John 17:6-19

6 ‘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. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for 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. ⁹I 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. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And 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. ¹²While 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. ¹³But 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.^{* 14}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. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.^{* 16}They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Brother,

It is interesting that the compilers of the Lectionary have chosen this wonderful passage from John’s Gospel to be the reading for the Sunday after Ascension. I can see why in that it is John’s expression of Jesus leaving this physical world as stressed in verse 13 where Jesus prays to the Father “… I am coming to you …”

What a wonderful sentiment pervades this passage; that all Christians be one. This is, of course, the passage that is read at most ecumenical gatherings and I thoroughly endorse the sentiment. We should be one; we ought to celebrate our differences as what they are – merely different ways of doing things. I have problems with Roman Catholics or Calvinists or anyone else for that matter who thinks that theirs is the only way. Wesley insisted on this in his sermon on the Catholic Spirit. He was of the view that if ones heart is right with the Lord – that is it – that is all that matters. To this day, if a person is in good standing with their denomination (and this of course is vital) but they find an opportunity to work within Methodism, it is a simple matter; they are ‘Recognised and Regarded’ as Methodist ministers but do not need to relinquish their membership of their original domination. This has enriched us deeply with the influences ranging from the very high church through to Pentecostals – all working together.

Notice also how central to Jesus’ gift to his disciples is joy (verse 13). This is a deep inner joy that comes from a peace emanating from the depths of our being. It is not joy as the world sees it; it is a deeper contentment that is real even in the midst of difficulties. We are Jesus’ disciples because God the Father has given us to Him (verse 6). It is God’s Spirit that moves us to come to faith and it is this same Spirit that blesses us with deep joy. This is vital because when we come to faith we become strangers in the world, in fact John uses the strong hyperbole that the world even comes to ‘hate’ us. I have found this to be true and it can be most distressing and extremely lonely, especially when the people of the world one is dealing with, simply cannot understand where you are coming from. This is so beautifully articulated in our reading, from verse 14 onwards. Just as the world did not get Jesus, the world does not get who we are and often where we are coming from. Barclay makes an interesting observation that stresses this point. Those who are of the world simply will not understand the way he explains it:

“[Jesus] told them that they were different from the world, and that they could not expect anything else but hatred from it. Their values and standards were different from the world’s. But there is joy in battling against the storm and struggling against the tide; it is by facing the hostility of the world that we enter into Christian joy …” (p. 214)

So, Jesus does not pray that we are taken out of the world, rather that we might be victorious. This raises into question the wisdom of those who remove themselves from the world. Barclay stresses that ‘… Christianity was never meant to withdraw a [person] from life, but to equip [them] better for it …’ Our faith does not take away our problems; it gives us a way of dealing with them.

The passage ends with our commissioning and the reminder that we all have a special task to perform – Jesus prayed “… sanctify them in truth …” (verse 17) If we are to serve God then we must have something of God’s goodness and wisdom in us, and the good news is that God gives us what we need for the task that he has called us to perform. And central to the task that ALL Christians have been called to is to love and obey God and bring others to the same place.

As ever,

David