When I was in Seminary, way back in the dark ages—actually, it was 1998—we were told that you shouldn’t preach during a prayer. That prayers were for God, for praising and thanking and supplicating, not for trying to make theological points, or any other kind of points, for that matter. No “help us to understand, O Lord, that you are one in three persons” or “Lord, we know that you are always with us” or even “Increase our understanding of our church needs so we can make our pledge accordingly.” Save the preaching to the sermon, my teachers said, it’s bad enough there.
If Jesus was ever taught that, he didn’t listen, because this prayer at the end of the Last Supper is full of preaching. It’s as much about conveying information and comforting his disciples as it is about communicating with the Creator. It’s also his last prayer before the passion, before his arrest and trial, and it’s interesting to compare it to his last prayer in the other Gospels. The contrast is sharp—rather than an anguished plea to “let this cup pass,” Jesus is poised and compassionate. He prays not for himself, but for his friends. In fact, earlier in John’s gospel he says, almost sarcastically, “And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have cometo this hour.” This kind of contrast, far from discrediting the gospels, show how they encourage a vibrant, living debate about Jesus’ life and ministry.
We join his final prayer about two-thirds of the way through. In the first part, he asked God—whom he calls “Father”—that his joy be made complete in them and, crucially, that they be protected: “protect them in your name”, he says. “While I was with them, I protected them in your name . . . I ask you to protect them from the evil one.” Remember that his disciples had just been told that he was leaving them; this straightforward prayer for protection cannot help but comfort them and calm their fears of being left on their own.
Not only did they have to worry about the “evil one,” but also what Jesus calls “the world”—not the physical creation (which God, remember, called “good”), but oppressive social structures, fallen systems of control and governance, what Paul would call the “powers and principalities.” And the important thing to remember here is that Jesus is not setting up a crude, us-versus-them division. The word Jesus uses here for world—kosmos—is the same one he uses in the iconic “For God so loved the kosmos,the world, that he gave his only Son . . .” For Jesus, kosmosrefers to reality in all its brokenness, ignorance, violence, and sin. And God lovesthat broken world, and has sent his Son—who in turn sends the church—into it to redeem it.
And as our passage opens, Jesus clarifies on whose behalf he’s asking God for protection, and this is key: it’s not just his disciples with him in the upper room he’s praying for. He asks “not only on behalf of these”—that is, his current disciples—“but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.” Those futuregenerations who will believe because of the testimony of the currentbunch. And that, of course, includes (a) the Ephesus community for which John is writing sixty years later and (b) us. And what is he asking God? “That they may all be one.”
Of course, because this prayer’s also a sermon, he’s tellinghis disciples—as well as all those future Christian’s converted through their words—to be unified, to beas one. But from the beginning, that ’s been very much easier said than done. In the first century, there were a whole boat-load of ways to be Christian. As we saw last week, there were many gospels written that presented very different pictures of Jesus and his ministry. When John was written, it wasn’t considered scripture, of course, and the way he shaped the story, again as we saw last time, was specific to his time and place. And because they’d just been evicted from their own synagogue community, Jesus’ words tell themto maintain a united front, to not go running off in different, perhaps destructive, directions.
Unity was a major driving force behind the rise of the Church in the next few centuries. The Church Father’s—and they were all men—knew that unless they were unified, they couldn’t stand against the dominant power and principality du jour, the Roman Empire. But even after that, Christians have been a fractious lot. There have been multiple popes—at the same time—and religious wars raged across the land. But the fact that there were state churches, in Europe at least, kept things tamped down a bit.
Of course, now that in this country, at least, there is religious choice, and vernacular Bibles what everyone can own and form an opinion about, it’s a cornucopia of internecine infighting. Take our own Presbyterians: if you look at a chart of the all the church splits just in this country, it’s almost unreadable, kind of like a plate of spaghetti. American Christians are always fighting and splitting over something or another; most recently in our denomination it’s been over gay marriage and ordination. And sure enough, about eight years ago, our denomination split, on the surface, at least, over these policies.
This receives lots of bad press, and sets the unchurched to wonder if anybodyin the church follows Jesus who, after all, was called the Prince of Peace, and who—in this very passage—called for unity so that the world might believe that he was sent by the Holy One. And sharp minds will recall several weeks ago, when we talked about the great commandment—love one another as I have loved you—sharp minds will recall that it was for the same reason: as a testimony to Christ. It damages the church’s witness to be seen feudin’ and fussin’ and fightin’ among themselves all the time.
But given human nature, how might all this unity come about? Jesus puts it like this, still talking to God the Father: “As you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.”The union shared by redeemer and creator will be shared by the communityif Jesus’ disciples—then and now—are in them.In fact, the glory that God has given Christ—that peculiar glory of a life anddeath, given up to God—the glory the Creator has given to the Redeemer has been given to his disciplesin order for them to be one. God in Christ and Christ in his disciples, they will be completely one, and why? So the powers and principalities might knowthat it was Godwho brought everybody together, who brought everyone to the dance.
Even though the the powers and principalities know who God is, they don’t knowGod, they don’t have an intimate relationshipwith God, they’re not on speaking terms. But his disciples—then and in the future—do. They know and willknow God’s name, and that name confers power, it is the almightyname, the name above everyname. And we know that name, too, it is written in our hearts and minds and souls.And all this for love . . . the love with which God the Father has loved God the Son, the love that God pours out into the Christ, can in turn pour out into us,in and through the power of the Advocate and Comforter, the Holy Spirit.
And that’s where we are today . . . God’s love is in us, both in the community and within each and every one of us. God’s love is in us and through us. We are swathed in it, bathed in it, soakedin it. And it is inus, just as is is Jesus the Christ. Amen.
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