A sermon for my seminary class
"Preaching the Gospel of John:
Abundant Life as a Vision for Christian Community"
on Jesus' Farewell Prayer in John 17:6-19
I once read that having a child is like taking your heart…
and putting it outside of your body
and letting it walk around, out into the world…
removed from the safe protection of being close,
inside and part of you.
It is a beautiful and terrifying image of parenthood.
And as we have heard Jesus say
all along this journey we’ve been on
through the Gospel of John –
he is so close to his Father.
He is in the Father and the Father is in him.
It is as if he is the Father’s own heart.
And so what we have witnessed in these past 10 weeks
is nothing less than what is closest to God’s heart.
The Father’s heart is for healing.
The Father’s heart is for abundant life.
The Father’s heart is for love of the world,
of the whole cosmos…
the dangerous dark world
where God’s heart walks around
away from God for a time…
The Father’s heart is for the unity of all things.
And today, in the seventeenth chapter of John,
we hear a prayer of God’s very own heart,
of God’s own Son,
of Jesus.
And he prays for us…
knowing that we are in the same dangerous world
he has been in…
trusting that even when he goes away,
we will be protected in his Father…
Jesus prays for us, cares for us…
In Jesus’ prayer, we are held in God’s heart,
wrapped so completely in love…
like a baby wrapped up safe and tight to rest…
or like a child securely enthroned
in the shade of a blanket fort,
whose strength is not in stone but in comfort.
Jesus knows he is leaving us soon…
So he prays - asking God to protect us
from a world that doesn’t love us like God does,
doesn’t hold us as precious.
We know too well how true this is.
We have all felt unsafe…unloved…in this world…
We aren’t heard with grace
or held in love when we need to be.
We know what it is to need a listening ear and embrace,
and instead to feel the cold stone indifference
of people or organizations
that fail to see us as the fragile, but beautiful children we are.
We know what it is to need a gentle hand
to brush tears from our eyes
and to cradle our head against a strong shoulder
and instead to feel the empty ache of an empty room
or only a thin voice too far away to truly embrace us.
We know what it is to fail to do our best,
to fail to live lives above reproach,
to fail to meet expectations set out for us…
and we have thirsted for grace in the desert of our disappointment.
We have offered our own hearts in our work,
in our church, on so much paper…
and felt them shredded and thrown away or even attacked.
We have been cast out of the very places
we yearn to live and love and serve.
And when the world has hurt us…even attacked us,
God’s heart is with us into our need and frailty…
he climbs over the walls of the world’s indifference
and brings us healing
instead of leaving us to fight for ourselves
when we have no fight left in us,
like he did for the man who was paralyzed waiting by the pool.
Jesus comes into our grief
when we have already given up and collapsed
into the ache of loneliness and hopelessness
and he feels our grief himself…
like he did for Mary and Martha…
and he brings us through death to life…
like he did for Lazarus.
Jesus stands beside us when we have failed,
as our accusers hurl their words of skepticism and scrutiny,
their “concerns” about our worthiness
or whether there is really a place for someone like us.
And he waits right beside us,
until they put down their stones,
and then tells us that nothing we have done
or failed to do
can put us beyond his love and redemption…
like he did for the woman caught in adultery.
Even when we have been cast out, trodden on,
thrown out like so much garbage…
Jesus comes to the dumpster in the alley,
outside the clean walls that were our safety…
our community…
and he tells us that no institution will stop him
from endorsing, approving and assigning us a place
as one of his own beloved friends…
wherever we end up next…
just as he did for the man born blind.
And what can we say or do in the face of promises like these?
As followers of Christ through the Gospel of John,
after all this time,
walking with Jesus maybe you have begun to feel,
as I sometimes have…
that it’s time for me to know what to do now,
how to respond…
I should know by now how to be a disciple.
After all, it’s almost the end of the book.
And I think we’ve all read ahead…
Jesus is about to leave…to die…to be glorified.
I need to know what to do.
But, as Jesus is speaking to us for the last time in his life,
though he has counted us among his followers…his friends,
I realize I still don’t know how to do it…
how to be a disciple…
especially without Jesus right in front of me.
And in his final words, he sets my fears to rest.
Not because he answers the question…
not because he tells me what to do…
but because he makes it as clear as it has ever been
that the question I’m asking
is not the one he is concerned about.
I have been well-trained in my life…
but I have been trained to ask the wrong question…
because… Jesus is not my mother.
Let me explain…
The second to last thing (right before “I love you”)
that my mother almost ALWAYS says before she goes anywhere,
is almost ALWAYS an instruction.
“Don’t forget to feed the dogs.”
“Drive safely.”
“Remember to turn down the water heater.”
“Watch out for deer on the road.”
“Drive safely!”
(Usually, it’s “drive safely.”)
Okay… so it’s not just my mother, is it?
We all have family members like that.
Okay… some of us ARE family members like that.
Maybe in your family someone leaves a list on the kitchen table…
always a list
Or post-it notes
all over the individual Tupperware containers in the fridge…
and on each one of the kids’ outfits in the closet.
But, Jesus is not leaving us with instructions,
or lists on the table, or a house covered in post-its.
Where I would make a list,
and my mother would say to “drive safely”
and “wash behind your ears,”
Jesus…prays.
He does not entrust our security in this hostile world to us.
He still does not expect us to take the lead,
to save ourselves or the world…
or the church.
Jesus hands us over to God,
because we are God’s already.
And as he prays, Jesus says that God gave us to him to begin with,
and that he has taken care of us,
and he is handing us back over to God’s care.
We are not orphaned, or abandoned, or alone… or in charge.
We are commended to God’s care.
No list, no last minute instructions or rules…just prayer.
And Jesus is so good to us, that he makes sure we overhear him…
“I revealed your name to the people
whom you gave to me out of the cosmos.
They were yours, and you gave them to me…
I, myself, am asking about them, not about the cosmos,
but rather
I am asking about those whom you have given
to me,
because they are yours…
Holy Father, guard them in your name,
which you have given to me,
so that they might be one just as we are.”
One more time…we are assured…
We are God’s. We are safe. We are loved…
We are held in God’s own heart, in Christ,
who prays for us, forever.
Amen.
