6<\/sup> [Jesus prayed:] „I 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.<\/p>\n 7<\/sup> Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;<\/p>\n 8<\/sup> for 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.<\/p>\n 9<\/sup> I 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.<\/p>\n 10<\/sup> All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.<\/p>\n 11<\/sup> And 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.<\/p>\n 12<\/sup> While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.<\/p>\n 13<\/sup> But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.<\/p>\n 14<\/sup> I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.<\/p>\n 15<\/sup> I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.<\/p>\n 16<\/sup> They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.<\/p>\n 17<\/sup> Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.<\/p>\n 18<\/sup> As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.<\/p>\n 19<\/sup> And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.<\/p>\n (Joh 17:6-19 NRS)<\/p>\n Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n What is your prayer life like?\u00a0 Does it consist of a prayer in the morning when you get up? Or one at night before you go to bed?\u00a0 Do you pray before meals?\u00a0 Are those the only times you pray?\u00a0 What do you do when you pray?\u00a0 Do you bow your head, hold hands, close your eyes, kneel, sit down, or stand up?\u00a0 Perhaps you say the prayer that we all say together each week, commonly called the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u00a0 The Lord\u2019s Prayer is one that we all know by heart.\u00a0 We pray it because it is the example that Jesus gave to his disciples when asked how to pray.\u00a0 But in John\u2019s Gospel, there is no version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u00a0 No one asked Jesus how to pray, and therefore Jesus does not give an answer.\u00a0 According to John\u2019s Gospel, prayer life is a little different.\u00a0 None of the disciples ask how to pray, and given the prayer that Jesus prays today, it seems that prayer life is pretty complex.\u00a0 Our Gospel today is part of what they call the High Priestly Prayer.\u00a0 It comes at the end of the Last Supper, after Jesus has washed the disciples feet, foretold Peter\u2019s denial and his betrayal by Judas, and promised the Holy Spirit would come.\u00a0 Jesus is preparing to offer himself as a sacrifice to the world and is interceding for his disciples in the same way the High Priest intercedes for the people of Israel.\u00a0 I have heard it said that this prayer is the Johannine version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u00a0 There are some similarities between the two, but this version is way more in depth than the prayer that we pray.\u00a0 While our lesson is not the entire High Priestly Prayer, it is the majority of it.\u00a0 This section that we have as our lesson today is focused on Jesus\u2019 prayer for his disciples.\u00a0 In this prayer he asks for protection and unity as they continue his ministry in a very hostile world.<\/p>\n Now it can be said that this prayer is specifically about those disciples that were with Jesus at the time he prayed this prayer.\u00a0 There was some civil unrest in the community, and Jesus was being blamed for it by the scribes and the elders.\u00a0 But we could also look at this prayer and say it is for us, as well as for every other Christian who has ever lived.\u00a0\u00a0 After all, there is not really ever a time, nor has there been, where there is not some kind of civil unrest.\u00a0 You just can\u2019t make all the people happy all the time.\u00a0 God has tried, by sending Jesus into the world.\u00a0 But even this prayer shows that someone was lost.\u00a0 Verse twelve in our Gospel is more than likely talking about Judas, and the scripture fulfillment that is mentioned is Psalm 41:9, where it is written \u201cEven my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me.\u201d\u00a0 So despite coming into the world to save the world, not all is right and happy.\u00a0 And so even though Jesus\u2019 prayer seems to have a very positive tone to it, we hear the underlying concern in his voice.\u00a0 In this prayer, Jesus is not praying for the world, but instead is praying for his disciples and those that listen to him.\u00a0 This is done with 3 petitions:<\/p>\n In the first petition, he prays, „Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one“ (v. 11).\u00a0 Every time I read this petition it seems to hit a little too close to home.\u00a0 We live in a world that is constantly divided.\u00a0 We worship in a church that is divided, and even here in our congregation there are things that divided us.\u00a0 The disciples were not always a group that agreed on everything either.\u00a0 And yet Jesus\u2019 opening prayer petition is a call for unity.\u00a0 Unity is what helps us go forward.\u00a0 Unity is what helps us thrive as a congregation.\u00a0 Unity is what keeps us focused on ministry.\u00a0 But as sinners, there are times we reject unity and place personal interests at the forefront.\u00a0 The only way we can return to unity is the body as a whole speaking to those who reject unity.\u00a0 Jesus is praying for that unity, the very unity that was challenged by Thomas who did not believe Jesus had risen.In the second petition, Jesus prays, „I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one“ (v. 15).\u00a0 It is no secret the world is an evil place.\u00a0 Just turn on the nightly news.\u00a0 I promise you will about more evil than good news.\u00a0 The mission of the disciples, and now the mission of the church, is to carry on the work of Christ in the world, in the face and midst of evil.\u00a0 That is not a task that unites, but a task that divides, because it is scary.\u00a0 Even in this past year the church has become the \u201cunsafe place\u201d, turning the faithful into the fearsome.\u00a0 But being here every week, shows us the Spirit is still at work.\u00a0 Jesus promised the Spirit would be with the disciples, and the Spirit remains with us today.\u00a0 Faith in the Spirit above fear, paranoia, and obsession has allowed the church to continue.<\/p>\n In the third petition Jesus prays, „Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth“ (v. 17).\u201d\u00a0 To be sanctified is to be made holy.\u00a0 Jesus has already said that the disciples do not belong to the world back in verse 14.\u00a0 That is because they have been made holy.\u00a0 They have been sanctified, set apart for an extraordinary task of continuing Jesus\u2019 ministry.\u00a0 In our baptisms we too have been made holy, set apart for the work of the Spirit in our lives, called and claimed as God\u2019s children, and equipped with the gifts of ministry.<\/p>\n These three petitions show us the truthfulness of the Word of God.\u00a0 We know that God is still at work in this world, that the Spirit is alive and well protecting us from the evil one so that we can bear witness to the truth.\u00a0 We know this because the church still exists.\u00a0 Despite wars, famine, cruelty and all evil in the world, the church still exists.\u00a0 Despite fear, paranoia, and obsession, the church still exists.\u00a0 Despite unrest, disunity, and even fights in and among congregations, the church still exists.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because God is still present.\u00a0 The faithful continue to bear witness to the church\u2026and one of the ways they do that is through prayer.\u00a0 The faithful still pray, just as they have for thousands of years.\u00a0 So I ask you again, what is your prayer life like?\u00a0 Are there things in your life that need to be added to your prayers?\u00a0 There is not a bad prayer, you all know that.\u00a0 But I challenge you to take a moment next time you pray, perhaps even in silence, and pray for something different.\u00a0 Pray in a way that you are not used to, and that includes petitions for things that you don\u2019t normally think about.\u00a0 Pray for peace, for strength, for unity.\u00a0 And pray that God will continue to be at work in your life, in the church, and in the world, now and forever.\u00a0 In the name of the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A sermon on John 17:6-19 | by the Judson F. Merrell, STS | 6 [Jesus prayed:] „I 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. 7 Now they know that everything you have given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,157,108,110,235,366,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-5101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-judson-f-merrell","category-kapitel-17-chapter-17","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5103,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101\/revisions\/5103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=5101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}