Acts 1:15–17, 21–26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9–13
John 17:6–19
Year B
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus prays for his followers, right in front of them. This Jesus, depicted in the Gospel of John, is nearing the cross, ready to die for the sake of a fallen world. As he is lifted up on the tree he brings together the old with the new, rolling into one universe the past, present, and future.
John can be a hard gospel to hear, particularly when Jesus speaks for chapters in a monologue, sometimes coming across like a voice coming out of a fog, or a droning speech by a brilliant mind that goes way over your head, or like the animated Peanuts specials where the adults do not use words but we only hear sounds (“WAH WAH WAH WAH”).
While the story of Jesus’ life comes to its zenith, in John Jesus is very deliberate in preparing his disciples for what is to come. Once on the cross it seems like there is a spotlight illuminating a great accomplishment, a culmination of the divine entering human history in the person Jesus of Nazareth. On the cross, Jesus joins his mother to the beloved disciple, and in dying gives out his Spirit. After his resurrection, Jesus breathes new life as he shares the Spirit with disciples. We have been hearing these stories through Eastertide.
But already in John Jesus coaches his team for what happens when his own way of relating to what he calls the world changes, and he does this in his prayer that everyone overhears.
I’m thinking of the 1980’s commercial for the long-gone brokerage firm E.F. Hutton. In these memorable ads, two people would be having a conversation about their investments. Then one, the young successful one, would say, “well, my broker is E.F. Hutton, and E. F. Hutton says….” And as soon as he mentioned E.F. Hutton, everyone in the scene, in the plane, in the restaurant, or wherever, would lean in and cup their hands to their ears eager to hear. And the tag line at the end was when E.F. Hutton talks, people listen. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PwP1EjaBik)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks. Jesus prays for us, and we are leaning in and cupping our hands to listen. In his words, we discover this enveloping circle around us, keeping us safe, bringing us close to God. As we lean in, we understand that our role in this world mediates holiness, breathes the same Spirit that Jesus poured out, and acts in many ways counter to the prevailing sentiments and values that are readily available on the mouths of our world.
Whether the world does or not, we like Jesus seek God’s will for our lives.
Whether the world does or not, we like Jesus value our relationship with God over everything else.
Whether the world does or not, we like Jesus seek out the lost and the forgotten.
Whether the world does or not, we like Jesus widen the circle of welcome while rejecting hatred and violence.
I was a younger pastor still feeling my way in the semi-rural village of Rutland, Vermont. I had been warned not to say anything bad about anyone in the neighboring Lutheran church, because they might be related to someone in my church. I was discovering that the generations of those who called my congregation “their church” may not have stepped foot in the building for many years, so that their memories were of pastors long gone, and the emotional and spiritual baggage which they were carrying could sometimes be dumped on me, unawares.
I was summoned to the bed of Ned Johnson in the hospital. Johnsons I knew. There was Elsie, Esther, Pauline (who actually married an Olson but who used to be a Johnson), and Elin (who was actually a Ravenna but who used to be a Johnson), and their children and grandchildren. But I had never heard of Ned or his wife Betty, or their three sons.
They called for the pastor from their congregation, though they had long stopped worshipping or participating, and I showed up. Ned was dying of cancer. His breathing was labored, and his pallor was ashen. He had a rugged handsome face that spoke of a hardscrabble life on the farm and as I was to learn, a printer. His wife Betty was bereft, and the sons exhibited a quiet but heavy sadness, heads bowed to the floor.
I learned that the long-standing grief with the church had to do with a rift in using or not using the Johnsons’ printing services. Like many who bear scars of rejection or miscommunication in the community, this family had simply removed themselves and as we say, fallen away.
I could have been any pastor. In this moment, I was their pastor. I summoned the resources of God’s Word and read from the Scriptures for consolation and the hope of eternal life. And I opened up my communion kit and prepared to unite this wayward family into Christ’s divine purposes for those who have been claimed by him. They ate and drank like sojourners parched for an oasis in the desert. Tears were flowing. God was clearly in the room. We all joined hands for a final prayer, and while I was preparing to speak, the man closest to death, wizened old Ned blurt out “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name….” We all leaned in to listen, and with him finished the prayer, and then in that circle we were all enveloped in Christ’s widening embrace.
I was floored by this long-lost family’s re-entry into the stream of the divine life. It was a combination of many things. Ned and his family were in great need. I presented myself to them as a mediator of God’s grace and love. God’s Word and the Meal of Grace were offered. And Jesus showed up. He brought holiness into this utterly devastated circumstance. We were all sanctified and consecrated, Ned and Betty, the three sons, and me the pastor called to the bedside.
There is great power in being united in prayer. My story has a heightened element of desperation, to be sure, but I bet that you have known your share of lost souls, and I suspect that you have your own stories of being lost, fallen away, in desperation, and rejected yourselves.
Today we are gathered up by the great intercessor who restores us in joy. We may wonder how to regroup ourselves after a setback in work, a rift in the family, or a grief in this community. And then we lean into the gift of forgiveness that says start afresh. We feel the love that says we are stronger when we are here together. And we are floored by being a praying church, which listens for Christ in the Word, which receives Christ in bread and wine, and lives in Christ in the world.
Today we offer letters for just foreign aid, remember fallen soldiers, honor graduates, remember the poor and the sick, and count ourselves as among the sanctified, made holy in this community and our connection through the Spirit to all those who lean into Christ, who says “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
Come, Holy Spirit.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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