John
17:6-19
6
"I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.
They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now
they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that
you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in
truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am
asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf
of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and
yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in
the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father,
protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as
we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you
have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one
destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am
coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my
joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world
has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong
to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask
you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just
as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is
truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the
world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be
sanctified in truth.
Her name was Ora May
Wallace, but everybody just called her Mee Maw. They called her that because
she was practically everyone in the community’s grandma, great-grandma, momma,
great-aunt, or some relation or another. She was a sweat lady, but the kind of
sweat that certain Southern women of that generation are—the kind that will
kiss you on the cheek right after she smacked you across the face. When I first
met Mee Maw she was old. In fact, I think Mee Maw may have been born old, and in
her advanced years, as so many of us do, Mee Maw started to slip a bit. She’d
forget where she put her car keys or her Bible; she’d forget someone’s name or
confuse them with someone else. I can even remember one Sunday evening, when
Mee Maw drove her new (used) car to church: she pulled in to her usual spot in
the church yard, got out of the car, shut the door, and then the car commenced
to rolling down the slight incline, on to the paved parking lot, and right on
into the brick church sign. She forgot to put it in “Park” before getting out.
Mee Maw also had a habit
of interrupting the benediction on Sunday mornings. She didn’t do it every
Sunday, but once in a while, right after the last stanza of the invitational
hymn and just before the pastor would call on someone to pray, Ora May would
raise one wrinkled hand and say, “Preacher, I want to say something!” Now, I
have to tell you, nothing can unnerve a pastor like someone interrupting the
flow of the service, especially in such a loud and obvious way, and most
especially when the end is in sight. Not to mention, it can make a pastor awful
nervous when someone volunteers themselves to say something and you’re not sure
what they might say. Well, Mee Maw always put the pastor in a rough spot, so
he’d yield the floor to her. Then, she’d commence to running down every ailment
she had and how she was so grateful that the church had prayed for her while
she was getting the cancers burned off her face, the prescription readjusted
for her glasses, the colonoscopy she had last Thursday…it didn’t matter how seemingly
private or sensitive the subject, she wanted to express how thankful she was
that somebody, her church family, had been praying for her. Because, after all,
it is wonderful to know that someone is praying for you, isn’t it?
There’s something about
knowing that there’s someone out there in the world who’s taking the time to
pray for you. Even if you don’t necessarily believe that prayer is some kind of
mystical method of long-distance healing, even if you hold to the notion that
God’s will is set and cannot be swayed by our feeble prayers and attempts to change
God’s mind, knowing someone is praying for you can calm your nerves, ease your
mind, and remind you that you’re not in this thing called life all by yourself.
It’s wonderful to know that someone is praying for you, that when we gather in
this room during our mid-week prayer meetings we gather to pray for those we
love, those who mean something to us. We pray for you, for each other, and when
we pray, we bring our concerns, our broken-hearts, our pains, and our fears to
God. When we pray for each other, when others pray for us, it means we are
trusting God with the outcome. If it is wonderful, comforting, and encouraging
to know that others are praying for us, how much more then to know that Christ
has prayed for us? To know that Jesus has brought us before the Almighty God
and entrusted the outcome of our decisions, our predicaments, to the God of the
universe?
We’ve heard a portion of
Jesus’ prayer for his disciples—for us—this morning in the seventeenth chapter
of John’s gospel. These are some of the final words in what is called the
“farewell discourse” of the fourth gospel. Jesus is preparing to depart from
his disciples. The signs of wonder and power are in the past, the wonderfully
mystical parables have all been told, the last of the water-turned-wine has
been drunk, the stink has worn off the once-dead Lazarus, and the last of the
money changers have been driven out of the temple. All that looms before him
now is Calvary, the Roman execution stake, the pain and agony of the cross. Beyond
that, beyond the grave is resurrection and ascension. Jesus’ time with his
disciples, the time he has with his friends, has grown short. So as he bids
them farewell, after he tells them about the coming of the Holy Spirit, after
he tells them of the need for unity in the midst of the world’s hatred, after
Jesus has instructed them about the necessity of peace…he prays for them in
chapter seventeen. Can you imagine…Jesus…praying for his disciples…praying for
us…praying for you?
In this prayer of
Christ’s before us, Jesus prays to God for three things for his disciples. Twice
he prays for protection: in verse 11
Jesus prays for his disciples to be protected, so they may be one as he and the
Father are one; in verse 15 he prays
for his disciples to be protected from evil—he doesn’t pray for them to be
removed from evil or from the world in which evil dwells, he prays for their
protection. The third thing Jesus prays for his disciples is in verse 17, that they be sanctified, that
is that God would make Christ’s followers as Christ himself—hallowed and wholly
committed to the kingdom and love of God. Jesus prays for God’s protection over
his followers (both his disciples then and now) so that they may be one, united
in the gospel we share, in the love of God we experience together and show to a
world haunted by the evil of its faults and sins.
