A Public Prayer

John 17:1-11

June 1, 2014

            When I announced my decision to go to seminary, the various people in my life responded in different ways.  Generally, people were happy for me and excited to see me discerning this call. Some were concerned, as it turned out unnecessarily so, about me getting through the Presbyterian language requirement.   Could I pass Hebrew and Greek?  A few were unsure about a woman going into ordained ministry, but they loved and supported me anyway.  However one response was true across the spectrum of reactions from my family and friends; the minute I decided to pursue a call to ministry, everyone else forgot how to pray. 

            My father, who I’ve heard offer beautiful, articulate prayers before meals at family gatherings, couldn’t wait to hand those reigns to me.  Suddenly, at every family gathering I was the designated pray-er.  My adopted family in Richmond summoned me to pray at every event and occasion.  I usually spent Thanksgiving at their house, but one year while I was still in school, I spent it with some seminary friends instead.  My second family was sad that I wouldn’t be with them, but they were even more concerned about who would say the prayer before the meal.  The “professional pray-er” wouldn’t be with them. 

            Peoples’ belief that I have a felicity for public prayer is flattering, but answering a call, going to seminary, becoming ordained does not mean that public prayer comes easily to me.  One of my first decisions when I became a solo pastor was that I would force myself to lead the prayers for the people portion of our worship service extemporaneously.  No script.  Up until that point, I’d written out at least an outline of my prayer, and then I’d fill in the blanks with any prayer request I received.  It was a scary decision to make, but I believed then, and still do, that it was a discipline that I needed to stick with.  I can honestly say that almost 19 years later, it hasn’t gotten any easier or less scary.  I can do it.  I can pray in public.  Sometimes I can even pray with some eloquence, but it does not come easily. 

            But I have learned that whether or not I make it through my public prayers with lilting prose or fumbling inadequacy, it doesn’t matter so much how I pray as to what I pray.  This is not a sermon about what prayer is or what prayer does, but it is about what prayer can convey.  Of course if we want an example of a prayer that is not eloquent, then we should not look to Jesus’ prayer for the disciples in today’s gospel passage. 

            Jesus’ prayer is eloquent.  And, typical of John’s gospel, it is metaphorical and bears layers of meaning.  The context and setting of the prayer is important to understand.  In scholarship terms, it’s called the “Priestly Prayer” or the “High Priestly Prayer.”  That’s eloquent terminology for an eloquent prayer.  But what is a priestly prayer?  It’s an intercessory prayer.  Jesus is praying on the disciples’ behalf.  He is praying for the disciples, not because they cannot pray for themselves.  They can.  But this is a prayer of protection, guidance, love.  What’s interesting to me is that Jesus is not off praying by himself somewhere.  That is where we often find Jesus praying.  He goes off alone, away from the disciples, away from the crowds, and prays.  But in this passage, the disciples are with him.  They hear every word.

            This prayer comes at the end of the last meal Jesus shares with them.  Soon he will be arrested, tried, convicted, crucified, resurrected.  As I’ve said in past weeks, it is odd to have a pre crucifixion passage on the last Sunday of Eastertide.  Not only is it the last Sunday for this resurrection season, this past Thursday was Ascension Day.  Next week, Pentecost.  Jesus should be up in heaven, not sitting at table with his disciples, praying. 

            Yet as we’ve also heard these last weeks, this is Jesus’ long goodbye to the disciples.  There is no ascension in John’s gospel.  We read about the Ascension in passages like the one we have from Acts.  But John is different.  In John Jesus makes several post resurrection appearances, gives Peter both a word of grace and forgiveness and instruction.  Makes one final comment about the Beloved Disciple, and that’s it.  End of the gospel. 

            From the story of Jesus’ ascension and certainly the story of Pentecost that we will read next week, the torch is now passed to us.  While we tend to think of the resurrection as the end of the gospel, it’s really just the beginning.  In light of that, it does seem fitting that on this Sunday, when we officially leave Easter, prepare for the coming of the Spirit and consider the Son’s ascent to the Father, that we read this public prayer of Jesus for his disciples. 

            So what does this prayer say?  Jesus speaks of being glorified; his glory and the Father’s glory.  I don’t think that the word glory as Jesus uses it is just about shining splendor.  In the story of the Transfiguration, the disciples do see Jesus literally shining, but they also get a glimpse of his true nature.  So when Jesus prays about his glory and God’s glory, I wonder if he’s speaking of the revelation of God and Son.  After all, his time in our midst was about doing just that:  revealing God, showing God, making the love of God physical, tactile, embodied, incarnate.  So in this hour of crucifixion and resurrection, that revelation of God, that glorification of God is reaching its fulfillment.  

