Year C Seventh Sunday of Easter May 27, 2001 John 17: 20-26
Title: “May they be one as we are one.”
At the Last Supper Jesus prays for the future of the Church.
Chapter seventeen constitutes the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the Gospels. It has been called the “High Priestly” or “Priestly” Prayer because Jesus intercedes for his disciples, present and future with his Father. The sentiments expressed reveal the intimacy and union Jesus enjoys with his Father. The boundary between time and eternity is gone. Jesus is on his way to the Father, a sort of spiritual ascension long before the physical one. The prayer is saturated with a sense of urgency, but end of time urgency, that is, not of chronos time, historical time, but of kairos time, opportunity or salvation time.
The prayer, prayed aloud within earshot of his disciples, is a sort of last will and testament intended to inspire the disciples to continue Jesus work and life “in his name.” Jesus prays in verses one to five for himself to accomplish the Father’s purpose: glory; verses six to nineteen for his disciples to continue his mission fruitfully; verses twenty to twenty-three for the Church of the future, especially for unity; and verses twenty-four to twenty-six for the union of all- both the disciples and the future Church.
In verse twenty for those “who will believe in me through their word.” The Church is made up of post-Jesus disciples, disciples who never knew Jesus in the flesh. The Church is the continuation of the earthly, historical Jesus, his words and works. People get into the Church by believing on the word of earlier disciples, traced all the way back to Jesus. In 10:16 Jesus introduced this theme when he said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” Later disciples learn to recognize the voice of Jesus, Shepherd, Lamb, Priest, Messiah, by being trained by prior disciples. Then, after that, they are able to recognize him on their own. At the Last Supper Jesus had all of his disciples in mind, present and future.
In verse twenty-one so “that they may all be one.” The unity Jesus has been praying for has to do with the divine mutual indwelling. The unity, read intimacy, union, communion, communication, symbiosis the Son enjoys with the Father is both the model and the cause of the unity the disciples enjoys with Jesus. This would, of course, have positive effect and affect upon all disciples who enjoy the same internal unity of life. They would show this in their behavior- towards one another and towards the world and people at large. This is the only petition Jesus prays for the Church. Disunity is a denial of the faith.
“That the world may believe that you have sent me.” A disunited Christian community denies by its behavior the message which it proclaims.
In verse twenty-two and I have given them the glory, Jesus passed on to his disciples whatever the Father gave him. That would be love. Here it is cast in terms of “glory,” the revelation of that love, revealed in a way it can be seen heard, touched and personally, including physically, encountered. If disciples have that then they have what holds the Father and Son in union, here described as union itself.
In verse twenty-three that they may be become completely one, in this brief statement Jesus has summarized his whole nature, life, mission and legacy. He is in union with the Father and with his disciples, the same essential union, namely, divine life shared. His disciples express by their union a life that challenges the worldly to change and accept the love of God, which can only come through Christ. From one point of view, the eternal, this is accomplished. Yet, from the earthly perspective even the disciples must “be brought to perfection,” that is, completion. There is room for and, indeed, need for growth, progress in unity-love-divine indwelling. Indeed, if there were not there would be no need for Jesus to pray this prayer. God has done his part, but there remains human free will and free acceptance of this new state of affairs and divine--human relations.
That the world may know that you sent me, just as Jesus’ life and work demonstrate the love of God, so now that of his disciples, present and future, demonstrate that same love and hopefully just as convincingly.
In verse twenty-four, they are your gift to me, it seems here that Jesus has both his present and his future disciples in mind. The Greek manuscripts give two variant readings- either “what you have given me” or “those whom you have given me.” If it is “what” instead of “those whom” then the meaning might well refer to “glory”.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me: In his mind Jesus has crossed over to the eternal side. From that perspective Jesus already wants all his disciples to, one day, join him. Evidently, his prayer is an intercession that does not cease and will not until all is completed. He seems here to be referring to his final glory, the fullest manifestation and experience of his and the Father’s love and unity, a glory made possible by Jesus’ death and experienced at the death of the individual disciple.
