WHAT KIND OF PRAYERS DID JESUS PRAY? – John 17,15

Sermon on John 17,15 , Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus

WHAT KIND OF PRAYERS DID JESUS PRAY?

Recently Jesus has been getting a lot of press. There have been headlines asking “What
kind of car would Jesus drive?” (“not a gas-guzzling SRV,” say environmentalist advocates) and “What
kind of stocks would Jesus buy?” (“not AOL Time Warner
and Disney,” say the “family-life” proponents– Time,
May 19, 2003). Although the Evangelist John was not among those being
quoted in recent press releases, he apparently sensed what readers
needed to hear in writing the material used for this Seventh and Last
Sunday of the Easter Season. One might caption his article “What
kind of prayers would Jesus pray?” As with the first two articles,
you could be surprised about John’s description of Jesus’ prayer
life– and specifically about his petitions for you and me! What John
says about Jesus’ prayers will make you sit up and think a great
deal more than current American “prayer talk” does.

American prayer life has acquired, to mix a metaphor, substantial superficiality.
When someone experiences a problem, it’s common for people to say,
especially in the parlance of folk piety, “we’ll be praying
for ya’ll, hear?!” Whether such prayers ever take place or
not cannot be answered with certainty. Even less likely is the prospect
that all the prayers recently advertised for American soldiers on marques
at every bank, hamburger stand and car dealership ever took place. Golfing
buddies, dropping off a distraught member of the foursome at his house
after a terrible game in which he missed the shot of a lifetime, cheer
him on hilariously with “we’ll be praying for you!” The
suggestion of prayer has become a pious way of expressing our care for
a person, but often there isn’t much content attached to the concern.

In another era, Peter Marshall, who became famous in the two years
he held the position of Chaplain to the United States Senate (1947-49),
once told a touching story of his widowed, praying Scottish mother. Long
after all the household chores were completed, Marshall said that there
was one thing he knew about his mother with certainty. She knelt every
night at her bedside and prayed for, among other things, him! There were
few things in life, Marshall later wrote, which impacted him as powerfully
as the fact that every night his mother went before the Lord in prayer
for him. It is this kind of image that John is sharing in the lesson
that has been saved for the last Sunday of the Festival Half of the Church
Year. Those who chose this lesson for us wanted to be sure that long
after we had been exposed to the account of the crucifixion and resurrection
and the commissioning of the disciples, we get to hear Jesus praying
about us and for us. Just as Peter Marshall never could forget that his
mother took his needs to God in prayer every night, so we can’t
help but be impressed with what John remembers hearing Jesus say about
his followers in prayer. If you asked 300 people “What kind of
prayers did Jesus pray?” you would probably not get John’s
answers.

PUT THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE

John remembers Jesus’ praying that God would “not take
them out of the world but preserve them from the evil one.” It
is of course too easy to suggest that over the centuries, millions of
those who went into monasteries missed Jesus’ intent here. Regardless
of your religious tradition, it would be valuable to understand that
the first Christians who took up monasticism in 4th Century deserts did
so because after the Edict of Milan (313), at least according to Eusebius,
tolerated Christianity, discipleship in the urban centers came to be
too self-understood and “easy.” Many felt that those who
lived in the cities had abandoned the battles with the evil one, succumbing
too readily to temptation. They didn’t think of themselves as escaping
the world.

It might be helpful to consider how such ease continues in our Christian
accommodation to the evil one today. We exercise the option for escape
not by heading to monasteries or weekend retreats or moving the family
to a commune in West Texas, but by ignoring the realities of temptation
or restructuring immorality. Some years ago, Denmark reported that it
had reduced the number of criminal offences by a substantial percentage.
The discerning reader quickly learned that the reduced crime rate had
resulted from decriminalizing a number of offenses. Something similar
is happening in the United States today. For example, parents increasingly
seek to water down punishments for their children in high schools because
such information may look bad on their records when they try to get into
elite universities. U.S. News and World Report (May 26, 2003) reports
that “the consequences of no consequences can be worse, however.
To raise a trophy kid, the focus is often on grades, the SATS, the Ivies,
rather than moral development. The trade off: No conscience, no sense
of remorse, accountability or empathy.” Clearly, this is the very
escape from the world in which no battle is done with the evil one.

There is a shabbiness to this new American immorality which stands
exposed by John’s story of the cross and empty tomb. It was no
cheap grace which allows Jesus to talk about having his joy completed
in his followers. Facing head-on the complacent forces, the enormous
odds, of those who call for status-quo, those who want the well-worn
style of easy peace, overruled temptation and acquiescence to immorality,
Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem with its enormous “NO” to
his invitation to accept alternative approaches to peace, integrity and
justice. For the “joy that was set before him (Heb. 12:2), he endured
the cross, despising the shame, and now is seated at the right hand of
God.” It is this joy which Jesus has in mind for us as we claim
his resurrection victory and make bold decisions over against the temptations
of the evil one. We are in the world, although not of it, and we dare
not ignore evil or pretend that choices are not real. With the joy set
before us by the One who daily gives us strength and confidence, we willingly
accept challenges in the most ordinary places at work, in human relationships,
in school, at church. We are stunned that Jesus does not pray that we
be given the means to escape challenges and temptation, but that our
feet be put to the fire. We may be the “blessed meek,” but
we are not allowed to be cowards. Disagreeing with the Nissan Maxima
advertisement which says “The Meek Shall Inherit the Passenger
Seat,” Christians are willing to take the driver’s seat!
That’s what Jesus prays for!

