Easter 7

Sermon, 16^th May 2010

Easter 7

Text: John 17: 20 – 26.

In the name of God – Creator, Pain-bearer and Spirit of Life and Love.

I sometimes wonder what the author of John’s Gospel would think if he heard some of the interpretations of his writings as presented in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. I imagine he would be amazed to think that his writing was still being read, studied and discussed some nineteen hundred years after his time.

It’s fair, I think, to adopt a something of a midrashic interpretation of these writings.

Midrash is a Jewish method of interpretation which conveys many layers inherent in a text. So we can believe, if we wish, that Jesus actually spoke these words and their meaning is plain. I for one find that an impossible ask. There is no doubt that these are not the actual words of Jesus as ostensibly recorded here. Preservation of speech and text was not as easy as it is today. We take for granted audio and video recording whereby a person’s speech can be recorded and stored to be replayed at some time in the future. The video camera even preserves the nuances of expression that aid immensely in interpreting the speaker’s meaning and intent. In John’s day no such devices existed and it was only through the skills of the oral traditions that particular sayings were preserved.

John wrote about the turn of the first century CE – some sixty or seventy years after Jesus’ crucifixion – at least one - maybe two generations later.

First then, the practical application of the Gospel in its own time – its “sitz im leben”.

This Gospel addresses specific circumstances that were being faced by a Christian community. The writer is urging his church to beware of internal factions and also seeks to strengthen their resolution in the face of hostility and persecution.

Barnabas Lindars, an Oxford theologian, writes," ...it is now widely accepted that the discourses are concerned with the actual issues of the church and synagogue debate at the time when the Gospel was written." The community of John was particularly strong in its criticism of Orthodox Judaism of its time. It would not have been many years since the followers of “The Way” of Jesus – the Christian sect – had been acrimoniously expelled from the synagogues.

It is only in the Gospel of John that we see these long speeches of Jesus where he speaks about himself in such divine terms. The discourses found in this Gospel are considered by many reliable scholars to have originated in sermons that are predominantly the evangelist's own composition but which may be loosely based on a saying or act of Jesus derived from the oral and synoptic Gospel tradition.

Many contemporary scholars regard the Gospel of John as more theological and certainly less historical than the Synoptics. John's picture of Jesus is very different from that which emerges in the Synoptic Gospels. In John Jesus is the pinnacle – he is very definitely presented as God incarnate and is to be greatly venerated.

So we can immediately see threads of varying layers in the text this morning.

We see how the writer is exhorting his community to stick together in the face of persecution by both The Orthodox Jews and the Romans. “Unity is strength”, he is saying. So Jesus, truly Yahweh’s Son in human form, is speaking to his disciples on the very evening of the final night of his arrest and death. He is offering words of hope and strength. He is telling them all that will befall him in the next few days.

Then, in a long prayer, he asks God to bless them and give them strength in their coming adversity. He is strengthening their understanding of him as God’s son and prays that the ancient God of Israel, his father, will uphold them and cause them to remember all he has told them about himself. He peaks in such intimate terms with Yahweh, reminiscent of the patriarchs of the Old Testament but in MUCH more intimacy. Here is a son speaking with a loving father not a servant bowing before an omnipotent God.

Across the centuries this story has gathered around it all sorts of connotations tailored for the particular time. Using the Midrashic principle we can adapt it as a lesson for our own community. There would be few communities where there is not dissent bubbling away either covertly under covers or overtly in obvious destructive acrimony between members. This phenomenon is not restricted to Christian churches of course but it is within a Christian context that I would address it.

For any community to flourish and succeed in its task there needs to be unity. Bring dissent and disunity and the community suffers and is weakened. Disunity can originate in many places and in many people. It can be deliberately broadly destructive or arise from personal and even unthinking selfishness.

There is an old Nigerian proverb that says: “The pebbles are the strength of the wall”.

So that traditional wisdom is saying that each individual is vital if unity is to be maintained. What is the purpose of this unity? The Gospel writer’s purpose was clear. In Verse 23 he explains that ‘they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me’- that is, as a son! The deepest illustration of human love – parent for child!

What a wonderful thing this sense of family is? The illustration infers a deep bond that says, “Together we can overcome all adversity”.

Another proverb; this time from Ghana – “It is because one antelope will blow the dust from the other's eye that two antelopes walk together”. What a lovely insight. It’s not what we can get out of a relationship or our community – it’s what we can do to help our friend and neighbour – even if it is just ‘blowing the dust from the other’s eye.’

Professor Mary Shore , Luther Seminary St. Paul, Minnesota points out that this morning’s text is lifted from a PRAYER not an exhortation or instruction. So, she says, “Jesus is not offering instructions to the disciples or to the church they will lead. This means, for instance, that as important as evangelism is, when Jesus tells his Father that he is asking "not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word" (verse 20) he is not exhorting the church to participate in evangelism.

Likewise, as commendable as ecumenical partnerships are, when Jesus asks that those who believe and those who do not yet believe "may be one" (verse 21), he is not exhorting involvement in ecumenical dialogue.

Jesus is not exhorting the church here. He is not instructing. He is not preaching, teaching, or rallying the troops.

Jesus is praying.”

The question is raised, “How do you feel when someone prays out loud for you?

Comforted, vulnerable, grateful, honoured, humbled, awkward but appreciative, like someone really cares? It can make us feel uncomfortable to be the focus of another’s attention – even in love.

Perhaps that is why we have so often on the past made this passage into a list of orders or instructions. We wish to avoid the intimacy of prayer.

Professor Shore adds, “If Jesus were exhorting his disciples, and by extension us, we could strive to meet his expectations then. If he were exhorting us, we would have a mission - namely, not to disappoint him. Instead, we overhear a prayer on our behalf and are not called to action in that moment as much as wonder that the Father and the Son spend time discussing the likes of us and our little community of faith.”

When someone prays for us in our hour of need it is because they love us. When God, the very Spirit of love, is part of that and responds by bringing deep peace and joy into our lives, regardless of our circumstances, we are truly blessed.

THE LORD BE WITH YOU.