I In Them And You In Me

June 2, 2019

Hope Lutheran Church

Rev. Mary Erickson

John 17:20-26

I in Them and You in Me

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lakota Sioux have a simple prayer: Mitakuye Oyasin. It means “all my relatives.” The prayer conveys their belief that all things are interconnected. We’re all related. The earth and its creatures, all humans throughout the world – something joins us all together. We have a commonality in our source. We all come from the Great Spirit.

Mitakuye Oyasin – all my relatives. The Lakota thought is strikingly similar with our Christian understanding. St. Francis referred to Brother Sun and Sister Moon. We’re all creatures of our God and king. This relatedness calls us into a deep respect for one another and for all of creation. We all come from the hand of God. We’re all God’s creatures, God’s children.

Our text today from the gospel of John comes from the 17th chapter. The entire chapter is a single prayer. Jesus knows that he’s about to be arrested and killed. This will be his last occasion to be with his disciples. And he takes the opportunity to pray for them. But also, for more than just them. He prays for those who will come after his disciples – in other words, for us!

Jesus’ prayer is a great, all-encompassing prayer. It’s referred to as his High Priestly Prayer. In praying thus, Jesus is acting like Israel’s High Priest. The priest enters the temple to come before the very presence of God on behalf of all the people. This is what Jesus is doing in his prayer. And his prayer has a theme: Unity.

Jesus prays that we may be one. He prays that his followers may be one, in the same way as Jesus and God the Father are one. The source of our unity is rooted in the unity of the Triune God.

Jesus remains one with God the Father. His mind and heart are totally aligned with God’s will and intentions. That unity fuels and directs Jesus’ focus. It’s his center; it grounds him. This deep tap root nourishes his thoughts. It keeps him firmly planted through times of storm and trial.

His unity with the Heavenly Father is his strength. Archimedes famously said, “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” Jesus’ unity with the Father was his firm place to stand. It kept him laser-focused on his goal. The cross became his lever. And Jesus did, indeed, move the world. He moved it in a way that could only come from his unity with the Divine Father.

This is the degree of unity Jesus prays for us! He prays, “So that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one.”

It’s interesting that his send-off prayer should be about unity. Perhaps he prayed thus because he knew the track record of his disciples.

• His disciples, who, when the 5000 were hungry said, “send them away, Lord.”

• His disciples, who rebuked the young children when they gathered around Jesus.

• These same disciples, who were amazed that Jesus would dare converse with a Samaritan woman.

• His disciples, who would compete among themselves as to who was the greatest.

No, his disciples didn’t have a stellar record when it came to unity! Jesus prays for unity because he knew that the chief temptation of the church, the living body of Christ, would be to exclude and divide, to sort and segregate.

This has been the chief threat to the church throughout the ages and into our own. The first century church struggled between Jewish and Gentile believers. Until recently, we’ve harbored deep suspicions between Catholics and Protestants. Entire church bodies have blown up over social positions from slavery to human sexuality. Individual congregations have been destroyed by internal power struggles and chronic bickering. And even families, such as my own, have endured strains and struggles through denominational divisions between Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod, and ELCA.

Division is in our DNA. There’s the story of Ole, who was marooned on a tiny island. After several years, a passing ship spotted him there. A rescue team was sent. When they pulled ashore, Ole was beside himself with joy. But before they left, Ole wanted to show them how he had been able to fend for himself so successfully on his island. He showed them his house. He showed them his barn and fields. Finally, he pointed out the little church he had built where he worshiped.

After the tour was done, the rescue team noticed another building. It was a little run down. “What’s that building over there?” they asked. “Oh,” Ole said, “That’s where I used to go to church. But I got into an argument and left and swore I’d never go back.”