My glory that you gave me…before the foundation of the world: There is an aspect to the “glory” of God that is wholly eternal and can be experienced only in eternity. The glory revealed and experienced through earthly channels is the same glory but not the same intensity.
In verse twenty-five, the world also does not know you: Even though Jesus revealed the glory, read reality of God and his disciples continue to do so because he is now in them, the world remains essentially blind to, cold to, hostile to that truth. Since the glory of God cannot be experienced where there is sin and since sin is preferred, the darkness to the light, the worldly remain deprived of all the positive benefits of accepting reality.
But I know you and they know that you sent me: “They” are Jesus’ disciples, present and future. Thus Jesus has divided humanity into two groups, those who do know him and those who do not.
In verse twenty-six, I have made your name known, “Made known” means “revealed.” This is more than factual knowledge. Jesus has shown in his long prayer that he means intimate knowledge and enjoyment. “Your name” is, of course, more than a title. It refers to God’s character and nature- what he is like, what he likes and what he would like us to be and become.
And I will make it known: This refers not only to his future death but also to his future, ongoing life in his disciples. He will continue to do through them what he has done up till now.
Love: Jesus’ favorite way of describing the name, character, essence of God now supplants the theme of unity. “That they may be one as we are one” could just as easily have been “That they may love or be loved. Know that they are loved.
Sermon
This magnificent prayer is itself a gift to us from Jesus. We get some sense, no matter how tenuous, of the intimacy he enjoyed with his Father. But, even more than that, we get some sense of the intimacy we enjoy with him and his Father and his Spirit. He gives us the simple, monosyllabic words: one; love; glory; with-in. Together they express our own experience with the Divine Presence the Mutual Indwelling. Would we ever have found those words on our own? No. They are revealed to us, part of “knowing” God that Jesus makes possible. We do not only know God from the outside. He is in us and we in him. All this is possible and now real through Jesus.
God is always present. It is we who are not present to him or, more correctly, aware of his, hidden presence. Jesus undoubtedly had a constant consciousness of this profoundly mysterious dimension of human existence, the ability to “see” and “sense” the invisible. In this prayer he lets us in on it and helps us to develop it in ourselves. While this, on the surface, seems to be a prayer of petition, wherein Jesus prays for his own success, that of his disciples, the Church, and eventually, the entire world, there is an under-truth supporting the requests. Underneath it all lies praise, that is, recognition not only of God’s objective presence, but of his active, loving, unifying, growth-producing presence. It is on the basis of this recognition that Jesus prays the prayer of petition. In so doing he teaches us by example how to pray.
Prayer, at its finest, which this is, should not be a movement from unconsciousness to consciousness but a movement from one level of intensity of awareness to a higher or deeper one. When we make that move we enter through the boundary that separates time and eternity, entering into the eternal realm so intensely that we become almost oblivious to the temporal one. Our bodies are there in the chair, pew or whatever, but our minds and spirits have taken off, as Jesus’ have in this scene. We have moved into the dimension where we will spend the eternity of our lives. We enter with the merest vision, true, but vision nonetheless. As in the case of Jesus, it is here- either between time and eternity or just over the, imaginary line, we commune with the All, the Divine, the Father-Son-Spirit. Here. all is accomplished, perfected, finished, over. As we return, and return we must- Jesus did, the disciples at the transfiguration did- we are fortified with the conviction of being loved, of being lived-in, protected, guided by, enriched by the one God revealed in Jesus and residing now in us- individually and communally throughout time and into eternity.
Jesus had this experience right before facing a horrible death. Yet, he was focused enough to penetrate through the time-bound experience of death, to go past it even before it happened. The Synoptics record the much briefer prayer in Gethsemane. John records this longer one even before the Gethsemane prayer. When he goes to Gethsemane the pressure heats up and he must pray somewhat differently in that different context. Yet, his focus is the same. Here, however, it is quieter, though still threatening, and he can afford the luxury of basking in the comfort and peace of his Father’s presence and that of his friends. What tremendous example Jesus sets for us. He even shows us how to deal with impending doom. He shows that the peace of his presence can trump any chaos.
