John 17:6-19. those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

Transcription

1 John 17: I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. 1

2 The Disciple as Firefighter Young children have vivid imaginations. They can turn everyday objects into objects of wonder. A cardboard box large enough to sit in becomes a spaceship. A wall of pillows stacked high, perhaps with a blanket for a roof, becomes a castle. The right hat is enough to transform them into a cowboy, princess, pirate, or superhero. Children can try on different personas as easily as changing a hat. I wore many hats when I was a child because I wanted to be many different things: an engineer (as in locomotive, not electrical or mechanical I never cared for math), a detective, a journalist, and Batman I really wanted to be Batman. I had a hat or costume for each one. When I was really young, I had a particular fixation on being a fireman. You can see the evidence here [SLIDE]. I not only had the hat, I had a coat, boots, and chainsaw. The photo is from my third birthday, so I assume the hat or the chainsaw were a birthday present. I couldn t wait to saw the chair in half. Around this same time, before I could even read, I remember having a fireman picture book. And one of the first television shows I can remember watching was called Emergency [SLIDE]. It was about a team of firefighters who were based at a firehouse near Los Angeles. Seeing a firehouse on TV was one thing, but my house was just around the corner from the real thing. From my backyard I could see the local firehouse. When I was a kid my friends and I would sometimes go there to get a soda from the soda machine. The firemen were always friendly. They d let us sit in the trucks, try on some of their gear, and best of all, slide down the fire pole. It felt like being a real-life superhero. Children look up to firemen. They see them as heroes. Firemen are seen as strong, courageous, and selfless, risking their lives to save the lives of others. It s not only children who see them this way. If they didn t already appreciate them, New Yorkers learned of the heroism of firefighters on September 11, The city lost 2

3 341 firefighters on 9/11. No fire station was hit harder than Engine 54, Ladder 4, Battalion 9, which was based in Midtown, on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 48 th Street. All fifteen men who were on the morning shift that day perished. The office where I worked back then was four blocks from the fire station. I remember walking past it in the days after 9/11 and seeing the makeshift memorial that had been set up. Total strangers came by to leave flowers, candles, and notes of condolence. Today there is a permanent memorial on the façade of the station[slide]. Because of 9/11 the NYC Fire Department entered the consciousness of all New Yorkers. One particular image of a firefighter touched the hearts of New Yorkers who are often perceived by outsiders as heartless. On September 12, 2001, New Yorkers, and the world, became acquainted with this face [SLIDE]. The photo was taken from the 71 st floor of Tower One, and it pictures a young firefighter climbing the staircase as a long line of office workers slowly make their way down. From the 71 st floor he still had another twenty-two floors to climb to get to the impact zone, all while carrying 22 kg of gear on his back. I am happy to tell you that miraculously, he survived that day. After Tower Two collapsed, he received an order to evacuate the building, and he made it out just in time. It takes a special kind of person to run up the stairs of a burning building when everyone else is running away. You have to be able to put aside your own well being to focus on the job at hand rescuing those who are in danger and then putting out a fire so that it doesn t spread and threaten still more lives. In the presence of danger you have to be able to run into the danger. When a building is on fire, it s your job to run into the fire. I ve been talking about firefighters because they serve as a metaphor for the way that Jesus commissions the disciples in today s Scripture. Jesus knows the danger that the disciples will face simply because they are his disciples. They will be hated by the world just as he was hated. Yet he does not pray for them to escape from the world; 3

4 rather, as he was sent into the world, he sends them into the world. With the world on fire, Jesus commissions the disciples to run into the flames. All of chapter 17 of John s Gospel is taken up with this prayer of Jesus. These are his final words before his arrest, which will come in chapter 18. The prayer is traditionally divided into three parts [SLIDE]. Verses 1 to 5 are a summary of Jesus mission and his relationship to God. In verses 6 to 19 Jesus prays on behalf of the disciples. In the final section, verses 20 to 26, Jesus broadens the prayer to include the later church, as he prays for the unity of the church. But today we are going to focus on that middle section in which Jesus prays for the disciples. This prayer has no parallel in the other Gospels. It appears only in John. It is yet another feature that is unique to John s Gospel. In the other Gospels Jesus final prayer occurs in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he prays in anguish that he might be spared the cross, yet he ultimately resolves to do the will of the Father who has sent him. But here in John Jesus prays in absolute serenity. He is at peace. He is not concerned with his impending execution. His mind, and his heart, are focused on the disciples. He begins by describing the disciples as God s gift to him. It s a beautiful sentiment, especially considering that the disciples up to this point have shown themselves to be rather flawed individuals. They have often failed to understand Jesus words. They have disagreed with some of his actions. They have struggled with doubt and fear. They have made themselves a burden to Jesus as much as a blessing. Yet Jesus prays to God, saying of them [SLIDE], They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word (Jn. 17:6). Grace abounds. He even attributes to them an understanding of his identity as God s Son and his mission of sacrifice that they won t fully have until they see him resurrected. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me (Jn. 17:7-8). Peter s denial, Thomas s doubt, and all the disciples abandonment of Jesus at his death are still to come they haven t 4

