Prayer and change

Text: John 17:6-19

There are sections in the Gospel of John in which it’s kind of hard to figure out what Jesus is saying and why he talks the way he does. Today’s readings is one of those sections. What is he saying and why is he saying it? What’s all this about the world and being in the world or not in the world and glorification and mine and yours and yours and mine … ?

It might help to know that this prayer, for the passage begins “Jesus prayed for his disciples” comes at the end of the evening we call Maundy Thursday. The disciples have gathered with Jesus, and he has fed them and washed their feet and called upon them to love one another. He is headed for the Garden of Gethsemane and beyond to the cross. He has been teaching his disciples, and will continue to instruct them as they walk along after this, because he knows that his hour is at hand, that his death will come soon, that he will leave his disciples behind and will rejoin God in God’s realm outside of our world. 

He knows he is leaving them in a world that has some dark places, some chaos, some division, some sorrow and hardship. He knows they’re going to have a hard time understanding what will happen to Jesus and why. He knows that they are going to have to form a new community of love that will grow out of the community that Jesus created for them, and that community will continue on in the world without Jesus’s physical presence.

And so he stops and prays for them. And in this prayer that does sound repetitive and confusing, he gives thanks to God for giving them to him. And now that he is about to go out of the world and go back to God from whom he came, he is entrusting them to God for God’s care and protection. 

And we know that the community that organized around Jesus would eventually become the church.

And so Jesus, as he prepares to leave this world, is entrusting the future of the community - the future of the Church - to God. He is putting the church in God’s hands - and through this prayer inviting us to listen in on the conversation he has with God. 

We are a community for whom Jesus prays. We are a community that sees itself as being in God’s hands while the world around us rages and swirls. Our future depends on God, not on ourselves. 

Well, this is a hard thing for some of us high achiever Episcopalians to hear. We want to chart our own course and sail our own ship and all that. 

So it’s good to stop today and listen to Jesus pray for us, listen to Jesus entrust us to God who will lead us into our future for God’s purposes. As has been said by theologians and clergy before me, the question is not will our church have a mission. The question is whether God’s mission will have a church to carry it out. God’s church. God’s mission. God’s leadership.

In this prayer, Jesus says a lot about “the world” and makes it sound pretty bad. The world can be pretty bad sometimes. But this Gospel is also famous for saying that God so loved this world that he sent his only begotten Son, not to condemn the world but save it. But Jesus knows that the world is not an easy place for his followers, who are tempted to adopt the world’s values instead of God’s. He knows that God will lead us toward our future. And he knows that his followers will still need guidance and support and encouragement to stay the course.

And so he prays for them. He is praying for us, too.

The other day, I was reading one of those books church leaders read about change and loss and leadership. And I was struck by this sentence:

“To be a leader at a time when God is so actively changing the church in order to sustain its purpose in a fast-changing mission field is a blessing. A very complicated blessing.” 

I’d read this book, by long-time church consultant Gil Rendle, before, but what jumped out at me is when he says “God is so actively changing the church to sustain its purpose in a fast-changing world.” God is changing the church to meet the future. Actively.

To live in the world is to be surrounded by change. Most people do not like the church to change and and are pretty vocal about it. But I think Mr. Rendle is right. If we belong to God, just as Jesus belongs to God and we belong to Jesus, and God is leading the church instead of us leading ourselves, then God is also leading us to change to meet the challenges that the world keeps throwing at us. God is changing the church to meet the future. Our job is to follow God’s lead.