Week of Easter 7, June 1st thoughts going in

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. ⁶I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I 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. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And 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.

            This coming Sunday is the 7th and final Sunday of Easter. Many churches also observe the day as "Ascension Sunday," taking note of the fact that the actual day of the Ascension occurred within the week itself.

            For us, we will stick with the designation of the "7th Sunday of Easter," but the themes are generally similar. In either case vs 11 of the reading from John looms large, as Jesus says: And now **I am no longer in the world...

            Scholars like to refer to this passage in general as Jesus' "High Priestly Prayer." In many ways, however, it could be referred to as the [real] Lord's Prayer. After all, what we call the Lord's Prayer is actually the prayer that Jesus gave his Disciples (us) to pray...whereas this prayer in John 17 is the prayer HE prayed.

            There are a lot of things going on in this prayer. One of those things is the "one-ness" that Jesus prays for at the end: Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  When concentrating on this part, it's usually at this point that pastors either decry the lack of oneness that exists within the church today and attempt to rekindle feelings of ecumenism--or, as may be the case among some highly sectarian groups, advocate that oneness will only be achieved when the whole world believes as they do.

            My own feelings about the oneness of which Christ prays is that two aspects of human sinfulness hinder it:  (a) Majoring in minors and (b) minoring in majors. Regarding the former, growing up in the church I've seen congregations split over the most miniscule things like the color of carpet used in the church sanctuary, or the type of wallpaper used on the nursery walls. Sadly, we live in a postmodern era that questions the existence of absolute truths--but this has had a blowback effect in some church bodies, as we see doctrinal walls being built higher and higher around matters of lesser significance. A wonderful **positive example of majoring only in the majors would be the ecumenical creeds of the Church, and even our own Augsburg Confession which states that "For the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments." What about Bishops? What about the service of women or children in the church? What about the form of worship? What about the shape or layout of the building? In comparison all of these things are 'minors,' and majoring in minors inhibits the unity that Christ prays for.

            The latter, however, is also true... minoring in majors is also destructive to unity. For some, this is more difficult to see. Many can see how building walls or fences is damaging to unity, but how can the opposite be true? Shouldn't we tear down EVERY wall? Doesn't Jesus pray for unity at ALL costs? Here it needs to be remembered that the sort of unity that Jesus prays for already has a template. He prays that they may be one, as we are one. There is a sameness of purpose, and will that exists between Jesus and the Father. There is a sameness of mission, work, and love that exists between Jesus and the Father. If, therefore, we would seek to achieve an entirely borderless unity among all religions, the end result would be to IGNORE the oneness that exists between the Father and the Son. The end result would be to have a unity among ourselves that no longer has anything to do with God and his mission in the world. This would be minoring in majors.

            In the end, it's a fine line to walk, yet we can take heart because we know that Jesus is remembering us IN HIS PRAYER. Given all that the Bible says about Christ's continued intercession on our behalf, I have always chosen to believe that this 'High Priestly Prayer' is not something that Jesus prayed only once many many years ago, but is rather a continuing prayer that our Lord and Savior prays for each and every generation of the church.

Cheers,

TM