What is really real is our union, communion, communication, intimacy, and shared life with the Lord. A concentration on that truth, fundamental truth, empowers us to enjoy life even when it is horrible and to live richly with him even when it seems impossible. He was not distracted, let alone despairing. Neither need we be, thanks to him. Jesus prayer, of course, cannot be refused. If it has not yet come true it is because we are still on earth. However, from the eternal perspective it already is true, has happened. Only those who consciously, willfully oppose the content of this prayer will be excluded, by their own choice, from enjoying the mutual indwelling- God in us, we in God. Because the “perfection” of this can only occur in eternity, the exclusion from it will also be eternal.
Jesus prays for us humans because we can thwart the salvation he brings and refuse the intimacy with God it offers. Salvation is accomplished, but not automatic.
We do not have to experience the earthly Jesus firsthand in order to “know” him and believe in him. Those who did so have passed on their experience from one generation to the next.
What the first and subsequent disciples passed on was not merely their factual knowledge about Jesus, but their personal experience of Jesus, Jesus himself in Spirit form.
Unity means intimacy.
Glory means the hidden presence of God made manifest, especially through love, Greek agape.
Indwelling vs. Dwelling: We experience life in the context of earth, a planet we live on. Until we learn love, as opposed to merely learning about love, we experience life as a sort of encountering, a bumping into and up against other objects. Very early on an infant experiences “object permanence.” It realizes that it is separate from its mother and when mother goes away, perhaps only into the next room, the infant cries because “object permanence” means she might not ever come back. In other words, very early on we experience what it is to feel alone, even though objectively we might not actually be alone. More correctly, we call that experience “being lonely.” From that point on we strive, both unconsciously and consciously, to connect. On some levels we call this connection “love.” On one end of the spectrum; connecting is merely clinging, sometimes desperately clinging; on the other end it is joining, uniting, bonding. This opposite end might even be described as “merging,” if we do not mean by that that we lose our identity, our “object permanence.” Living on earth and being able to be in only one spot at a time severely limits our “connecting” possibilities, even though our higher brain, our cerebral cortex, lets us imagine doing so with virtually everyone. That produces in every human being a kind of ache, a longing for more, for completion, for “merger” with the entire universe and everyone in it. Yet, we know we cannot do that. That awareness starts to frustrate us, then angers us, and may even cause us to behave so bizarrely that we actually disconnect, gradually, one person at a time, from everyone. In a word, we hate instead of love. We need only to look at human history to see the results. However, God entered human history with the birth of Jesus. He was always there as the Word as John 1: 1-18 calls him. The Word became flesh, that is, dwelt among, not within, at first, us. At first, Jesus was like all other humans, limited by time and space to a limited number of connections. Yet, even in the opening verses of John’s gospel, right after noting that fact, John tells us “we, believers, saw his glory.” That simple word alerts the reader to a dimension of Jesus hitherto unknown among humans. He goes on to say that it is a divine glory, “the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” At the end of his earthly life, as we read in these verses, Jesus shares this glory, offers it to us, to those who believe in him. “But to those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God, John 1: 12.” That means that even though we might merely dwell on earth we can now also dwell in God and God in us. What a different perspective this fact gives to love, to connecting, to merging, joining, bonding, uniting! And that is Jesus’ point. There is more, much more, to our experience of life and love and reality than the limited perspective of earth, of separateness, of loneliness. This union with God through Christ opens doors, reveals vistas, endless horizons. Humans are not or need not be alone. Even better, they can belong. Unlike physical death, which tells each person that he or she does not really belong on earth, spiritual death into Christ tells the person that he or she belongs to someone greater than earth, like a child belongs to a parent. This belonging is not geographical, though it can be experienced while still upon the geologic sphere. This belonging does not diminish or decay with time, though it can and is experienced within the temporal realm. It is one thing to learn that we dwell on earth; quite another to learn that we indwell with God- we in him and he in us. The latter awareness, this “in look,” gives us a sense of ourselves and of others that changes our outlook. We no longer need nor want to hate, to disconnect, to isolate, to compete with others for space or status. Only a power greater than ourselves could have revealed this to us. Thus, Jesus ends his time on earth with this prayer, on the same note that the Prologue of John 1: 1-18 began: No one, on earth, has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” Amen.
