A Faith of Paradoxes
I wonder how many of you have ever tried to reverse your car with a trailer hitched to the back. It’s not easy, and I’m sure many of us have got some amusing or expensive stories to tell. The problem is that if you want the trailer to go to the right you have to turn the steering wheel to the left. And vice versa.
This whole tricky manoeuvre is an example of what we refer to as a paradox. A paradox is when something appears to be contrary to what we would expect, yet turns out to be true. Just like when we steer to the left in order to turn to the right.
Have you ever considered how our Christian faith is built on paradoxes? If you’re not sure what I mean by this, listen to the words of Jesus. In Mark 10 he says these well known words “The last shall be first and the first, last.”
In Matthew 23 we hear him say, “The greatest among you will be the servant of all.”
In today’s gospel reading we come face to face with another of these apparent contradictions – in verse 14 we hear Jesus praying, “They (and we can take it that he means all those who follow him and serve him and I trust that includes you and me) are not of the world even as I am not of it.” We are not of the world? Well I don’t know about you but I’m pretty certain I’m real flesh (and plenty of it!); and to quote Shylock from the Merchant of Venice “If you prick me do I not bleed?” So what did Jesus actually mean when he said “We are not of the world?” I’d like to leave answering that question for a few moments while we look at what was happening at the time Jesus spoke these words.
This 17th chapter of John, of which our reading is one part, contains 3 wonderful prayers. Firstly we hear Jesus praying for himself, then for his disciples, and finally he prays for all believers who are to come.
This morning I want us to take a closer look at the prayer for his disciples, those he says that God gave him out of the world, to follow and serve him. It is interesting that in this prayer Jesus gives us 3 very distinct pointers as to the nature and calling of someone who claims to be his follower.
The first thing that Jesus says is that his disciples are destined to belong to God. He says, “They were yours; you gave them to me.” The whole idea of ‘being destined’ is one of those tricky concepts in the gospel and I believe there may be a danger in us misunderstanding it. For right or for wrong, I cannot believe that it means that somehow one or two of us are singled out and chosen to be disciples while others are rejected by God as also-rans. Rather I like to think of it this way.
How many of us parents haven’t dreamt big dreams for our children? To be doctors, lawyers, great athletes or artists? But none of us, if we have any love or sense, would force them to go down a path along which they were unwilling to travel. I believe it’s the same with God, our heavenly Father. He wants the very best for every one of us – he wants for all of us to be disciples. But there will be no coercion. He will not force his will on us. We are, and always will be, free to make our own choices. And surely there’s another paradox in our faith? We have the freedom to accept or reject the very God who gives us life!
The second element in his implied definition is that a disciple is one who recognizes and puts his faith in the fact that Jesus is God’s only Son. He or she believes that the words Jesus speaks are God’s words and the things he does are the very acts of God himself. As Jesus puts it in his prayer, “They knew with certainty that I came from you and they believed you sent me.”
The last of the components in his definition is the all important action word. It’s not enough just to believe. A disciple is one who is obedient. In verse 8 we read “I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.” We cannot do as we wish and call ourselves disciples. Discipleship demands obedience and submission to the Word of God.
So here we have a clear definition of a disciple as Jesus sees it. A disciple is called by God; to believe in Jesus; and to obey his teaching as coming from God himself.
Now we understand who Jesus is talking to, let’s look a little deeper at the circumstances surrounding his prayer. This is, for me, an even more substantial and challenging paradox. Here was Jesus, knowing that he was about to die, that he was to leave this world to return to his Father, entrusting the future of his teaching to 11 men who by any measure were unequal to the task.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are Managing Director of Christianity Pty Limited. Now let me ask you, would you give the reins of the company to the messenger, the tea boy and the security guard? Yet that’s in essence what Jesus did. It was those 11 humble, and seemingly unqualified, Galileans, inspired by the Holy Spirit, who began to spread the good news of Jesus. Their message would eventually flow to all the world down through the centuries – to today where more than 2 billion people claim to be his followers. Surely this was the paradox that Paul recognized when he wrote to the Corinthians with these words, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”
But for me the even bigger wonder of this paradox is that Jesus, just as he put his trust in those 11 ordinary Galilean men some 2000 years ago, does the very same thing today. He is entrusting to us, his St Francis disciples, the same good news message of hope and salvation. Will we be as worthy of that trust and as effective in carrying the message to others? That’s worth thinking about.
What else we can learn from this prayer?
If we look carefully we can see that in it Jesus asks God to do four things for his disciples.
Firstly he prays that God will protect them – “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name.” At first sight this is rather a strange thing to ask. I don’t suppose for one moment that any of you would feel any security in the power of the name of Lew or Ronnie or Peter. So what is Jesus really asking? The concept behind the word ‘name’ was far more meaningful in biblical times than it is today. It was more than just the way in which you were identified – it stood for your very nature. So what Jesus is asking is that God would bring all his infinite power and might to protect his disciples. And he repeats this request for protection a little later in the prayer when he asks God to protect them from the evil one. This is a request which I am convinced Jesus repeats every day on our behalf - that our Heavenly Father would continue to use his infinite power to protect each one of us.
Jesus’ next request in his prayer is framed negatively – “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world.” This is the paradox we spoke about earlier this morning. We are to be in the world but not of the world. Jesus expects us to be involved in the rough and tumble of everyday life. He doesn’t expect us to cloister ourselves away. Certainly there are the times when we draw aside to pray, to meditate on his word, or just to be quiet with God. But those times are a means to an end not an end in themselves. They are times to renew our strength, times to confirm our resolve to go back into the world to do his will. Christianity has never been the promise of an easy life but it does promise us the ability and the wherewithal to face those everyday trials and troubles and to emerge victorious.
The third thing that Jesus prayed for was the unity of his disciples – “so that they may be one as we are one.” What a challenge? Note the comparison – we are to be one like Jesus and his Father. It’s not that we are to agree most of the time; be nice to each other most of the time; go out of our way to help each other most of the time; pray for each other most of the time; refrain from gossiping about each other most of the time. No, we are to be as close as Jesus is to his Father – one God, Father Son and Holy Spirit.
There will never be ‘second best’ or ‘most of the time’ in their relationship. That’s what we must strive for in our community – to be one as Father and Son are one - united in love and purpose.
And finally Jesus asks God that his disciples should be sanctified. The original Greek word translated here as sanctified, which I shall not attempt to pronounce, has two intertwined meanings both of which are important to understanding the request that Jesus is making.
The first meaning is that, as disciples, we should be holy, which means we are to be separate and set apart, but more than that, we are to be set apart for a specific task.
In other words each of us has a specific task to accomplish for God. But if that makes you a little wary the second meaning implicit in the Greek word is more comforting. It means that we should, at the same time, be equipped with the qualities of mind and spirit which will enable us to accomplish that task. So Jesus is praying that God will not only set us apart for a specific task, but that he will also equip us with the means and faculties to accomplish that task.
What a wonderful prayer this is for all of us. Jesus is praying that God would use his power and might to protect us; that he would strengthen us to face the perils of this world; unite us in love, and finally, that he would set us apart and equip us to accomplish the tasks he has planned for us. It’s a prayer worth reading over and over again.
But let me draw to a close.
We started out this morning with the idea that our Christian faith is one that is built on paradoxes – apparent contradictions that turn out to be true. Let me close with perhaps the greatest one of all. It is in the words of Paul to the Romans “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is this paradox - that Christ died for us while we were totally undeserving - that is fundamental to our faith. It is this apparent contradiction that reconciles us to God and opens the gate to eternal life for each one of us who choose to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