            And in this glorification, Jesus also speaks about eternal life.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” 

            This is a different way of looking at eternal life, isn’t it?  Eternal life isn’t just the life in heaven.  It is more than just the life after this life.  It is found in knowing God and in knowing Jesus.  Eternal life comes about through relationship with God.  Eternal life, then, is now.  That doesn’t detract from our belief in Heaven, in the life we wait for after this one.  Jesus ascends into the heavens to be in Heaven with God.  Perhaps it is only when we reach that life after life that our relationship with God is complete and perfect.  But that doesn’t lessen this understanding we have from Jesus’ prayer that the foundation of eternal life begins now.  Just as the kingdom of God is already in our midst, so is eternal life. 

            Jesus prays for the relationship his disciples have and will have with God.  And Jesus prays for the relationship his disciples will have with one another. 

“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” 

In other words, community.  Relationship with God, Father and Son, and community, communion with one another.  It seems to me that if our relationship with God is the basis for our eternal life, not only in some distant time, but right now; then the community we build with one another is our reflection of the kingdom, which is not just a far off place, but a realm and reality that is also with us right now.

So what would it mean for us to begin each day with the awareness that we have already begun our eternal life and inhabit the kingdom now?  What would it mean for us to open our eyes in the morning recognizing that not only are experiencing this reality but that we give a glimpse of this reality to others?  How would we see other people?  Speak to them?  Treat them? 

When Jesus prayed this prayer for the disciples, he knew that soon they would be without him.  With the ascension, Jesus is no longer physically on this earth.  The coming of the Holy Spirit will embolden them, embrace them and undergird them with the spiritual presence of Christ.  But the physical presence, as the disciples knew him, will be gone.  So Jesus prayed for them.  He prayed for their understanding.  He prayed for their protection.  He prayed for them to be in relationship with God as he was in relationship with God.  He prayed for them to be in community with one another, to be one as Father and Son were one. 

And I think that just as Jesus prayed for the disciples, he also prays for us.  In one of my favorite Assurances of Pardon found in our Book of Common Worship, we hear these words of grace, “Who is in a position to condemn?  Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us.” 

            Christ prays for us.  What a word of hope that is.  What a word of good news.  Christ prays for us.  Just as Jesus prayed for the disciples, he prays for us.  I believe that his prayer for the disciples, that they would have understanding and relationship with God, that they would be protected and have community and communion with one another, is his prayer for us as well. 

            So what would it mean for us to begin each day, with the knowledge that in our relationship with God, we have found eternal life?  What would it mean for us to open our eyes with the understanding that in our community with one another, we reflect the kingdom of God to others?  What would it mean for us to not only know these truths, but to also believe to the depths of our being that Christ is praying for us?  How will we speak to others knowing that Christ is praying for us and for them?  How will we see others knowing that Christ holds us all in his prayers?  How will we treat others knowing that Christ prays for our protection, for our strength, for our lives, for our community, for our love for God and one another? 

            Christ prays for us.  In this we find strength to be Christ’s body in this hurting world.  Christ prays for us.  In this we find courage to be witnesses of the gospel.   Christ prays for us.  In this we find hope.  In this we find hope.  Let all God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

I Will Not Leave You

John 14:15-21

May 25, 2014

            The first artist to perform at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 was Richie Havens.  I’m unclear as to how well-known Havens was before the festival, but he was definitely known afterward; especially after the release of the movie of the concert. 

            Havens was asked to continue playing for three hours because so many of the artists were delayed in arriving.  Traffic on the New York Thruway was literally stopped.  When we lived in New York State, longtime residents told us that the stories about people just leaving their cars on the thruway and walking were true.  So with the New York thruway becoming a parking lot, other performers were having a hard time getting to Yasgur’s Farm. 

            But Havens was there, and in his performance he improvised a song that became known as Freedom.  But Freedom was a reworking of the spiritual, Motherless Child. 

            “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.  Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.  Oh Lord, sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.” 

            Most spirituals, perhaps the majority of them, have their roots in slavery.  What a terrible irony that such glorious, soul-stirring music was born out of one of the greatest tragedies in our country’s history.  Motherless Child began in slavery as well.  The earliest known recording of it is by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1870.  It’s not a surprise that lyrics like these would have been sung by slaves.  The auction block ripped apart families on a regular basis.  Mothers and children were separated and sold.  The motherless child was a cruel reality. 

