John 17 (Selected Verses)
When you pray, how do you pray? What do you pray for? Why do you pray the way that you do?
These are the questions that are coming up in our small groups that are meeting during Lent. And I’m so glad these are the conversations we’re having as a church, because these are really good questions. And they’re good questions...because they’re COMPLICATED questions, they’re the type of questions that when we ask them tend to give us MORE questions instead of a lot of easy answers.
During this Lenten Season, we’re exploring the Prayers that Jesus Prayed, and what it means to model our own prayer life after these prayers. And if we're going to do that, then I think we really have to be willing to interrogate our own prayer life, to look at how we were taught to pray and the way that we pray in whatever our current life stage is. What are familiar things we lean on and give us comfort? OR what places of prayer make us kind of uncomfortable and unsure?
I have some extended family members who say a certain scripted prayer before meal time and I'll tell you one of the most awkward moments of my life was when those family members were visiting a couple of years ago. And these are 2
not people that we see very often or who know us well. And as we sat down to dinner, this one member of my family asked if we wanted to say the prayer, if maybe the children would lead us in the prayer. Because we ALL know the prayer, right?
I just want you to imagine ME, the pastor in the family, having to look this relative straight in the face as I told her that, no, actually, my children did not know it.
I'm sure that you have your own stories of the role that prayer has played in your faith journey. The high points, the awkward moments, the very mysterious ways that prayer shapes us and our world.
Today, we’re looking at what prayer was for Jesus. As we were talking about this in our planning process, we made the observation that in a lot of ways THIS could be considered the REAL Lord’s Prayer. Because while Jesus teaches his disciples “how” to pray in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, what’s happening HERE isn’t just something Jesus taught, but it’s what he actually did. It’s the longest documented prayer we have of Jesus. And it IS long...John gives this a whole chapter! And I just want to say, for all of my friends and associates who say that sometimes my prayers become sermons...well...I’m just being like Christ. 3
I kid, I kid. Sort of. But there's a reason John gives this SO much space...because this prayer is sort of the pinnacle of what John wants people to know about Jesus. This prayer happens right before Jesus is formally betrayed by Judas and handed over to be put on trial and eventually killed. This is a moment on the edge of crisis for Jesus...and it’s also a moment of deep connection to God and an amazing demonstration of who Jesus is.
So as we look at this prayer, there are three main themes that we’re going to unpack together today. Over the course of John 17, we see that Jesus prays for: (SLIDE)
Glory
Protection
Unity
And has he prays for the first thing, glory, I want you to notice this right away—Jesus, as he prays for this, is praying for himself. And he prays for himself in this really unapologetic and bold way. This first part of his prayer is all about what Jesus hopes God will do through him and for him.
And I’m curious how many of you sometimes feel uncomfortable praying for yourselves like this? Maybe it feels selfish or like there are enough problems in the world that praying for what’s going on in your life, outside of a 4
crisis moment, doesn’t seem like it would even be on God’s radar. Maybe someone told you that you SHOULDN’T pray for your own needs and you’ve been carrying that around with you for a long time.
If that’s true for you, could I invite you to look at it another way? Because I actually think that praying for ourselves, bringing our needs and our desires before God...it’s essential to how we relate to God but also to how we are able to show up as healthy people in this world. It’s a big thing to trust God with these parts of ourselves. It’s a vulnerable thing. It’s us saying that we can’t do it all on our own and we need God’s care and guidance and maybe, even though this might make us a little uncomfortable or unsure, we might even ask for God’s intervention.
And so what Jesus prays for himself here is he prays that God would glorify him and that God would make him this living reflection of who God is during the remainder of his time on earth.
Now, glory is kind of a strange concept and we might initially not know exactly what Jesus is getting at here as he prays for this. When we think about what glory means, it usually equates to someone with a lot of fame and power and those seem like kind of strange things for someone like Jesus to be praying for. But God’s glory isn’t quite like that. 5
Theologians have actually been trying to put this concept into words for a long time: what IS God’s glory and how IS it different from human glory? Karl Barth said that glory essentially reveals the truest nature of God’s self.
