Sermons and Reflections:

Wednesday after 7 Easter
May 15, 2002
Lutheran Theological Seminary Chapel
Dr. Elizabeth Huwiler

Jesus is praying. The past couple of Sundays we’ve heard portions of his discourse to the disciples, but now he lifts his eyes and speaks to Holy Eternal Majesty, to the one he calls Father. We imagine that the disciples are still there, overhearing Jesus addressing his Father, in what just happens to be an intercession for those same disciples.

But of course the evangelist wrote these words for another audience, and so we also imagine those early Christians of John’s community catching a glimpse of the disciples overhearing Jesus’ prayer. And through the gift of the canon and the lectionary, we still have this text and hear it today, and so we are there with the johannine disciples, overhearing a prayer that is also an intimate family conversation. If you don’t read the Bible aside from what’s in the lectionary you won’t find out until this Seventh Sunday of Easter in 2004, so I’ll tell you: I read ahead, and know that Jesus is praying not only for his disciples, but also for those who will believe in Jesus through their word. No doubt Evangelist John meant that to refer to his own community, but two thousand years later we know: it refers to us too. We are drawn into the inner circle of that evening, as the disciples are drawn into the unity between Jesus and the God he knows as Father, Glorifier, Giver, Protector.

Jesus prays to the Holy Eternal One, and yet this prayer to the One who has named Jesus "beloved" and "one-and-only" is also a farewell embrace of those at table with him, whom we imagine content in the after-dinner glow, the flickering light of an olive-oil lamp, the fullness of enough bread, enough wine, perhaps enough olives, enough dates: enough.

This warm, familial scene grows brighter, then brilliant by the repetition of "glorify." Jesus asks the Eternal Loving One: "Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you." Jesus reminds the Ever-Giving One, "I glorified you on earth; so now glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed." And even claims: "I have been glorified in them," that is, the disciples, that circle that expands outward to include us.

And you see, Jesus has been given authority to give eternal life to all whom the Eternal Protecting One has given to Jesus. That would include those in the room in the narrative. That would include those brought into the room by the evangelist’s proclamation. That would include us, brought into the room by our reading this day. Jesus has the authority to give to you and to me eternal life. And this is eternal life, knowing the Eternally Living One, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom that One has sent.

But this knowing: it seems too hard. It transcends our poor finite exam-depleted minds. It must be beyond us, and yet—Jesus answers our fear before we even know to speak it: "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me. … Now they know … they know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed ... "

You see: even though it is too hard for us, still we know, we have believed, because the Word of faith that is in us is not our faith after all but the Holy Eternal Word in us.

And the Holy Eternal Word is not only in us, but is glorified in us.

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See, you are a gift. The verb "give" is used a lot: eleven times in these eleven verses, and most often (five times) referring to "these," that is, the disciples, as the ones whom the Eternal Glorifying One has given to Jesus. It’s as though Jesus has opened up a present from home, and found in it Peter and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, and by extension also the community of John’s Gospel, and now also: us! We might cover our ears lest we hear him say in a taut voice: "Well, thanks—but I hope you kept the receipt." But no, we are treasured as gift, and we have also become the recipients of gifts. Jesus has given us eternal life, and the words that the Eternal Speaking One gave to Jesus.

Jesus prays then that the disciples, that John’s community, that we would be one, as he and the Eternal Loving One are one. That feels like an odd prayer to read today, a prayer for unity in a service that includes farewell and Godspeed. This particular constellation of people will lose some of our immediate connections; today is about relinquishing our togetherness—so how can we be looking forward to unity?

But it’s not so odd after all: the disciples too will soon find themselves outside the security of their seminary community, going out to their first-call nations—and yet they remain one. The unity for which Jesus prays is not a unity that restricts to one room or one campus. It is a unity that includes, even insists on, dispersal, else the circle of intimacy could not expand outward to include ever more. If those disciples had stayed together, we would not be here. And so, you who are leaving, whether for first call or internship or CPE or other reason: you are not diminishing the unity of this community in Christ Jesus; rather, through your ministries, Jesus extends it, flowing as living water through you to wash new Christians into the unity that we share with all who know Christ, in all times and places, a unity that is wondrously like that of Jesus with the One he calls Father.

But let’s not rush too quickly to the unity across time and space. The abstract idea of unity is lovely and charming, "and they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love." The thing is, the unity is not just with some disembodied idea of all Christians. The problem is, it’s not just the saints who have gone before us and generations yet unborn. The difficult part is, it’s not just people in Africa and Latin America and Asia, most of whom we’ll never meet. No, here’s the hard part: Jesus is also invoking our unity with family and friends and colleagues, including those whom we do not like very much, including those from whom we are estranged, even people who offend us deep down, people who deny aspects of who we are and threaten what we treasure. This unity is something we recoil from even as we yearn for it.

Try to imagine it: Jesus is praying that the Christians of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, may be one as he and Holy Eternal One are one. The Christians of the Holy Land, indigenous Palestinian Eastern Orthodox and immigrant millennialists, one, as Jesus is with Holy Protecting One. And those of us who are Lutherans: maybe we’ve swallowed enough of our confessional pride to admit unity with Presbyterians and RCA and UCC folk, with Moravians and Episcopalians, and even to step into a coy yet careful dance with Rome. But could even Jesus imagine us one with Baptists and Anabaptists, one with Pentecostal and Holiness folks? Oh, and those of you looking to first call, Jesus is invoking your unity (like that of Jesus with Eternal Glorifying One) with council presidents and worship committee chairs, with all who believe that their mission in the church is to keep you from changing a single element of their beloved practice, which just happens to conflict with everything you learned in either liturgy or confessions. In this place: graders and graded are envisioned as one; billers and billed: one; traditionalist and liberationist, women and men, gay and straight, pipeliner and third career: one, just as Jesus and the God he calls Father are one. It’s hard even to imagine, I know, but Jesus prays into unity you who celebrate your wild succulence and you who find it the very language offensive.

It may distress us, the prospect of being one with Them. We may want to tap our Savior on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me, I hate to raise questions, you being Wisdom incarnate and all—but do you really have your heart set on this?" And you sigh sadly to realize that yes, Jesus’ heart is set on this unity stuff, and it’s a unity like his with Eternal Loving One. See, I may be making this up, but maybe it was really there in some of you, that slight shudder, the involuntary inner "ee-eww" at the thought of being one with someone whose theology and praxis are so—yucky. (And we too will be one: we who can say "ee-eww" and "yucky" in a sermon, and those who find it distasteful.)

Oh, it’s hard now: Jesus is no longer in the world, but we are. The body is mocked and wounded, bleeding and thorn-crowned. We hear the unity prayer, and we think: if it’s really necessary, Jesus, you can drag us there. Just don’t expect us to like it. But it’s a unity like that of Jesus with Eternal Glorifying One. And they delight in it.

I imagine that there is some grieving in our Redeemer’s heart to see us recoil from the idea of being one with those others. But Christ’s constancy is greater than our willfulness; and so: we will be one.

You see: we have already been washed in the waters of one baptism. We are about to celebrate our unity in the lifting of one loaf, one cup. As we taste the bread, and drink from the cup, we anticipate the day when we will gather at one table in a blessed reunion with those whom we now grieve, in joyful recognition of those who will be born after we have died. The disciples who were in the room with Jesus will be there, and John’s community of eavesdroppers. We will look around and see the unity of denominations now divided. We will glimpse those whom we now despise. We will know that we have been made one in Christ Jesus, in a unity like that of Jesus with his Father, the Holy Eternal Loving Giving Protecting Glorifying One. And we will have the grace to say from our hearts: Thanks be to God. Amen.