June 1, 2025 Seventh Sunday of Easter The text is John 17:20-26.

 -o0o-

[Jesus prayed:] ²⁰ “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
  ²⁵ “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

-o0o-

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, El Adonai, my rock and my Redeemer.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

This morning, we continue with Jesus as he observes the Passover with his disciples at the Last Supper.  Over the course of the last several weeks we have heard Jesus shock his disciples with the news that he would soon depart from them.  He has washed their feet and given them the new commandment to love one another.  And just last week, he has answered their many questions about his departure from them, that he was returning to be with God the Father, and that he would ask God to send the Holy Spirit to guide and comfort them.  So, thus far in John’s gospel Jesus has made predictions, given the disciples instruction, and reassured them that they would not be left alone when he is no longer with them. 

And the very last thing he does before he is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane?  He prays!  No more teaching, no additional consoling, no more answering of questions…Jesus prays! 

We join Jesus as he is praying this morning at verse 20, but in fact the entirety of the 17^th chapter of John’s gospel is devoted to Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer”, all 26 verses of it.  This is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in all of the gospels.  He first looks toward heaven and prays the following; “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.  For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.  Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”  And after this prologue, the rest of his prayer is not for himself, but on behalf of the disciples.  And he extends his prayer far beyond the confines of the room in which they were gathered, to include all who would come to profess Christ as Savior.  Jesus’ prayer is not limited by geography, nor most especially, it is not constrained by time.  He is asking the Father to draw to himself and Jesus, everyone who will proclaim faith in him.  And in offering this prayer Jesus is speaking directly to God on our behalf; 2,000 years later.  There in the upper room at the Last Supper, Jesus prayed for each and every one of us!

The NRSV version of Scripture that we Lutherans use tends to be a bit, let’s call it, “wordy”.  There is a great deal of “I am in you, and you are in me” language in this translation of our reading this morning.  Let’s listen to the way today’s verses have been translated into a different bible version, The Message”; I’m praying not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me, because of them and their witness about me.  The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us.  Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as we are—I in them and you in me.  Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent me and loved them in the same way you’ve loved me.

Father, I want those you gave me, to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, having loved me long before there ever was a world.  Righteous Father, the world has never known you,
but I have known you, and these disciples know that you sent me on this mission.
I have made your very being known to them—who you are and what you do—
and continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them.

I’m especially pleased with “The Message’s” use of “one heart and one mind” to express the oneness that Jesus prays that all believers will share with himself, God, and one another.  And this concept of future connections relates directly to the very first words in John’s gospel.  Jesus is described as the “Word” that was with God, and was God.  The Greek for Word is “logos” and this term may be translated as the ‘mind’ of God.  Thus, Jesus is praying that all who confess faith in him are interconnected in the present and into the future, in the way he and the Father were one before the world was brought into being.  This is something much deeper than just unity of purpose, of the establishment of spiritual community. Jesus is praying for a connecting of the very intent of God; with himself and with those whom he calls to himself.  It is Jesus’ prayer that all Christians share the same type of relationship that he has with the Father; an inseparable “oneness” that is not bound by space or time.

And while this prayer for oneness, for unity seems like the best thing ever to happen to the world, there remains one pesky little problem; unlike God and Jesus, we are human.  Jesus prays that we might share unity with himself and God, but the fact remains that our hearts and minds are not like those of the Father and the Son.  Our desire for unity of purpose and “oneness” with others is often obstructed by our need to express our individuality.  And often we find that our need to be “right” overwhelms our desire for unity.  Does Jesus’ prayer for us to be of one heart and one mind mean we all have to get along with everyone all the time? Does it mean we all have to agree on everything all the time? On the surface it seems that Jesus’ prayer for all the world to be united on all matters calls for all of us to be in constant agreement and accord. But Jesus knows that we are just not capable of this.  Our humanity tends to get in the way from time to time.

But this doesn’t change the fact that we are one in Christ whether we agree with each other all the time or not. We are one in Jesus whether we get along with one another all the time or not. We are one in God whether we share the same goals and purpose all the time or not.  Being part of Christ makes us part of God’s family; part of Jesus’ community; a part of the larger one.  Our human frailty may cause us to resist complete unity with one another, but our faith in Christ ensures that we will never stray too far from our place in the family of God.

Jesus’ prayer reminds us that our unity, our “oneness” is meant to show the world that God’s love for us in manifested in Jesus.  And we all know that within the love expressed in families, communities, and even churches, there can be division and disagreement.  And again, this happens simply because we are dealing with the fact that we are human. But the mystery of Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection prove that God desires unity with us so much that God in Christ became one of us. And with Jesus’ coming to walk among us we were then connected with the oneness of God; the Creator, the Son, and the Spirit.  And it should be our desire and our intention to strive to live into that oneness that Jesus prayed for, that God wishes for, and that the Holy Spirit helps us to achieve.  We might not always live in unity with the world, but we can always show the world that we are one in Christ’s love for the world.     

Will you pray with me?  Good, and gracious, and holy God, Jesus prayed to you, asking for unity with all your children.  We ask that you would grant this “oneness” to all who seek a righteous relationship with you and with your Son.  And we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the One who desires that all the world might be of one heart and one mind.  Amen.

God is Good, all the time.  All the time, God is Good.  Amen.