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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Seventh Sunday of Easter 5/16/10 Text: John 17:20-26


Seventh Sunday of Easter
5/16/10
Text: John 17:20-26
Title: Praying for the impossible?
Today is the last Sunday of the Easter Season.  For the past 6 weeks we have focusing on the resurrection of our Lord and its meaning for us today.  This past Thursday we celebrated Jesus’ ascension into heaven, a critical event for the Christian Church, for, as Jesus said, the Holy Spirit could not come unless he ascended to the Father from whom he came.  The coming of the Holy Spirit will be celebrated next Sunday, Pentecost Sunday which marks the birth of the Christian church.
Our Gospel reading is particularly appropriate then, for today, for it is part of what is called Jesus High Priestly prayer.  Jesus in his prayer has already prayed for himself and his disciples.  Now he is praying for, as you might have noticed when the Gospel was read, for all who will believe in him in the future through the words that his disciples will write down.  That is us.
The purpose of believing in Jesus, as it is written down for us, is, as Jesus prayed, “that they may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, that they may they also may be one in us, ”and here is the why, “so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” 
How that is going to happen is given in the next part of his prayer.  Jesus prays, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one.”  Jesus has given us the same glory, or it might be better said in today’s English the honor that he had received from the Father.  God holds Jesus in honor because of his perfect obedience and trust even unto his death.  Because of Jesus perfect obedience and trust through faith we also are honored by the Father.  We too are his beloved sons and daughters. 
As I prepared for this sermon I began to think that Jesus’ prayer for the sons and daughters of God being one is an impossible prayer.  All you all you have to do is look at all the different Christian churches to see that there is no oneness, much less the people within those Christian churches. 
Our particular denomination is not immune.  I remember driving to the birthplace of our Synod in Missouri to see the birthplace of our synod.  It had to be a special place I thought, but when I got there I did not see oneness but brokenness, for in this little bitty town separated by a block there are two Lutheran churches. That in itself is not a bad thing, but there were two Lutheran churches because some of the members of the original church could not get along with some of the members, so they left to form another congregation. 
The sad thing about it is that there, if I remember correctly there are not enough people to support either congregation.  I had heard talk of their getting back together, not because of being one in faith, as Jesus prayed, but because of finances. But you don’t even have to go that far, for you only have to look at our own congregation to see that there is not always oneness.  Brokenness not oneness exists in the best of Christian congregations and that would lead you to believe that Jesus’ prayer for oneness with him and the Father is a prayer for the impossible. 
That is what you would think, but with God all things are possible for those that love him.  To believe otherwise is to deny not only the power of Jesus’ prayer, but also his birth, life, death, and resurrection.  For in this prayer for us, he makes three statements.  That we should believe; That we should be one; That we should love, as he loves.
We are to believe, for that is the only we can be one, as he prays in verse 20, “for those who will believe in me through their word, that is the Bible which contains the inspired writings of the disciple, that they may be one.”  Belief in the sense Jesus is praying is not head knowledge.  It is the recognizing in one’s heart that Jesus is the one sent by the Father to do what we cannot do, that is keep God’s just commands.  Belief is living Jesus’ words not just knowing them.
John Chrysostom an early church father argued around 320ad that if those in the local congregations lived their belief they would lead those of the world to faith, for they would see the transformed lives of the followers of Jesus.  He continued that because God is a God of peace it would follow that a person who claims to be a believer in Jesus would be a person of peace. 
Following that reasoning it would naturally follow that if those who proclaim to be believers in Jesus quarrel, those who are watching have just reason to say they are not believers.  There is an old saying that says, “You are what you eat.” I would say, actually Jesus would say, “You are what you believe.”  As followers of Jesus we need to be people of peace.  Let the way you live your life invite others to follow Jesus.
The second thing he prayed for us to be is of one mind, that is be united in faith and trust with him and the Father.  This was an important part of his prayer, for even among his disciples there was squabbling and power plays going on.  Can you imagine how he felt, as he headed for the cross?  For that matter can you imagine how he must feel today as he observes what is going on in the Christian church today?  You only have to observe the preparation for a national church convention to see church people at their worst.  Then we wonder why people are not interested in mainline denomination churches. 
The Christian church must be one even while we worship in different ways, for oneness in faith is what leads the world to believe in Jesus.  We must, as Jesus did welcome all into his kingdom, even those not like us however that might be.  There can be no second-class citizenship among people that follow Jesus, that accept him as their Savior.  To do otherwise goes against all that Jesus taught.  The oneness that Jesus is praying for is not found in human maneuvering or understanding, but in the oneness of God.  Our oneness is, as Fred Kaan a wonderful Christian hymn writer who just died last year wrote, “Help us accept each other as Christ accepted us; teach us as sister, brother, each person to embrace.  Be present Lord, among us, and bring us to believe we are ourselves are accepted and meant to love and live.”
Five times within these six verses Jesus names love as the key description of divine relationships.  Love is the bond within the Trinity.  Love is the divine gift to the disciples.  Love is the magnetic grace through which God seeks to attract the world.  Love is the ingredient that the Lord prays will be within his followers.  Love is the glue that holds it all together, for without love Jesus would not have come to be one of us.  Love for us drove Jesus to suffer and die taking the full wrath of the father upon himself, so that we, as still deserving of God’s wrath are, are free of it.  He is indeed our Savior.
The love for which Jesus prays is cross-shaped love, for that is indeed the glory of Jesus.  It is the glory of those who call him their Savior.  If we then who have been crossed by his love take that love seriously shouldn’t we love?  We can only answer yes to that question, for we were first loved.  Amen.