5 happened yet but Jesus is giving the disciples a glimpse of their future. He is showing them what they will become after the resurrection, when they will see clearly, when their fear and doubt will cease, and when they will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to boldly proclaim and carry out the kingdom of God. Jesus then prays that the disciples might be protected. He is leaving them and will no longer be there to protect them. In fact, he prays as if he has already left the world [SLIDE], saying, And now I am no longer in the world (Jn. 17:11). He prays for God to protect them in your name that you have given me. Why? What is it that the disciples need to be protected from? The second part of the verse gives us a clue: protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one (Jn. 17:11). It is a prayer for unity. The prime danger that the disciples will face after Jesus death is disunity breaking up and losing their sense of purpose. Without their rabbi, their teacher, to lead, and guide, and protect them to keep them focused on the mission to which he and they have been called they will be tempted to abandon that mission. They will be tempted to think that they had been wrong to follow Jesus. After all, he had led them to Jerusalem not to liberate Israel, as they had hoped, but instead he had led them to the cross. All the hope with which he had filled them had turned out to be a mirage an illusion. In light of their disillusionment, it would be only natural for them to want to put the past behind them to treat their time with Jesus as a daydream from which they had at last awoken. Perhaps it would be a story they would tell their grandchildren one day. You won t believe what I did when I was young! With Jesus death they could now go back to the real world and return to the lives they had left, as fishermen, farmers, and tax collectors. Yet Jesus knows that if the disciples are to proclaim the good news of his death and resurrection the message of peace, justice, reconciliation, and salvation then they must be united. They must be of one purpose. They must be united to the Father and Son as the Father and Son are to each other. Building off of what I mentioned in the 5

6 last two sermons, that means that they must be united in love. Such unifying love will make known to them the joy that Christ experiences at being united to the Father and Spirit in eternity. I know that this is getting little heady, a little bit mystical, but such is the nature of John s Gospel. What Jesus is praying is that the same love that unites the three persons of the Trinity with each other also bind the disciples to the Trinity. Jesus is praying for the disciples what he already share with them in chapter 15 that he is the vine and that they are his branches united to him through love. They must be united in love because the world will hate them [SLIDE]. Again, Jesus prays to God, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them (Jn. 17:14). Why? Because they do not belong to the world. It is characteristic of John s Gospel that the world is regarded with apprehension. There is a sharp contrast between God, Christ, and the disciples on the one hand, and the world on the other. We should note that by world, John doesn t mean creation, i.e., the created world, but the worldly forces that opposed Jesus. The disciples, although they are in the world, are not of the world. They are in the world in so much as that is where God has placed them. But they are not of the world because the world with its lust for power has rejected the one who emptied himself of power. It is characteristic of John s Gospel to feature this sort of dualism [SLIDE]. Dualism means that two forces are opposed to each other. In the Gospel of John examples of dualism include light vs. darkness, spirit vs. flesh, life vs. death, and Jesus vs. the world. This idea of Jesus vs. the world runs throughout the Gospel. It first appears in chapter one, in which John writes, He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him (Jn. 1:10). Jesus was in the world, but the world rejected him. The world hated him. The disciples are also in the world, and Jesus says that the world has hated them as well, because they do not belong to the world. This is where it gets interesting. We might 6

7 think that Jesus, in his concern for the disciples, would then tell them to flee from the world. Perhaps they could become monks and open a monastery far from civilization separate themselves from the evil world a world on fire with cruelty and selfishness. This was a popular idea in the world at the time. Many mystics did just that separated themselves from the world by fleeing civilization. But that is not what Jesus would have the disciples do [SLIDE]. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, he prays (Jn. 17:15). Although the world hates them as it hated him, Jesus would not have the disciples flee from the world. Quite the contrary: Jesus sends the disciples into the world. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world (Jn. 17:18). As followers of Jesus the disciples are set apart from the world, but they are also sent into the world by Jesus, as Jesus was by the Father. With the world on fire with hatred, Jesus sends the disciples into the flames. Why would he do this? If the world is so corrupt, wouldn t it make more sense to abandon it? Let the world burn and consume itself. Let it be reduced to ash. Let us focus our eyes on heaven and forget this wicked world. That may sound like a plan, but it certainly doesn t sound like the Gospel. The Gospel was never about escaping the world and going to heaven. Yet, sadly, that is often what the Church has reduced the Gospel to, as if we were selling eternal life insurance. But, no, even with all the problems manifest in the world, Jesus sends the disciples into the world. In fact, because of the world s problems, Jesus sends the disciples into the world. Why? Because the world belongs to him. I cited this passage a moment ago, and here it is again [SLIDE]: He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him (Jn. 1:10). Last time we focused on the second half of the verse, but this time let s look at the first half. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him. The world came into being through Christ. From the very beginning, the 7

8 world and all that is in it belonged to Christ. It was his to create and it was his to redeem. But, again, why would Christ redeem a world that hated him? It doesn t make sense. It s madness! While the world, in its wisdom, may consider Christ s sacrifice madness, the most famous verse from John, and one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible, makes the motivation plain to see: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn. 3:16). God loved the world enough to save us from ourselves from our denial of Christ, like Peter, from our doubt of Christ, like Thomas, and from our abandonment of Christ, like all of the disciples. We were part of that world that was ablaze, but we have been rescued from the flames by Christ s love. We have been sanctified made holy in the truth of the Gospel. And now the Spirit of Christ sends us into this burning world this world of hatred, indifference, and ignorance as witnesses to that eternal truth. Now is not the time to run from the flames, but to run toward them equipped with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 8