Sermon 5.17.15 Vicar Josh Ferris 7th Sunday of Easter, Year B Acts 1:15-26 Psalm 1 1 John 5:9-13 John 17:6-19 Here s a confession: Jesus gets so close to praying the prayer that I want him to in this morning s Gospel reading. These verses are part of a long prayer that Jesus spoke just before he was arrested. He was praying for his followers, both those original disciples, and us today too. And it s almost the prayer I want to hear. I m on board, as Jesus prayed about coming from God, as he spoke about protecting and caring for his followers. I love it as Jesus prays that all his disciples would be united as one. But then comes the part that makes me uncomfortable. The part where Jesus says about his followers: the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but ask you to protect them from the evil one. (v. 14-15) To be honest, I don t like this part of Jesus prayer very much. I don t like the idea of people hating me because of my faith. I don t like the fact that Jesus says he doesn t want God to rescue us from the problems and difficulties in our lives. I d like it a lot more if Jesus asked God to take us away from any problems we face, to rescue us from our difficulties, to insulate us from all the issues in this world, rather than having to deal with them. Life would be a lot easier that way! There s something appealing about the idea of withdrawing from all of life s problems and all the world s issues. That s the route that John Galt took in the classic book Atlas Shrugged. John Galt was a brilliant inventor who got to the point where he just couldn t stand the reality of the world. He couldn t stand all of the issues that life presented, all the people who thought and lived differently than he did. He just became sick of it, and so John Galt
2 decided to leave it all behind. He approached the world s biggest and brightest people, the inventors and business people and industrialists, and convinced them to leave the world behind. He gathered together everyone who thought and acted and believed like he did, and they withdrew from the world and started their own society. They no longer had to be troubled by the world and all of its needs and issues, its poverty and hunger. They simply shut out the rest of the world, and were no longer concerned about its problems and struggles. God s people have always been tempted to see faith as a means of escaping or withdrawing from this world. We all get why that s appealing: there s a lot of junk in the world. Disasters, earthquakes, train accidents, crime, evil, hate, racism, bullies, poverty, hunger, war. And not just in the world, but in our lives too. We experience confusion, pain, loss, brokenness, and all sorts of other things we d rather leave behind. And throughout history, Christians have tried to find to escape and withdraw from the world. Places like monasteries and convents. Places designed to create a private, holy, pure place where people of faith could live separate from the world so they wouldn t be influenced and tainted and contaminated by it. In fact, the Gospel of John was probably written to a group of Christians who felt that way. John was written much later than the other Gospels, about sixty years after the time of Jesus. Scholars believe it was written to a community of Jewish Christians that had faced a lot of persecution and hardship, and had recently been kicked out of their local Jewish synagogues. They had faced public shaming and humiliation for their faith in Jesus, and were under incredible pressure from their families and friends to deny their beliefs. And so it was probably an attractive idea, to think about just retreating into their own group, to consider withdrawing from the world so they no longer would have to defend their beliefs and face the hardships that
3 came with them. It would have been enticing to leave the world behind, to just keep telling the story of Jesus to each other, to only spend time with each other, and to not have to deal with the rest of the world. And this is still temptation today, because in some ways it would make life easier. But Jesus calls us to something different. Did you hear it in his prayer? He calls us to a life where we do not belong to this world, but where we still live in it fully. Now I know that sounds a little confusing, and it helps to know what Jesus means when he talks about the world. He uses that word a lot, to mean different things. Sometimes the world just means this physical place called earth. Like when John 3:16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son Or when Jesus says in today s reading, now I am no longer in the world. (v. 11) He s talking about the planet earth, orbiting 93 million miles away from the sun, the place that he ll be leaving soon after his death and resurrection. But other times when Jesus talks about the world, he means something different. Sometimes he s not talking about planet earth, but about all the rules and values and powers that govern the world. The beliefs and laws that reign supreme in our society, and which are drastically different from the beliefs and values in God s kingdom. Jesus gave us some examples to explain what he meant. In the kingdom of the world, he says, you re taught to love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but in God s kingdom, everyone is loved, even enemies. (Matthew 5:43-44) In the kingdom of the world, Jesus says, you re taught to trust in money and chase after wealth and possessions, but God s kingdom is a place where God alone is trusted. (Matthew 6:22-34) In the kingdom of the world, Jesus says, some people go hungry, some live in poverty, and some people are considered less valuable than
4 others, but in God s kingdom there s enough for all people, and everyone is loved and valued. (Luke 6, John 3) In the kingdom of the world, Jesus says, you get only what you earn, but in God s kingdom, forgiveness and love and grace are given freely as a gift. (John 3, Ephesians 2) Sometime when Jesus talks about the world, that s what he means: all the powers and the beliefs and the values which are so popular in this world but are in opposition to God s kingdom. That s what Jesus meant when he said in today s reading that his disciples do not belong to the world. (vs. 14, 16) As followers of Jesus, when we were baptized, we were transferred from the kingdom of this world, with all of its values and ideas, into the kingdom of God. We no longer belong to this world, we aren t shaped and molded by its beliefs; we belong to God s kingdom. You belong to God s kingdom, today and always. But here s the catch: even though we don t belong to this world, we still live in it. It might be tempting to withdraw, to pull away from the world and all its problems, to create a cozy little holy community that s insulated from everything and everyone else, but we can t. In his prayer today Jesus said he was not praying that God would take us out of the world. Instead, he prayed that we would remain in this world, fully invested, because more than anything else, God loves this world. You see, when God looked at this world with all of its pain and struggles, with all of its problems and issues, with all of its evil and turmoil, God did not respond like John Galt. Instead of withdrawing from the world and abandoning the earth as a failed creation, instead God decided to get more involved in the world. God loved this world so much that he sent his only Son, so that the world could be saved and could know God s love and life. (John 3:16-17) God
5 loves the world and loves you too much to withdraw, too much to abandon, too much to pull away and ignore. That s what love does - it doesn t pull away, it gives more. And so instead of encouraging us to withdraw from the world, Jesus today sends us deeper into the world. Right at the end of our reading he prayed to God and said, As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. (v. 18) That s our purpose. You want to live out your faith? Forget about the monastery. Forget about trying to escape from this world. Go out into the world. The world needs to know about Jesus, needs God s love and salvation and life. The world needs God s kingdom, and the justice and peace and equality it brings. The world needs Jesus, and so you are being sent. That s the tension that we live in: no longer belonging to the world, and yet sent out into the world. We gather together every week as God s people to remind each other of this, to remind each other who we are and whose we are, so that we aren t taken in or corrupted by the values and beliefs of this world and everything it holds dear. We read the Bible, we pray, we worship, we receive the sacraments, we proclaim that we belong to God s kingdom. And yet we do not withdraw, and instead give ourselves away so that others can know the love of Jesus. So look ahead to this week. To all the places you will go in this world, all the people you will see, all the things you will do. How will God use you this week to help bring the kingdom and share God s love and grace? These things and the people around you are exactly the world that God loves so much, and now you are invited to share that love with others. For as Jesus was sent into the world, so are we. Amen.