At one point my profile picture for Facebook was a street sign showing the intersection of Church and State Streets. I though this was appropriate because in a lot of ways I feel as if that is the intersection where I live. Christ had a dual nature. He was God and He was man. We also have earthly concerns and heavenly concerns. I like to describe it as two sides of the same coin. I though about all this in terms of our Gospel a lot this week.
I now have an odd question for you that may not seem very related. If you knew that you were about to die, how would you pray?
- Would you pray for mercy––that God would admit you to heaven?
- Would you pray for courage to face death bravely?
- Would you pray not to be in pain or distress?
- Would you pray that your family would be all right?
In John 17, Jesus is just about to be betrayed and arrested. Our reading includes His prayer for the disciples. His prayer makes it clear that he knew that he didn’t have much time left.
Jesus knew that he was a dying man. The prayer of a dying person tells us a great deal about that person. It’s a window into the deepest corner of their heart. It reveals their deepest concerns. It reflects their deepest feelings. Jesus was a dying man. This prayer tells us what was on his heart.
In his last days, Jesus’ heart was focused on his disciples. He had called them, and they had come. He had taught them––and protected them––and shepherded them––and loved them. He had transformed them so that they no longer belonged to the world.
That word “world” is used over and over again in the Gospel of John. Jesus is often talking about the Kingdom of This World: the kingdom that is opposed to the Kingdom of God. In the Gospel of John, the world is opposed to God. The world John is talking about counts God as its enemy. This is the world that hates the light, because it prefers to work under the cloak of darkness.
You don’t have to read many newspapers or watch much television news to realize that we live in a world that John would recognize is opposed to God. I don’t want to push that too far, because there is also a great deal of the Kingdom of God in our world. We do need to recognize, however, that there are two great kingdoms vying for power in our world There is the worldly pursuit of evil, and there is the Kingdom of God.
As Christians, we often find ourselves straddling those two worlds and living at the intersection of Church and State. The Apostle Paul told of his personal struggle in that regard. He said:
“I do not understand my own actions.
For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).
Maybe Paul felt as if he was at the intersection of Good and Evil Streets.
As Jesus was preparing himself to die, he knew that he would be leaving this physical world to go back to the heavenly world from whence he had come. He knew that his disciples would someday join him in that heavenly world––but that wasn’t going to happen immediately. In the meantime, Jesus’ disciples would be here for a while yet. They would be planters of God’s seed in a world that works in opposition to our Lord. He knew they would face persecution at the hands of worldly powers.
And so Jesus prayed for his disciples. He prayed, “Holy Father, protect them” (v. 11). He prayed, “While I was with them, I protected them…. I guarded them” (v. 12). “But now I am coming to you” (v. 13).
It had to be hard for Jesus to leave his disciples. It would be like a father watching his son get on a plane to go to war and wondering if he would ever see his son again. It might be like a mother watching her daughter go off to college, hoping that she had learned enough to make some good choices.
In that same spirit Jesus, speaking of his disciples, prays, “Holy Father, protect them…. Protect them from the evil one…. Sanctify them.”
In this prayer, Jesus was praying not just for that little band of disciples, but for all the disciples who would follow. Jesus was praying for us. Jesus was praying that the Father would protect us. He was praying that the Father would protect us from the evil one. He was praying that the Father would sanctify us and make us holy.
We need that prayer. As Christians, we live in a world filled with the messages that are not very Godly:
- The world says, “Take care of Number One.”
- The world says, “You only go around once; grab all you can get.”
- The world says, “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
- The world says, “You owe it to yourself.”
But Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them…. Protect them from the evil one…. Sanctify them.”
I talked about sanctification last week, and I don’t want to repeat my material. Jesus wants us to be holy and set apart.
The answer to Jesus’ prayer was amazing. After Jesus’ resurrection, the motley little band of disciples began to preach and teach and change the world.
God did not always protect them from harm, but he did protect them from failure. Soon the Empire was rubble and the church was taking the Gospel to the farthest corners of the world.
We think of those days as over, but they are not. More Christians died at the hands of evil rulers in the twentieth century than in the first century. And Christians are still being imprisoned, persecuted and murdered for their faith.
In our country, the worldly powers are is less likely to kill Christians than to mock them or ignore them. The opposition is there just the same with a 21st century veneer of civility. We, who are not of the world, live in the world, bearing witness to the Christ who has saved us from worldliness.
Billy Graham said of the early Christians:
“The people who followed Christ were unique in their generation.
They turned the world upside down
because their hearts had been turned right side up.”
When I interviewed at Culver [Academies], Dr. McNeil asked me about professional goals. He asked me to explain why I was a teacher. I said that I wanted to cast a long shadow. I wanted to be someone who made a difference.
I think in many ways this is our call as Christians as well. This is my takeaway and my challenge to you.
How do we live in such a way that we have a positive impact on the lives of the next generation?
We do it by being sanctified. Though the grace of God, we are in the world and not of it.
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon preached by Fr. Tom at St. Thomas, Plymouth
May 17, 2015; Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19