            I can’t equate, nor would I try, any loss or grief I’ve experienced to what a family would feel at being sold away from one another.  Yet I think the ache and longing expressed by these words is something most of us can relate to, because in one way or another we have all suffered loss.  We don’t have to be motherless children literally to know loss.  We don't have to be orphans in order to empathize with the pain of being left behind by someone we love. 

            So I think we can understand, at least in part, what the disciples must have been feeling listening to Jesus tell them goodbye.

            Our passage this morning follows immediately on the verses we read last week.  These verses and these next chapters leading up to the crucifixion are known as the Final Discourse.  Last week I also referred to them as Jesus’ commencement speech.  I think they are also his long goodbye.  This is what Jesus and the disciples are in the midst of; the long goodbye.  But Jesus is not just leaving them alone, forsaken.  They will receive the Advocate who will be them forever.  They will receive the Spirit of truth.  They will not be like motherless children.  He tells them, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  In a little while the world will no longer see me; but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” 

            The word “orphaned” in the biblical context carries several meanings.  There is the literal meaning: a child who has lost one or both parents.  Orphaned and fatherless are often used interchangeably.  But orphaned can also mean, bereaved, lonesome, and lost. 

            The disciples, regardless of the health and well-being of their physical parents, were not orphans according to the first definition of the word.  They were all grown men, not children left alone in the world.  But Jesus is making it clear that he will leave them, and the prospect of that reality makes them orphans in the second sense of the word.  With Jesus’ death, they will be bereaved. They will be lonesome and lost.  They will be like motherless children.  We see this lived out once Jesus is crucified.  It was a group of motherless children who received the incredible, bizarre and unbelievable news that Jesus was risen.  

            But in the moment that our passage narrates, the disciples could not yet fully understand the resurrection.  They could only hear the news that Jesus would leave them.  But in this long goodbye, Jesus makes a promise.  They will not be orphaned.  The Advocate will be with them.  This Advocate, this Spirit of truth, will give them the power and strength to do greater works than even Jesus has done.  The Advocate will give them the strength to follow the commandments that Jesus has given them.  The Advocate will empower them to become the community of faith that Jesus has been modeling all along.  The Advocate will help them do great works of love.  The Advocate will enable the disciples to abide in Jesus just as Jesus abides in the Father, and the Father abides in him.  If they abide in Jesus, then the Father will also abide in them. 

Jesus promises the disciples the Advocate.  This then is a story of Pentecost.  That seems confusing because according to the church calendar Pentecost is still two weeks away.  But just as Easter is not relegated to one Sunday or one ecclesiastical season, the same is true for Pentecost.  In our verses the Spirit does not come whooshing in as it will in the Acts story.  The Spirit comes in promise.  The Spirit is the Advocate.  What does an advocate do?  An advocate, by official definition, is “one who pleads the case or the cause of another”.  An advocate is “one who supports or promotes the interest of another”.  The Spirit as Advocate then will lead the way for the disciples in their ongoing ministry, their following the commandments of Jesus, their works of love.  For that is what Jesus commanded them to do – love.  And the Advocate will help them in this great and wonderful task.  The Advocate will embolden them to love.

I think the challenge for the disciples, and for us, is to realize that being given the gift of the Holy Spirit is as powerful as being given the gift of resurrection.  We talk a lot about the Spirit in worship.  I pray for the power and the movement of the Spirit just about every Sunday.  We will make a big deal of Pentecost in a few weeks, as we should.  But I wonder if we don’t sometimes see the Holy Spirit as a consolation prize.  We can’t have Jesus physically in our midst.  We don’t necessarily encounter God the Father as we read about in scripture.  So we get the Spirit.  One commentator referred to the Holy Spirit as the quiet one in the Trinity.  But receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit is powerful and wonderful and terrifying.  It’s all this and more because for one thing we cannot control the Spirit any more than we can put God in a box or make Jesus the kind of person we want him to be.  The Spirit really does blow where it will.  And if we pray for it to come into our presence, we better be ready for what that means.  The Spirit effects change.  The Spirit shakes up and knocks down.  The Spirit, our Advocate, makes what we do here in this place, in our lives, matter.  It’s why we can hear these words, written thousands of ago, and recognize their meaning for us today. 

