28 May 2006

28 May 2006
Gospel Reading: John 17:6-19

Please be seated.

Jesus prayed – That is how this week’s gospel begins – with these two words. Earlier this week, as I was reading these lessons, I found myself stopping there. Each time I tried to read on I kept going back to these words: Jesus prayed. I was astonished. I was surprised. I was – awed.

He prayed. Prayer. Prayer implies asking and thanking, and hope. I find one of the better ways to describe it is with the somewhat archaic verb “beseeching,” which means asking with humility.


In an earlier part of John’s gospel he makes it clear to us that Jesus is God incarnate – God in flesh. So- in this week’s lesson God in the world is –praying- to God outside the world. Jesus actually makes this clear in today’s gospel. He refers not only to being sent by the heavenly Father, but also, among other things, he prays for his desire for the Christian community to be one, using his and the Father’s oneness as the example.

Mhm.

Prayer. We have spent the morning praying. We will soon continue to do so. Every night before I go to sleep I pray, usually asking God to help sick or troubled friends, ask that my boss stop being psychotic (or that she at least aim at someone else), pray for sustainable and just peace in the world, and thank God for “everything.” I try to remember or find time to say morning devotions out of the Prayer Book, it occasionally happens, and I pray with friends when they ask. Usually, however, I end up feeling like an idiot when at people’s homes who say grace after I’ve started eating. So I guess I have a pretty laid back but I’d say typical prayer life. The Gospels of Matthew and ??? give us the Lord’s prayer. A basic outline of how to pray. Some of us sing, some meditate, some dance, some run, regardless of whether a prayer of petition, thanksgiving, desire, meditation, whatever, its all prayer. We pray.

Jesus prayed, Jesus’ prayer is interesting. It’s very different from his familiar Lord’s prayer. The focus of this prayer appears to be on his Christian community – most prominently his hope that they are protected – and that they can remain safely in this world while remaining not of the world. He asks for their protection from the evil one, who lives distinctly in our solid material world.

As I mentioned earlier, Jesus also prays for the Christian community to experience the same oneness that Jesus and the Father feel. In the gospel Jesus referred to one glorifying the other – God the Father glorifying God the Son. In this way the church glorifying the church

Jesus’ next request is an interesting one – that by hearing his teaching his joy may be made complete in the Christian community. Living in a world that did not approve or believe in the early Christians’ words, teachings or lifestyle – though today we believe them as the truth – must have been painful. As Christians – as a resurrection people we know God’s joy is imperative to the “Christian message.” The realization of the importance of Jesus’ joy as well as its necessity for a long-term Christian experience is remarkable.

Jesus’ final plea is that the church be sanctified. He states that – those in the church belong no more to this world than he does – and asks that the church be made holy, that the holy presence will protect and spread throughout the Christian community.

This is what Jesus prayed.

I think back to my prayers – that friends be made well, here, for peace, here, and thank God for things, here. Jesus’ prayer asks instead that WE be protected, that WE remain joyful, that WE remain in this world and yet not of this world. That we focus not on here, but on there – on God.

By the time Jesus prayed this, he knew his time in this world was drawing to a close. In today’s gospel he again makes that clear, stating that his time here is short and that he did what was expected of him. And yet he prays. While my prayers did at first seem rather trite and superficial next to his, the more I thought about it, I wasn’t so sure. Both prayed for the wellbeing of those we care about as well as for some version of peace. But more than that, we were both praying.

All of us are taking part in an action that was done by God incarnate. Yes, when we participate in the Eucharist we are enacting the events of the last supper, remembering them and thanking God for his sacrifice.

But through prayer we are doing an action, the action that Jesus did.

We have the opportunity to take part in an activity that we can do just as fully as Jesus did it. Jesus is God incarnate – he didn’t need to talk to God the father this way. But he did. Jesus was fully God and fully human – he embraced his humanity and he prayed. Jesus prayed. Allie prayed. Albert prayed. Edie prayed. We pray. Jesus prayed. How amazing is that. We have the opportunity to take connect to God in the way Jesus did. John didn’t write “Jesus talked” or “Jesus asked.” No, John said Jesus prayed – Jesus prayed, we can pray, so let’s go do it.