Easter 7C
June 2, 2019
John 17:20-26
Confirmation Day
INTRODUCTION:
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Alleluia! This is the last Sunday we share this greeting, traditionally
used throughout the Easter season, because today is the last Sunday of Easter.
And on this, the 7th Sunday of Easter, we always hear as our Gospel
reading a part of what is known as the priestly prayer. This happens on the
night of Jesus’ betrayal, and he has just shared a meal with his disciples,
washed their feet, and bid them a lengthy farewell, and now, in their presence,
he prays for them. And remarkably, they, and we, get to eavesdrop on Jesus’
conversation with the Almighty, and hear Jesus’ deepest hope for us, his
followers.
Our
lesson from Acts also features prayer (I’ll let you listen for yourself to see
how), so I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer this week, and the ways and
reasons we do it. My preferred prayer language is music. If you don’t mind
sharing, what are some ways that you like to pray, ways you connect to God and
one another? … You see, there are lots of ways to pray, and even more reasons
to do it! As you listen today, think about your experience with prayer, what it
does in you and for you, and generally your experience with it, and see if our
texts might expand your understanding of prayer. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let
us pray:
Heavenly Father,
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 speak truth to power. 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? … (You all have, I just did pray for you!) 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?
I
have prayed with and for a lot of people one-on-one over the years, and have
also had a few opportunities to be prayed for by friends, parishioners, or
family. And I would say that more often than not, when I pray for someone I
open my eyes at the end, I see tears in the eyes of the person who has just
been prayed for. I know that I often cry when I am the recipient of prayer!
There is just something about that connection, that naming aloud and tenderly
holding one another’s deepest pains, fears, and joys, in relationship with one
another and with God, that touches us more deeply than talking directly about
it does.
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 have seen
this many times in my office, and hospital rooms and homes. 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 we pray for another, we invest something of ourselves in the
condition of that person, and God uses that investment to weave us and our
lives together. We become spiritually entwined with that person. We 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 in the context of big, divisive issues, people who might be
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.” (But we’ve all prayed that prayer, right?) 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 or to that person might change? It may or may not change them at all… but
it is sure to change you. Because it’s hard to hate someone for whom you are
praying regularly. (And, it’s hard to be one, like Jesus prayed, if we feel
hatred for one another!)
We
have a list of people we pray for regularly during worship. This includes all
these folks listed in our bulletin, but also some others: our president and
elected officials, leaders of other 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. All the
more so! 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 we pray for someone, we cannot help but start to love them with the love
of Christ. And we live out our identity as united 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,
now also a movie, The Shack. In case
you’ve not read or seen 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
that is exactly what happens, at that moment when water splashes upon us and we
are baptized, “in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” We
are brought into the joyful, unified, loving relationship of the Triune God,
and receive all the hope and promise that this relationship brings. We are
promised that as a part of that love and unity, we will be empowered to bear
one another’s burdens, support one another, love one another, pray for one
another. When our baptismal faith falters, our being a part of this community
means that others will hold that faith for us until we can believe again. By
our baptism, we are compelled to serve one another – those we know and love and
find it easy to pray for, and those we don’t know, don’t really like, and may
never have thought to pray for. And of course, in our baptism, we are assured
of the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting – a promise, affirmed by
Jesus’ prayer for this disciples that night, that means in essence that God
will never let us go, from now until eternity.
Today
we will celebrate with Zach, Teddy, and Gina, as they affirm these gifts and promises
of baptism, even as we celebrate our own baptism. We will pray over them, that
they would be one with us in the body of Christ today and as they continue
through their life of faith. We will trust that they will pray for us, too, as
fellow members of the body. And we will together give thanks that our God loves
us enough to hold us, love us, save us, and pray for us, that we would be one
with God, and one with one another.
And so,
sisters and brothers in Christ, let’s get started right now, and 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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