“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. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 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.”
These are beautiful words of Jesus in his prayer for his disciples as he faces his own death at the hands of the empire. It’s a prayer that is filled with love for the disciples; but there is something else too; Jesus says that his disciples, his followers, which includes you and I, are one; we are one with each other, and we are one with God the Father, and God the Son in Jesus…
I spoke last week about our prayer as the Holy Spirit praying within us… that when we pray, when we truly give ourselves over to prayer, it is the Spirit working within each of us to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth… and now today, we have Jesus praying for us… what does it mean for each of us to have Jesus praying for us? This is the great shepherd who knows each of us by name, who now brings us into the Father’s presence and love through his prayers…
It’s a wonderful thought, as we have just celebrated the Feast of the Ascension in the church, which our reading from Acts makes reference to. The miracle of Jesus’ ascension, at least for me, is that a human body with a human nature, is brought into the presence of God and is now seated with God at God’s right hand… and for us, that is good news. It opens up life after our death in a new way; Easter morning and now the Ascension, are God’s gifts to say that death shall not, and cannot have the last word in our lives. The kingdom of God, as it is in heaven, has been established and is waiting for us… and that is good news.
But the kingdom is not just about the kingdom as it is in heaven… there is that part of the prayer, “ON EARTH as it is in heaven”… and that, I think is where today’s gospel comes in.
Jesus is praying for his disciples because he knows what is coming; he knows the fear that they will go through as they watch him go to his death; he knows that they will need courage and hope… fortunately, they don’t have all that long to wait; while I am sure it was the longest three days some of them had lived through, knowing that God’s truth and hope rolled away the stone, and knowing that Jesus had conquered death, had to be an incredible thing for them to witness.
And now, even though we are separated from Jesus’ words by many years, the words of Jesus’ prayer is still his prayer for us… he prays for us to be one with him and the Father… and also, that we might be one with each other, as he and the Father are one…
Unity, the kind of unity that Jesus is talking about is so much more than having a group of people who get along. Getting along is ok, as far as it goes, but it can sometimes require that the relationship is based on lies. Oppressed people “get along with” their oppressors as long as they don’t cause trouble; that’s not relationship, that’s abuse. People who work together can often “get along” because they share a common task or goal; once the time clock is punched, the relationship is over until the next work day…
The unity that Jesus is speaking of is based on God’s love. It’s a unity that really has no conditions; it’s a unity that exists simply because one is loved by God. Just as Jesus loves and is loved by God the Father, so you and I are loved by each person of the Trinity. It’s a relationship that is closer than any other relationship that we have because it is based in God’s love; and because Jesus ascended into heaven bodily, all that it means to be human is now closer to God than we can even imagine…
So, what does it mean for us to be prayed for by Jesus? I think it means that everything that you and I are is brought before God; I think that maybe when the Spirit prays in us, that it might be a response to having Jesus pray for us… that somehow our prayers and Jesus’ prayers somehow come together to form prayers that create more wholeness…
If Jesus prays for us, if unity is what Jesus prays for, then we all have some work to do, don’t we? The unity that Jesus prays for means that no matter what we think or believe, we are all one in Jesus; the petty fights that we can engage in, the arguments, and perhaps even the hatred and fear that we might engage in, are things that we put in the place of the unity that Jesus desires for us, and for all of humanity. Our unity as people is grounded in God’s love for us and in Jesus’ life as one of us… that’s it. We don’t have to agree about much of anything, except that we are each loved by God; and if we are loved by God, that should mean something to each of us; it should mean something about ourselves and about every human being that we come in contact with… Every. Single. One. Oppression, prejudice, hatred, even the petty anger and annoyance that we have with others really has no place in our relationships especially when we realize that everyone we meet is the object of Jesus’ prayers… Just think about that… every person we meet is loved and prayed for by Jesus – that alone gives them and us an infinite amount of worth and beauty…
Unity, the kind of unity that Jesus prays for, is a goal of the kingdom here on earth; we know there are plenty of places where it doesn’t exist; I encourage all of us here today to search those darker places in our hearts to work on ridding ourselves of the attitudes that keep us from true kingdom of unity with each other… and I would ask us to remember who it is who prays FOR us… and whose prayers live within us… we all desire closeness and unity… it’s what we were created for. Perhaps we can live as kingdom people who are working to bring the kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven so that we might be one, as Jesus and the Father are one…