John 17:1-11
“All for One and One for All”
May 24, 2020
What do our prayers say about what we believe? There are prayers that we know so well like the Lord’s Prayer which we just said together where our lips move in unison but our hearts are drawn, depending on what is happening in our lives and the world, to certain key phrases within it.
What is God’s will that will be done?
If we are not led into temptation, will we still be able to avoid it? What if we have our daily bread but other people we know don’t?
There are times when we pray to God for strength or hope or peace of mind.
And then there are the days when words fail us. There’s so much we want to tell God that we don’t know where to begin. Or we feel so lost or troubled or angry we dare not express in words what we are embarrassed to admit we need from God.
When we’re feeling distant from God or so hurt that we can’t manage to face God, we rely on the prayers of others to carry us and maybe keep that line of communication, however small, open for that time in the future when we will be able to pray again.
For the last few weeks, we have been hearing Jesus’ farewell speech and now its time to wrap it all up with a closing prayer. Those listening in to Jesus’ prayer, at the table of that final meal, hear Jesus’ love for them shining through. He sees these disciples as God sees them and wants God to watch over them when he’s gone. Jesus’ prayer, like all our prayers, speak to what we believe about God and the kind of relationship with God that we live into.
The most important thing that the disciples then, and we as followers now, hear is that we know God through Jesus’ life and ministry, that is – we will know God by love. Jesus is bridging this life and the next and what he intentionally offers in the overheard prayer about the back and forth between God’s Kingdom and this earthly world is that we can count on God’s grace no matter how big a mess we make of things. That deep, all encompassing love is ours to accept and emulate.
Jesus says to God that he was giving glory to God by the work he was called to – in the hurting lives he touched and made better. Fr. Richard Rohr puts it this way, “We cannot jump over this world, or its woundedness, and still try to love God. We must love God through, in, with, and even because of this world.”
If we go looking for Jesus legacy at work in this world, we can find it in those who are caring for COVID-19 patients, putting physical comfort and their own well-being on the line. Such a love is not only limited to health care professionals but to a wide range of workers who have been making it possible for the rest of us to stay safe at home.
The wearing of masks by everyday folks is an act of love. We know that they are not necessarily going to protect us from the virus. Rather they are going to help protect others from what we could unknowingly share. This is love of neighbor on an epic scale. Stranger loving stranger. The served loving those doing the serving. May we strive to keep such a spirit of love for other people going even when this pandemic comes to an end and we take off our masks.
Jesus prays “That they may all be one” in the same way that he and God are one. May our shared humanity as well as the grace upon grace received from God unite us in loving care for one another. Let us lift up these words of prayer written six centuries ago by Thomas a Kempis:
“O Lord, let Your love dissolve my hard heart.
Let Your love raise me above myself.
Let Your love reveal to me joy beyond imagination.
Let my soul exhaust itself by singing the praises of Your love.
Let me love You more than I love myself, and let me love myself only for Your sake.
And let me see Your love shining in the hearts of all people, that I may love them as I love You.”
Amen.