7 Easter 2009
John 17: 6-19
“What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets”
Pastor Chris Enstad
Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
I want to beg your pardon to try something with you this morning… a little experiment in interactive church. The early church didn’t have things like pulpits and set apart preachers but were places for mutual edification, people offering their different facets of faith and life to one another and in that way sharing in the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of God’s family that was given to them in baptism. So, that being said, I want you to turn to a neighbor and think about the last time either someone told you, “I’ll be praying for you” or you said that to someone else. What thoughts went through your mind when you heard those words being said to you or if you said them to someone else did you actually pray for that person and do you believe that God answered that prayer? Take a few moments to share with a neighbor.
Here’s another question, “Raise your hand if you have ever added yourself or someone you knew to a prayer chain here or somewhere else?” Keep your hands up how many others could or should have added himself or herself or someone they know to a prayer chain here or somewhere else?
Thank you.
I tried that first question out on a friend of mine. I asked him, “What do you think when someone tells you they will pray for you?” He answered me, “Yeah right”. There are several ways we respond when someone tells us they will be praying for us, sometimes we are thankful because we know we need those prayers and we are in a relationship with that person that means that we know that they mean what they say. But other times I will pray for you can sound like a safe way to close an uncomfortable conversation or to confront a reality that we don’t have any other words for. When someone says to us, “I will be praying for you” it usually will get some kind of a reaction out of us. Thankfulness, disbelief, uneasiness, gratitude, peace… knowing we are the subjects of prayer causes an emotional response.
Today we get to sit in on someone else praying and that someone is Jesus. And the amazing thing about this prayer is that he is praying it for you and for me, Jesus is praying for us. What does it mean for us to be a community for which Jesus is praying? What does it mean for us that we have landed on Jesus’ prayer chain? I think the implications for how we live our life together and in the world are huge. I mean here is God’s only begotten Son praying to his Father for us… do you think God would ignore that prayer? I titled my sermon today, “What Jesus Prays For, Jesus Gets” but I could have added two more words to that title, “oh-oh”. This morning I want to stop for a moment and examine just what it is that Jesus is asking God for on our behalf and then, yes, stop and think about what it means for our lives together and in the world.
The first prayer request is that God might keep us in his name, the name he gave to Jesus Christ and that Christ then gave to us in our baptism. So that we might be one, as Jesus and God are one.
Wow wow wow. Protect them in your name. How can we even pretend to go back to the way things used to be in our lives today, brothers and sisters, knowing that we are protected in the name of God? I get blown away and then I get sad and then I get blown away again when I realize just what this implies… that I have full right to go about my life on this earth under the protection of God’s name and not just a God or one of many God but God, the God who created heaven and earth. If God kept that prayer and our faith tells us that he has, then that family that asked you to help them a few weeks ago, they get your help, that sticky conversation with your brother or sister that you have been avoiding for lack of confidence or courage, you’re going to have it, that idea of I’m going to church has to go out the window because guess what, you are the church.
And Jesus’ prayer implies that we are doing all of this in unity. “So that they may be one, as we are one”. There is no solo actor here, no little group of individuals each of us doing what we think is right, there is a unity to the body of Christ and that unity is granted to us by God under his name. We don’t get to decide who is in and who is out and just like your regular families you might be surprised or even disturbed to find out who else shares your name and who just might be showing up at the family reunion but nevertheless, the opportunity to hear this prayer is also an opportunity for us to realize that we cannot waste time trying to be gatekeepers for God’s family or trying to protect God’s name from the people on whom it might land… Jesus has bigger plans for us then squabbles over who belongs and who doesn’t… Jesus’ body wasn’t broken and his blood was not shed for us to keep on giving ourselves over to the endless and demeaning debates on what it means to be a Christian because guess what, the job isn’t ours anyway. God protect them in your name and make them one, as we are one.
The other request that is so amazing to me is Jesus’ request for God to “Sanctify us in the truth.” And what is the truth? God’s word is the truth. That short little prayer request, that God might sanctify us in the truth and that God’s word is truth is so big and so bold and so full of grace and mercy that it makes me wonder why this prayer didn’t become the true Lord’s Prayer?
To be sanctified means to be made holy. So Jesus is asking that we might be made holy. The part that we often mess up is that we start thinking that the job of becoming holy is our job. So we set up all of these endless schemes and projects and systems of accountability to hold each other to principles that we have deemed to be holy and then we keep score don’t we? Who is the better Christian and who is not? The conversations that I have had with Christian leaders who are neck deep in systems like these really creep me out because they neglect the Word that is the truth and that Word is the Gospel and the Gospel is this, that while we were still dead in sin Jesus Christ died for us. The Gospel is that good news that God knows that we are sinners and there is no good reason for us to pretend otherwise. When we have confession and absolution at the beginning of our worship services we are merely saying aloud what God already knows. Whenever we even try we are more than likely to fail… if we try at all… and don’t even get us started on the things we should have done and don’t even know we should have done.
It is into this reality that Jesus was sent to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. We are forgiven sinners. There is no need for us to walk around moping or boasting that life is either too hard by God’s rules or that we have the whole life thing figured out and if we you only did what I do you would find yourself a happier, more prosperous, a more better you. No, the better us is the one who walks freely into the world not surprised that sin exists but equipped and protected by the word that God already knows all of that and despite the power of sin and death saved you and saved me. We are forgiven sinners.
And that isn’t even the main point of that amazing sentence. The power of sanctification is not to be overlooked but it is whenever I get mixed up in the idea that I am somehow responsible for figuring out what it means to be a Christian or get down on myself for not living as holy a life as some other guy out there Jesus prayer comes back into my head and I remember one thing. Jesus does not pray for us to sanctify ourselves in some kind of passive aggressive prayer that he knows we are overhearing, “God I pray that those wild kids might learn to follow your commandments.” No, the amazing thing about this prayer is that it reminds us that it is God who does the sanctifying. God, sanctify them in the truth, your word is the truth. Our job is to get ourselves to wherever this word is and then let God take over… this word of God is truly a living thing it is a powerful thing and it is a word that can bear little control from us.
And towards the end of those verses we heard read this morning we find that word “send” again don’t we. No matter how many ways we look at it Jesus refuses to allow us to think about our lives as Christians fulfilled by getting ourselves into this building once and awhile but reminds God and us that we are being sent into the world, just as Jesus Christ was sent into the world a world that knew him not and a world that will hate us. Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to live a life knowing that we are all screw-up and despite that God has done an amazing and beautiful and phenomenal thing for you and in that thing comes God’s eternal protection and the signature on that policy belongs to God? There is just absolutely no way around it, our lives as God’s children are out there in the world and to get that world to hate us. How dare we treat everyone as our equal, unified in the name of the Lord? How dare we hang out with the least the lost and the lowly with no question as to how they got there but sharing the love of God in word and deed with no concern for our own reputation or status? Who do we think we are, God’s called and sent people?
Brothers and sisters what Jesus prays for Jesus gets. I believe that the answer to Jesus’ prayer is you.
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