Jesus was praying for us.
Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C (May 29, 2022).
View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Easter 7C
Preached at Christ Episcopal Church, Jordan, New York
Edited Transcript:
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard.
Please be seated. Good morning.
I’m so glad to be back. Two weeks is a long time! And the worst thing for me about being away for these two weeks is what has happened in these two weeks. Yes. While I've been way, 33 people were killed in mass shootings, including 19 children. And I think we've all been bearing the pain of these losses, bearing that pain alongside our neighbors in Buffalo, our neighbors in California, and our neighbors in Uvalde.
And as I was thinking about our Gospel today, I thought, what would be the one thing that I would want to carry with me as I hold this pain and as I know we share it? What I want you to remember this week is that when Jesus was here on earth in a body like you and me, that he prayed for you. He prayed for you. He prayed for this church. He prayed for all of us.
So I want to go back and help you understand where that's coming from.
Now, this reading we read today, this is always the reading we do for the seventh Sunday of Easter. We always read one of three parts of John 17. And John 17 is part of a larger piece of the Gospel of John, John 14 to 17, you can read it at home, called the Farewell Discourse. These are the last words of Jesus before he went to the garden to be taken and crucified. And these last words of Jesus, they follow immediately the foot washing. Remember where Jesus was with his friends and he says, "What I have done for you, you must also do for each other. And as I have loved you, you need to love one another." And when he's done, he sits down and then he starts talking, because in the Gospel of John, Jesus loves to talk.
So from John 14 to 17, Jesus is talking. And what is he talking about? He's talking about that last commandment, the new commandment. “I give you a new commandment: that you will love one another as I have loved you.” And if you do that, then “I will be in you and you will be in me and we will be in God.” And he gives some different examples. You'll remember he talks about the vine and the vine branches. “I am the vine and you are the branches, whoever abides in me,” abides in love, abides in God. And so he talks about this commandment to love and how if we love, we will be in and with God.
And then he turns from speaking to his disciples, who he's at the table with, to speaking to God. And that's John chapter 17, which is the last part we read today. So John chapter 17 has three parts. Jesus praises God. He says, "God, may you be glorified in me and in these, my disciples." And then he prays for the disciples that he's at the table with. He says, "God, be with them, help them to love one another, help them to live this commandment of love." And then he prays for the ones who are to come. And that's you and me, that's this church, and that's all of us Christians since the time that Jesus said that prayer.
So I want you to remember that more than 2000 years ago, Jesus was at table with his friends and he was praying for Paul and Gwen and Kirk and Brad and Billy and Joan and Meredith. And I can't help but wonder if he knew what we'd be going through today, if he knew about the war and the murder. And the private troubles we have. I think he did know, when he prayed for us, that we would be people who were in need of those prayers, that we would be people who needed support in learning how to love God and love one another. That we'd need strength. So I want you to remember that Jesus has prayed for you and still does.
The seventh Sunday of Easter: it's a time where maybe that poignancy of feeling... As our prayer says today, it says, "God do not leave us comfortless." That poignancy of feeling like, where is my comfort? And I don't know about you, but for me, I often live in this like, what's the word, just like disconnect in the 50 days of Easter, where I know this is a time of celebration, but it doesn't always feel like there's something for me to celebrate. Does that make sense? And so that poignancy of kind of being in between.
On Thursday was the feast of the Ascension, when the disciples saw Jesus, the Risen Christ being lifted out of the world. And he had promised them before that, that he would send them the Holy Spirit, but that's next week [the church celebrates Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit, on June 5, 2022]. Do you see the space, the in between? I wonder if the disciples said, "Has he left us comfortless?" Did they know that he'd been lifted up so that he could fill all things? Did they feel that he was filling all things or were they like us: not so sure, some of the time? And that same reality is the reality that honestly we spend our whole lives in, because Jesus came incarnate as one of us 2000 years ago. And as [our reading today from the book of] Revelation says, "He will come again." And all creation says, "Amen, come Lord Jesus," because we need Jesus. But we live in that space where faith tells us that God fills all things and that Jesus was lifted up so that he might be “all in all,”—but it doesn't always feel like that.
And so we need strength and we need that Holy Spirit. And if you feel in between, today is a great day to feel in between! We’re in between the first and the second coming. But any day you feel that, that's the world we live in. And so we say, "Come Lord Jesus." And I want you to remember, if nothing else can comfort you, just imagine that Jesus at that table was praying for you, that you might have the strength and the faith to continue and to continue to seek love and to know what to do and how to respond and how to care for one another and to care for this country. Jesus prayed that we would all be one. And let us pray and work that would be so. Amen.