May 12, 2024
Easter 7, Year B
Epiphany, Winnipeg
John 17:6-21
What is it like to sit at the table with Jesus and listen in on him while he prays? While he prays for us?
Jesus knows that the disciples don’t know. It’s a few days before the feast of Passover and Jesus is at supper with the disciples, and he knows that they don’t know what’s going to happen. He sits at supper with them and it turns out to be a strange supper indeed. Thomas just passed the salt to Mary Magdalene, someone just cracked a joke and Bartholomew laughed so hard he spilled his wine. They’re all happily eating whatever you might eat with friends in Jerusalem in the first century – just use your imagination; it’s a meal among friends. While they’re having their supper Jesus gets up and washes their feet. Strange indeed – at first they think it’s a joke but then it’s clear he’s not kidding and he seems so serious and so…pensive. In a roundabout way he says that Judas will betray him, and nobody knows what he means by that. He says flat out that Peter will very soon deny even knowing who Jesus is. Peter sits quietly at the table with that thought.
They have no idea what is going to happen in just a few hours – his arrest, his trial, his death - and Jesus knows that they don’t know. But he tells them to love one another as he has loved them. And then he talks to them, talks to them and talks to them, and tells them that he’s going away, and he doesn’t want them to be afraid, and they don’t know where he’s going, and he talks about going to the Father and sending the Spirit and that they’ll be OK (He thinks. He hopes. He worries?). He says that he will leave them, and they will weep and mourn….and they have no idea what he’s talking about. And Jesus knows that they don’t know. So he just tells them one more time to love one another. For goodness’ sake, whatever else happens, just love one another.
Then he prays for them, and we get to listen in on that prayer today. He doesn’t go off to a quiet place or fold his hands while he leans on his elbows against a big stone in a garden. Maybe you’ve seen the picture. He just stays at the table right where he is and prays for them right out loud, and Jesus’ disciples sit and listen while he has this most intimate conversation with God, with the one Jesus calls Father.
They hear him pray that they will be protected, and a few of them turn to whoever’s sitting next to them and raise an eyebrow as if to say “Protected from what?” They don’t know what’s going to happen, and Jesus knows they don’t know, but he knows what can happen when people in power get it in their minds that they need to get rid of someone. He knows that the religious leaders and the political powers and maybe even an angry mob of people are turning against him, and who knows how long it will be until they turn against his disciples? So he prays for their protection.
They hear him pray that they will be one, and a few of them look around the table and wonder what he’s talking about, because they all seem to be getting along and a good meal together has a way of uniting a bunch of friends and even strangers. But Jesus knows what can happen when a group of people who are close see terrible things happen, and when they’re traumatized by the sight of suffering and the death of a friend and their hearts are broken and they are afraid. They could come together and support each other, or they could just not know how to respond, and the only way to deal with so much hurt sometimes is just to withdraw and to cut each other off and to scatter apart. Jesus knows that they don’t know, so he prays for them, and he prays that they will be one, and that what’s going to happen in the next few days won’t break them apart.
If you should happen to go home today and sit down and read John 14, 15, 16, and 17 – because there’s nothing else to do on Mother’s Day, right? - you might be struck by how complex and all over the place Jesus’ thoughts and words can be. You almost need lists and a chart to figure it all out. But if you go home and read that today, or later on this week because there’s enough other stuff going on today, read it and hear it like you’re listening to a parent or a friend or a lover whose death is drawing near and they’re worried about what will happen to the ones most dear to them when they are gone. They’ll try to pull together a few last words to share, they might be clear or they might sound like someone who’s having a hard time sorting out their thoughts. There might be urgency in their voice, there might be fear because you don’t know what will happen, there might be hope because they are pretty sure it will be OK, and there might even be a prayer that sounds a bit like, “I won’t be here for them but you, O God, please be here for them.”
That’s the kind of prayer Jesus prays for his disciples. And they might not know why he’s going on like that. And he knows that they don’t know what’s coming next. So he talks to them. And he prays. And they get to hear his prayer.
What’s it like for you to listen in while Jesus prays for you? And I don’t just mean as he prays for you and you and you, but as he prays for you, Epiphany. For you the church all over, for us? Because he’s doing that too. Did you notice? As the disciples listened to Jesus pray for them Jesus went on and said, “And I’m also praying on behalf of all those who will come next and who will believe because of what these my disciples have said and done.”
And that means us. When Jesus prays for his disciples, he reaches even further and prays for whoever’s coming next. His prayer reaches out and gathers together…his prayer gathers up his disciples in first century Palestine and in ancient Rome. His words to the God he calls Father reach out and draw in disciples in east Africa in the second century with disciples in northern Canada today. A prayer around the table with a handful of disciples back then pulls them together with disciples now - in cathedrals and storefronts and auditoriums and little rural churches and packed places and almost empty places and even a little group of disciples walking in Kings Park on a Thursday morning or a bigger but still modest group of disciples right here right now.
You know what else? Jesus knows that we don’t know. We don’t know what’s happening this afternoon. As a congregation we don’t know what’s happening with us next year. Or in ten years or a week from Thursday (I don’t either – that’s not a cover-up for something that only I know is happening a week from Thursday). Jesus knows that we don’t know, and he prays that we’ll be one, and that we won’t be driven apart or drift apart.
It seems to have worked so far. We didn’t know what would happen, but Jesus knows how people can come apart when they don’t agree, or when they argue about human sexuality or politics or anything. But we’re not scattered. We’re still hanging together and people at Joy Lutheran are and we’re not perfect but in some way we’re still one. Jesus knows how something like persecution or something like a pandemic can drive people apart. Jesus prayed for us, and it’s been hard and we’ve struggled and we’re not perfect but we’re not all broken apart either.
Some day, when there’s no longer Epiphany on Dalhousie Drive in Winnipeg - because nothing lasts forever, it really doesn’t - we will still sit at the table and listen in while Jesus prays for us, and we will remember that “Us” in this case is a really big “Us,” in every time and every place. And we will hear Jesus pray that we all will be one with each other, with Jesus, and with the one Jesus calls Father. That’s how close we all are, scattered all over and long gone and yet to come, we are that close. It’s what Jesus prays for, trusting that the one who made us all will make us one. It’s an ongoing project, and life doesn’t make it easy and we don’t always make it easy. But the God who loves the world and loves us can manage it, and keep us together.
And even today, while we listen to Jesus pray even for us, we hear him pray this piece again: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me because of their word, that they may all be one.” And you know, that’s good for us to hear. It’s a gentle reminder that we’re not the last ones. Long after we’re all gone the Holy Spirit will still be calling together disciples, becoming one with all of us and with all the ones who have gone before us; becoming one even with those still to come.
The story doesn’t end with us. Just like it didn’t end with persecuted Christians, or with 12 disciples who didn’t know what was happening; just like it didn’t end with divisions and reformations and revivals and downfalls and successes and failures. The story doesn’t end with us. And Jesus prays for us.
And for now maybe it’s this simple. On Monday night someone said, “I feel blessed that Jesus prayed for us.” We don’t know what’s going to happen, and Jesus knows that we don’t know, so he offers a simple command – Whatever else happens, just love one another as I have loved you, and still do, and always will. And he still blesses us with a prayer for us to the one he calls Father. That prayer gathers us up together with all those who came before us and are still to come. That prayer gathers us up with a whole beloved world, with the love of Christ flowing among us and pouring out over all.