LET THEM SEE ME AND YOU TOGETHER

Another of Jesus’ petitions is equally surprising because it
demonstrates more insight about us that we have about ourselves. The
history of Christianity is a story of divisions, but nowhere in the world
has the diversity of religion become as rich as in America. Politically
and ideologically, one can attribute this to the First Amendment with
its non-establishment clause. Once it became clear that government would
not be allowed to legislate religious matters, movements sprang up to
express every spiritual insight that can be named. Additionally, however,
the diversity in America emerged from a “can do” pragmatism
which finds new solutions for ever dilemma. Christian Science (with its
mind over matter Gnosticism) and Seventh Day Adventism (with its sabbatarianism,
and vegetarianism) are examples of “American” religions which
arose to address loopholes in spirituality for which there were no existing
theories. I teach a course in the History of American Denominationalism
and it is a challenge to decide whether the rich and confusing Christian
diversity that emerged on American soil is a triumph for freedom or a
tragedy for the unity of Christianity.

Jesus prayer that “we might all be one just as I and the Father
are one” is poignant and challenging in this regard. Would it be
better if we had only a State church (and, thus, a semblance of unity,
but perhaps not as much vitality) or is there a means for Christians
to celebrate unity in the midst of existing diversity? On the one hand,
it is clear that many religious groups that were formed by immigrants
for the purpose of maintaining language and ethnic heritage remained
isolated minorities. As “Americanization” united such groups
over the centuries, mergers took place to remove distinctions. Lutherans,
for example, who once had 150 synods, now have only three. Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, United Church of Christ and some Lutherans have “fellowship
agreements” allowing them to recognize the validity of one another’s
ministries. Gradually, a growing consensus is apparent—although
sometimes splinter groups continue to form at the edges of the mainline
groups, defying any movement toward unity. It would seem that the real
issue, if one takes John’s overall vision of Jesus into account,
is not that organizational and structural unity is of such importance.
In a nation of immigrants in which Christians are divided. because of
obvious and enormous cultural and ethnic heritages, it seems more important
that we learn to appreciate our ties as disciples with the Master who
prays for us. How interesting that Jesus asks us to observe him and his
Father together, in their oneness.

Christians have historically put more emphasis on maintaining clarity
and purity in teaching, leading to endless disputes about who had the
greater clarity. It is worth remembering that Christianity grew phenomenally
in the first century because pagans were astonished at how much Christians
loved one another– and that it declined precipitously in the seventh
century when it was too severely divided to resist the simplicity of
Islam. Jesus knows us too well, and he prays that we see him and his
Father in their oneness and imitate it, not argue about it, split hairs
about it, prove that we’re right. We’ve done enough of that.
That’s what Jesus prays for.

HELP THEM FIND THE SECRET PATH

Lastly Jesus prays that his followers might see themselves “called
out, set apart, holy.” “Sanctify them in your truth,” he
prays. It is a wonderful insight, and an important one to enunciate clearly.
Some have perceived this “sanctification” to mean moral uprightness
and, unfortunately, when taken to extremes, sanctimoniousness. We all
know about Holy Joe and Pious Sarah. They can only lead us to pharisaism.
Additionally, we should remember another problematic interpretation from
those involved in the radical Reformation of the 16th Century. They understood
the New Testament Greek hagiazein to require a departure from society,
relinquishing the structures of government and established church to
form a consecrated people who were defined by their separateness. Many
communal groups that came to the United States in the 1700s had such
intentions. The Amana Colonies in Iowa and the Amish in Pennsylvania,
even the Quakers, represent such interests still today. However, Jesus’ first
petition in this prayer seems to speak against such separateness. His
prayer is not that we leave the world but that within it we become the
joyful, peculiar, unique, set apart, consecrated, holy people. This is
not a call for arrogance, but for vision. Those who know that God sends
them into the world with a task keep their focus on the One who loves
them and empowers them. In their relationship with him they find their
way through the morass of choices, too many of which have dead ends.

In D.H. Lawrence’s play David, Jesse, David’s father, explains
to his son, Eliab, why the spiritual solution to confusion and dead ends
is better than the military solution:

My son, the heart of man cannot wander among the years like a wild
ass in the
wilderness, running hither and thither. The heart at last stands still crying:
‘Whither, Whither?’ Like a lost foal whinnying for his dam, the heart
cries and
knickers for God, and will not be comforted. Then comes the prophet with the
other vision in his eyes, and the inner hearing in his ears, and he uncovers
the
secret path of the Lord, Who is at the middlemost place of all. And when the
heart
is in the way of God, it runs softly and joyously, without weariness.

Lawrence makes a valiant plea for the role of the Other, the Alternative,
the Transcendent, the Different One who calls us outside of and beyond
ourselves to discover what we cannot find on our own. It is in and through
this Other, through God himself that we are enabled to discover the secret
path, the right choice among the false ones, that is the truth.

Jesus’ petitions are powerful and personal. He doesn’t
give us a “high five” and promise, as he disappears, “I’ll
be praying for ya’ll, hear?!” He who broke the barriers of
death and established life’s continuous future goes the whole length
of the road with us, praying that faithful followers will be able to
keep their feet to the fire, lay claim to a unity more powerful than
mere cries for distinctness of beliefs and nimbly traverse the wilderness
of life on the secret paths of God. Here is Jesus concerned about our
future, our daily walk. It is an image left for the last Sunday of the
Church Year when we now leave behind us all the great acts of God in
Christ celebrated at Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter and walk the
long road with all its choices and decisions. It is future fraught with
danger, yet filled with opportunity. It is excitement worthy of adventurers
in the driver’s seat of life. How exciting to know that Jesus has
foreseen every turn in the road and is praying for us!

Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
Concordia University at Austin
Austin, Texas
dzersen@aol.com