I want you to take a moment
and let that soak in. Close your eyes if that helps. Imagine: in the midst of
all of your troubles, with all of your doubts, fears, anxieties, and
uncertainties Jesus is praying for you. Even when you don’t have the words,
even when you do but they’re too painful or frightening to speak, Jesus is
praying for you. Even when you’re terrified of the uncertainties of a fast-approaching
future, Jesus is praying for you. Even when others around you whisper threats
in your ear, Jesus is praying for you. Even when your horizons are stretched,
your comfort zone breached, and your ways in which you were so firmly set have
been broken down and swept away by the ever-widening circle of the gospel,
Jesus is praying for you. And I know all of us could sure use him praying for
us these days!
We need the protection of
God for which Jesus prayed, protection that we may be one, especially in the
midst of more news that suggests that the way we’ve tried to do faith, the way
we’ve been trying to do the work of God’s kingdom is only pushing people away
and burning others out. A new study released this week by the Pew Research
Center shows that since 2007, Christianity has declined in America: in 2007,
78.4% if Americans claimed to be Christians; in 2014 that number fell to 70.6%
(still an overwhelming majority). Most of that decline came from a drop in the
number of those who claimed to be Catholic (a 3.1% decrease) or mainline
Protestant (a 3.4% decrease), while those claiming to be evangelical
Protestants declined by 0.9%. The most telling statistic, however, is that the
so-called “nones,” the religiously unaffiliated, increased by 6.7%, making them
the second-largest group in the country (just 2.6% behind Evangelical
Protestants).[1]
This news makes a lot of
people nervous—a lot of Christians and Church leaders nervous. It makes us
anxious about the future, and it causes us to stress about things like numbers
and competing with the lure of the world. It causes us to question our motives,
and some of us double-down on the old, antiquated ways of doing things, ways
that excluded others, those on the margins, and some of us look to practices
that too-closely resemble the ways of consumerism or popular politics in order
to draw a crowd and keep the numbers up (at least for now). Our anxiety leads
to division, yet Christ prays for us to be one as he and the Father are one, so
that that world may see the love we have for Jesus and each other, so that the
world may be transformed by that love.
Then there are all of
those news stories, those conjured crises, created to scare us. Those ramped-up
rhetorical devices of false fear and trumped-up trivial matters pushed down our
throats through the cable box or our newsfeed. I was recently sitting in the
lobby of a hotel reading and drinking a cup of coffee. There were televisions
all throughout the lobby and all of them tuned to the same news channel. I had
been fairly successful in tuning out the endless coverage of the beating of a
dead horse, when (for whatever reason) a commercial came on that caught my
attention. It was a long-time politician, and he was pronouncing the impending
economic doom that is sure to hit our country in the very near future. He
threatened the loss of wealth and comfort; he spoke of collapse and catastrophe.
His tone was urgent, threatening, fearful. He wanted to warn all of those who
were listening about the coming calamity and how to avoid it—but of course
you’d have to visit his website and buy something before he’d tell you!
We’re fed a constant
narrative of fear. As the world changes, as the old ways are fading, as the
world gets smaller and the safe harbors of hegemony we once occupied are being
decreased or deconstructed, many of us cannot help but be afraid. We’re worried
we’ll lose what we think we’ve worked so hard to get. We’re scared that we
won’t have the power, the influence, the comfort we once had. We’re wholly
terrified of the other, and it’s mostly because there are those who have
exploited and ballooned that fear in order to take advantage of us. Perhaps
what scares us most is the possibility that we may be wrong—wrong about life,
faith, God, each other. That fear comes from the world, but Jesus prays for our
protection from the evil of this world. He doesn’t pray for our removal, or our
cloistered isolation; Jesus prays for our protection from such evil, so that
that world may see the love we have for Jesus and each other, so that the world
may be transformed by that love.
We are sanctified,
hallowed, made holy by God in our protection. We are freed from the fabricated
fears of this world by the prayer of Christ. We are sent boldly by the
assurance that Jesus is praying for us, that God has already written the
ending, that whatever anxiety, fears, frustrations, and uncertainties may keep
us from the full love of Christ—from sharing that love with all of God’s
people—have been defeated already by the power of prayer.
Jesus is praying for you.
So why be afraid? Why fear the unknown? Why limit yourself and the calling
Christ has given you? Why withhold God’s love from anyone? Why be anxious about
whether you are right or wrong? I tell you the truth, in the end, the only one
who is right is God, the only one who gets it all right is Jesus. And he’s
praying for you. So may you be sent forth together with all the saints in
boldness, knowing that the prayers of Jesus go before you. May you go forth in
freedom from the manufactured fears and evils of this world. May you go forth
as the blessed ones of God, those for whom Christ has prayed, is praying, and
will pray. May you be sent out into the world—the hurting, hungry, dying,
love-starved world—as those protected, empowered, and sanctified by the prayers
of the one whose love is eternal. Be sent in the love of Christ. Amen.
[1]
One can find the Pew Research Forum’s complete report here: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
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