And Adesola Akala, whose work is focused on the idea of the Glory of God as found in the Gospel of John! Says that glory is the visible manifestation of basically everything that makes God God. It (SLIDE) shows us God’s goodness, beauty, power, justice, mercy.
So when Jesus prays to be glorified and to experience God’s glory, this is what he’s getting at. He is praying that because of the way he lives his life...because of the things he does...because of the ways that he is in relationship with people...that those things would make it possible for people to TRULY know who God is.
Because it’s easy to see a lot of other stuff in our world. We have so many examples of things that are the OPPOSITE of God’s glory, the opposite of God’s true self.
But sometimes we get a glimpse. And when those glimpses come through people...it can be the most life changing thing.
I have a cookbook called “Soup Club” and it’s, as you might guess, a bunch of soup recipes. There’s also bread and 6
cookies, so you get all your food groups. What makes this cookbook unique isn’t really the recipes in it, but it’s the origin behind the whole project. The author, Caroline Wright, was diagnosed with a brain tumor and told she had a year to live. Her whole life felt like she was in a daze, and she started chronicling her journey on a blog so she could stay grounded and maybe look back on this time, just in case the prognosis was incorrect.
One day, she noted that it was hard to cook, she was too drained and overwhelmed, and what she really wanted was some homemade soup. And it was an ask and you shall receive situation. First, one friend dropped off a delivery...and then word started to spread. This is what she said about these months of feeling deeply loved through soup: (SLIDE)
Soup began to...connect me to my community and conveyed their flow of support and sorrow and hope in a digestible way. Friends and strangers brought me soup, placed in a cooler by our front door. Soup became a kind of currency of support transmitted through this magician’s box; into it went soup, from it came hope. Eventually this soup...filled in the broken parts of my exhausted, worried being. Just like that I was full. And restored, ready to cook. Caroline Wright: Soup Club 7
Sometimes we show God’s glory just by showing up. Because at the very CORE of this glory, the very truest reflection of who God is...is a deep and generous and present love. Jesus embodies this in every way. And you and I, we can embody it too. We have the chance to help people see and know God, just by how we show up in the world.
The second thing that Jesus prays for in John 17 shifts from himself to his disciples, and he prays for protection over them. Now, if you know much about where this story goes and what happens after Jesus’ death and resurrection as it relates to the disciples and the early church...you might think Jesus missed the mark with this one.
Because life isn’t easy for the disciples after Jesus departs from them. As they work to create this new community of Jesus-followers called The Church, they face incredible persecution. They become victims of violence. Many of them are martyred for their faith and the work that they’re doing.
And to get exactly what Jesus is praying for here, we have to adjust our understanding of that word “protection”. And that’s hard to do, because we are pretty consumed with bodily protection. I mean, think about all the things you do on a daily basis, probably without even realizing it, to protect your body in some way. I use a shampoo that protects from breakage...and then a hairspray that protects from humidity. 8
I won’t buy a toothpaste unless it has cavity protection. I put on makeup that has SPF to protect my skin. I buckle my seatbelt to protect my body in my car.
These are all really important things! Even the humidity protectant, because this can be a situation on my head.
But what’s challenging about this prayer...is that Jesus is saying that while physical protection IS important...it’s still not the MOST important thing.
In this chapter that’s about to begin in his disciple’s lives, he’s much more concerned with the protection of their spirits over their bodies. He’s much more concerned about the protection of their truest selves. That they would remain IN Jesus and close to God, even when things get really, really challenging. Even when things are incredibly scary. Even when they don’t know what to do or how to keep moving forward or what’s going to happen next. Jesus prays that when they find themselves in those kinds of situations that they would be protected from setting it all down and walking away. That they would remember who they are and what they’re called to do.
Our Director of Outreach and Justice, Shelly Classen, told me a story about her friends who were church planters in Pakistan. This was a very dangerous place to practice the Christian faith and to create a church. And what Shelly 9
thought was so interesting is that every day they would lead a group of people in prayer, and they would pray for a lot of different things. They prayed for things like courage, strength, and faith...but they never really prayed for protection. Even though they probably could have used it, staying physically safe wasn’t their highest priority. Staying spiritually connected to God was.
