John 17:20-26

The Seventh Sunday of Easter | 29 May 2022 | John 17:20-26 | Paul Bieber |

John 17:20-26 Revised Standard Version

Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said,  ²⁰ “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. ²² The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

also

Acts 16:16-34

Psalm 97

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Surely He Is Coming Soon

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

Last week we heard of the beginnings of the Church at Philippi, as Paul and his companions encountered Lydia and her companions at a place of prayer outside the city walls. The story continues today with a vignette that I’m sorry to say I can easily relate to. There’s a slave-girl who has “a spirit of divination.” So she’s a fortune-teller, and makes money for her owners with this gift. And apparently it’s a real gift, too, because for several days as Paul, Silas, Timothy, Luke, and whoever else was with them are going to the place of prayer, she follows them, identifying them with the Most High God. That’s something in that polytheistic society. And identifying their message as a way of salvation.

Here’s where we come to the regrettably so relatable part. Instead of accepting this free advertising for the good news he proclaims, Paul is very much annoyed. I get annoyed way too easily, so I pray to the Most High God, to take my tendency to annoyance away. Probably for the best, I do not have the ability to do as Paul did, turning on the poor girl and casting out the spirit that gave her the second sight which was so profitable to her owners. So, casting out that spirit is good news for the fortune-telling girl. It’s the sort of thing Jesus did, freeing her from her enslavement to this spirit and its dubious gift. But this poor girl was doubly enslaved. Being loosed from bondage to the spirit did not change the expectations of profit entertained by her human owners.

And so now the scene gets ugly. The angry owners drag Paul and Silas, the leaders of the Christian group, into the public square before the civil authorities. They accuse them of causing a disturbance and advocating customs unbecoming to Romans—like meeting at a place of prayer and freeing a girl from spiritual bondage, apparently. They stir up the crowd and the authorities. Attacked by the mob, ordered stripped and beaten by the authorities, Paul and Silas are thrown into the town jail, the innermost cell, and put into the stocks. They aren’t going anywhere.

But as we heard last Sunday, the Holy Spirit works in the interplay of the divine plan and human circumstances. At midnight, when the prisoners are praying and singing hymns, the foundations are shaken. The earthquake of the Spirit opens all the doors and looses all the chains. So, that earthquake is good news for the prisoners. The Lord sets the prisoners free, as we sing in Psalm 146; they can walk away into the night. But the fact that a divine earthquake set the prisoners free does not change the expectations of Roman law with respect to a jailer whose prisoners walk out free into the night. He decides that he will save the authorities the trouble of executing him.

Just then Paul shouts loudly to him, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The prisoners have not walked out into the night. The reprieved jailer calls for light, brings Paul and Silas out, and asks the question people have been asking throughout the Book of Acts since the first Christian Pentecost: “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer is the same: Believe in Jesus. They speak the word of the Lord to him and his household and, like Cornelius and his household, like Lydia and her household, all are baptized. They become members of the community of believers.

In the night in which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus gave a new commandment, that his followers love one another as he had loved them. He said that those who love him and keep his word will know the presence of the risen Jesus and the Father who sent him, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. In today’s Gospel, Jesus prays for those who will believe the word his followers will proclaim to them. Having consecrated himself for his self-offering on the cross, and prayed for his disciples, he prays for us: that we who hear and keep his word as we have heard it, who are loved by him to the end and love him in return—that we might not only know the presence of the risen Jesus and the Father who sent him, but that we might be one even as they are one.

So, being one with Jesus and his Father is good news. The unity of Christians, for which the Lord Jesus prayed, is a very good thing. But it is so hard to find. A Church free of division would be like me free of annoyance: it would require an act of God. Fortunately, such an act has been made available.

In Chapter 1 of the Book of Revelation and again in Chapter 21, The Lord God, the Almighty Father, called himself the Alpha and the Omega. In today’s reading, the crucified, risen, and glorified Jesus calls himself the Alpha and the Omega. The glory we see in the visions of Revelation is the glory the Father gave the Son in his love for him before the foundation of the world. When the Father sent the Son into the world that we might believe, he knew that the interplay of the divine plan and human circumstances would appear in the form of a cross. And that the vindication of the divine plan would take the form of an empty tomb and the risen Jesus who still bears his now-glorified wounds. We live in the interplay of a plan laid before the foundation of the world and our broken human circumstances.

In last week’s Gospel, St. Jude asked Jesus in the upper room on the night in which he was betrayed, how he would make his presence known to those who love him and keep his word. And Jesus said that he and his Father would come to them through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is not the coming at the end as envisioned in Revelation. This is the coming to us in these in-between times, in between Easter and the end. We still cry out for the resurrection of our lives. But he comes to us even now in beauty and power through the means the Spirit uses to set us free and bring us to believe: the word spoken to us by Jesus’ followers and the sacraments that bring that word into human things like water, bread, and wine.

And so we, too, with the Spirit and the rest of the Church, the bride of Christ, say, “Come.” With everyone who hears this word of promise, “Come.” With everyone who hungers and thirsts after the righteousness of God made ours by faith, “Come.” Showered with the living water of the Spirit, we join as one with the Church in every time and every place: “Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!” We will say it again in just a few minutes as one of the responses in the Eucharistic Prayer. Surely he is coming soon.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

___

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net