well-being, I make myself relevant to his condition. It means that as
God weaves together the circumstances of that man…, my praying offers new stuff
for the weaving.” In other words, when I pray for another, I invest something
of myself in the condition of that person, and God uses that investment to
weave us and our lives together. I become spiritually entwined with that
person. I enter into a relationship with that person, even if we never have and
never will speak. When Jesus prays that we might all be one, he is praying that
we will all be entwined with one other – and this happens when we pray for one
another.
It’s
usually pretty easy to pray for our friends and loved ones, or even for their
friends and loved ones – all these people listed in the bulletin and then some!
It’s not too hard to do this – really just a matter of remembering and finding
time to do it. But what about our enemies? We talked a couple weeks ago about
loving people who are difficult to love, and here is one way we can do that: to
pray for them regularly. And I don’t mean, “Dear God, please make that person
at work stop being such a jerk.” I don’t even mean, “Dear God, please give me
the patience to deal with this person.” I mean, “Dear God, bless this person
and all their endeavors. May they know the bounty of your love, and know how to
share that love with others. Amen.” If you prayed this prayer, even for your
enemies, every day, how do you think your relationship with that person might
change? It’s hard to hate someone for whom you are praying regularly.
We
have a list of people we pray for regularly during worship. This includes all
these folks in our bulletin, but also some others: our president, all leaders
of all nations, our bishop, all pastors and bishops… and others on occasion.
These are probably not all people that all of us love, or even like. And yet,
is it important to pray for them? Yes. It’s hard to hate someone for whom you
pray regularly. When you pray for someone, you are brought into a relationship
with them, become a part of the weaving of their life, even as they become a
part of the weaving of yours. When you pray for someone, you cannot help but
start to love them. And you live out your identity as brothers and sisters in
Christ.
The
other important piece that happens when we pray is that it brings us into
relationship with God. Jesus prays, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,
may they also be in us.” There are at least two things going on here. One is
the unique relationship going on between Jesus and the Father (and, as we’ll
hear next week on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit). The other is our being brought into that relationship, to be enveloped by the eternal
love and joy that is the Trinity.
When I think about the relationship within the
Trinity, I think of the popular book, The Shack. In case you’ve not read it, it is about a man named
Mack who has suffered a great tragedy, who ends up encountering God, the
Trinity, in a shack in the woods. Like any human attempt to describe God, it
surely falls short on some counts, but one thing I think it does really well is
demonstrate in human terms the relationship of the three persons of the Trinity
– Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We see such love there, such joy. Their
interactions are like a dance of love, and as the story unfolds, we see Mack
brought into the experience of that loving relationship.
That
is what Jesus is doing for us when he prays for us. “As you are in me and I am
in you, may they also be in us.” Jesus prays for us to be brought into the
Trinity’s dance of love, to experience and share the eternal glory and love of
God.
And God does provide so many ways for us to experience
and share that glory and love – in ways we can see, hear, touch, smell, and
taste. That is what the incarnation is all about – why God became man to dwell
among us. And we continue to experience God’s glory and love in so many ways:
in the life of this congregation; in the embrace of a mother; in the rallying
around those in need; in the sounds a child makes as water is poured over his
head and we say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the
Holy Spirit”; in those words, “This is my body, given for you”; in the trees
suddenly bursting into pink flowers practically overnight; in a community
walking to raise money for hunger; in strangers helping strangers.
And we share and experience God’s glory and love when
we pray. When we pray, when Jesus prays for us, when we pray for one another,
we are brought into that eternal glory, into that eternal love, into the life
and joy of the Trinity.
And so, sisters and brothers in Christ, let us pray: God
of glory and love, you have artfully woven us into the tapestry of your life,
such that we are in you, and you in us, and we are in one another. Help us to
live into that oneness, and always to pray for one another, that the whole
Church and all of creation would live in your love. In the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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