I wonder what this kind of prayer can mean for us? What it could look like to experience God’s protection of spirit as we live out God’s call on our lives. (SLIDE) How could this embolden us to do the hard and scary and right things? How would the way that we engage with our world change if our greatest focus was on being aligned with who God is and the things God cares about? What if we let ourselves believe that THAT is the safest place we can find ourselves?
The final thing Jesus prays for, and he continues to widen the circle here, now praying for ALL of us, is unity. And this might just be the most challenging thing he prays for here. Because unity is a concept that feels a bit fraught in our world today. Sometimes I fear that we reduce unity to mean “sameness” or “in agreement with.” And then we get in real trouble because...what is the “same” point of reference that we’re all orbiting around? What pieces of ourselves are we required to lose in order to experience unity? 10
Like the other two aspects of this prayer, unity is probably something that deserves a little reshaping for us. Because Jesus doesn’t want monochromatic drones. I’m not even convinced that Jesus wants everyone who follows him to be in perfect agreement on every single thing. But I DO believe that Jesus wants us to experience a deeper unity; a connectedness with each other and with God that really reflects God’s kingdom here on earth. A unity that actually ushers in the first thing that Jesus prays about here, God’s glory, as it helps us acknowledge the ways that we are connected to God and connected to each other. That even if my life looks SO different than yours, even if I never walk even an inch in your shoes, this kind of unity acknowledges that your well-being and my well-being...they’re connected. And maybe even deeper than connected, they depend on each other.
Maybe a good illustration of what this kind of unity looks like can be found in an orchestra. Where every instrument is exactly what it is...a violin is a violin, a horn is a horn, percussion is percussion...and they can’t be anything but exactly what they are! AND, as they exist exactly as they are, they create something beautiful.
And beyond just making beautiful music, there’s an element of care for the other musicians who make up the orchestra. I 11
saw a reel the other day where a violinist was performing a solo and one of her strings slipped. You could hear, immediately, that something was not right. And the other musicians stepped in automatically. The first chair violinist traded instruments with the soloist. One of the horns started playing the violin’s part so that she could hear it easily and pick back up where she left off. And because they were paying attention to what someone else was going through and were willing to take care of each other, because they had this sense of mutual well-being...it a nearly seamless recovery.
In a world that is so, SO divided...where everything seems very much relegated to one extreme or the other...I know that unity can feel almost impossible to attain. Maybe, if we’re just so honest, we don’t even WANT it because of how it’s been presented. I don’t know that I have an easy answer to that one. But I do believe that (SLIDE) the unity Jesus talks about here, draws us back to the things that make up God’s glory. It draws us back to love. It draws us back to goodness. It draws us back to selflessness.
It reminds us that God’s kingdom is an incredibly diverse and beautiful place and that it is possible, if we live into these things that Jesus prays, if we make these things part of OUR prayers...it means that we will see glimpses of that 12
goodness in this life. We will see God’s work done on this earth.
Jesus prays that this would be true. He prays it for us. And so as we close today, I wonder if we might take a moment to pray together, using this prayer that Jesus prayed as a roadmap for our own prayers. I’ll pray out loud and there will be moments of silence where you can lift up your own prayers in the space we create.
Let’s pray together:
God, we have many things we could ask of you. We are dreaming dreams that we want to see fulfilled. We are navigating challenges we’re not sure how to overcome. We want to be people who, as we live our lives, communicate the truth of your love and kindness. Jesus...you know what we need. You know what we hope for. We offer these things to you now...
And Lord, we know as we move about this world, there is so much to be afraid of. There are so many things that keep us up at night or fill us with dread. We pray protection over those who are working to create your beloved kingdom here on earth. We pray for those creating safe spaces and pushing back against injustice. Encourage them. Anchor them to you. Remind them of who they are and whose they are and keep them steady in spirit. Hear us as we lift these people up to you... 13
And finally, Lord, we pray for unity. A unity that is rich and real and reflects who you are. A unity that makes space for people and their unique stories and differences. A unity that leads us to compassion and care and that gives us a glimpse of heaven in this very world we inhabit. God hear our prayers for this kind of unity now...