 The Spirit would make it possible for the disciples to keep the commandments Jesus gave them.  It would make it possible for them to love as they were loved.  The Spirit makes it possible for us to do this as well.  We have to remember that the Spirit is not a separate entity from God the Father and God the Son.  When we receive the Spirit, we receive the love of the Father and the redemption of the Son.  As a friend of mine pointed out, when we receive the Spirit it is in us.  It is not something external to our being, it is in us.  The love and power and spark of God, Father, Son and Spirit, is alive in us.  It seems to me that that is what Jesus meant when he spoke of abiding.  We live and abide in God, and God lives and abides in us.  Just as the disciples were not left alone in their grief and loss and confusion, neither are we.  We have the Advocate, the Spirit.  It not only guides us and persists with us, it is in us.  It opens our eyes to the presence of God all around us. It reveals Christ in the stranger.  It makes grace and mercy real.  It moves us to love.  And in this broken world, where violence and death seem to reign, where literal orphans number in the millions, there can be no greater act than for us to love.  May the Spirit move within us this day and every day, so that we may keep the commandments we have been given.  May the Spirit move within us this day and every day, so that we can love fiercely, passionately, and extravagantly all of God’s beloved children.  Let all of us say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

The Plan

            Last Friday I opened my mailbox and saw two significant pieces of correspondence.  One was from the pension board of the Presbyterian Church (USA); the other was from a federal entity that shall remain nameless, but trust me, you don’t want to get a letter from this entity.  I decided to be brave and open the unwanted entity epistle first.  It was bad news.  Bad.  Bad.  News.  After calling a few people to vent and seek advice, then collapsing into a panic attack that required many deep breaths into a paper bag, I calmed down enough to finally open the letter from my board of pensions.  It was something I’d been expecting; the copy of my health, spiritual, financial, vocational plan that I’d created at the CREDO conference last year.  Receiving a copy of the plan was a way for participants to assess how we’ve done following our plan over the past year.  My plan was in a separate envelope and attached to it was a letter from one of the persons who administers the CREDO program.  I know this letter is sent to every participant.  While I can’t quote his exact words, at the end of the letter he thanked me for my ministry to the church and for the blessing I have been to others. 

            You’re probably thinking that I’m about to write that reading those words changed my whole outlook on the bad news I’d just received.  Maybe you expect my next sentence to say that I realized at that moment that everything would ultimately be okay.  If that is what you’re thinking, dear reader, you’re wrong.  Upon reading those words I lost it all over again. 

            Blessing to the church?  To others?  Great.  That’s great, I thought, but I feel kicked in the teeth by my vocation.  All I could see was that I had failed.  I had failed in my personal life, my professional life, and no matter how hard I tried or worked I couldn’t seem to get ahead; financially, spiritually, professionally.  My self-composed, excessively long list of failures and shortcomings, a list I have worked valiantly this past year to let go of, curled itself around me like a snake.  And Winston Churchill’s black dog of depression, which I’ve also spent the last year training to heel, sprang back seemingly larger than ever.

            I spent the majority of my weekend dancing between despair and rage.  On Sunday, it was only through sheer will that I was able to stand in the pulpit and preach about love and intimate relationship with God without crying.  Intellectually, I knew, I know, that all the nasty things I say about myself in these moments aren’t true.  I know in my head that I have many blessings, and that I am far better off than so many others.  I can logically articulate that this bad news isn’t going to ultimately ruin my life.  But my perfectionism and my depression, which I’ve discovered walk hand-in-hand, do their damndest to convince me otherwise. 

            But the good news is – and yes there is good news – while I felt like I've spent this year inching my way forward a few feet at a time only to be propelled backward the length of a football field, I have come a long way.  I know this is true because my perspective did come back.  I was able to recognize more quickly that not all of this is my doing or my mistake.  Bad news doesn’t automatically mean that I am doomed to failure.  Bad news doesn’t meant that I’m a failure at all.  Have I failed?  Sure.  Who hasn’t?  But am I failure?  No.  I’m not. 

            It took more courage than I thought I had to finally open up my envelope and review the plan for health and well-being I made last year.  But I did.  I opened it thinking I knew every promise I’d made myself, and everything that I had accomplished or not.  But I had forgotten one thing.  At the bottom of each page, I’d written in big, bold letters, “I WILL FORGIVE MYSELF.”  I will forgive myself.  Just four words.  They sound easy, but they are so hard to do.  Yet those four words brought me back.  Those four words reminded me that I am not lost.  The black dog won’t win, and even if I don’t always believe it or see it, my ministry and my friendship have been a blessing to others.  And I am blessed, so blessed, in return.  So I will forgive myself.  It’s going to be hard, but I will.  That’s my plan.