John 17:1-26
As we begin our time together to explore this text tonight, I'd like to start by inviting you to do something simple - something you do all the time, but rarely think about. In a moment, I'd like to invite you to take a deep breath. We'll do it all together. You can close your eyes if you want to, but we'll all take a deep breath, inhale and exhale. Ready? One, two, three, breathe.
Libby told me something this week that intrigued me. She said to me, "Hey Renee, did you know that every time you take a breath of air, at least one air molecule was also breathed by Socrates in his lifetime?" Well that is intriguing! As crazy as it sounds, probability is such that each time you take a breath, approximately every six seconds, the air in your lungs contains at least one molecule that was in Socrates' lungs during his lifetime. Wow. A lot of people have lived on this earth, but we also breathe in an unbelievable amount of air molecules every time we take a breath. The same molecules of air as Socrates! Every breath! Crazy!
But, or course, this isn't just true for famous Greek philosophers. This is true about everyone who was ever lived, everyone who has ever shared our air! Every breath you take, contains at least one air molecule that someone else breathed - your best friend, the person you can't stand, Kevin Bacon, Nelson Mandela, Amanda Nelson Mandela! You name it! You’re breathing the same molecules of air of others who have been human with you. Think about it! Cavemen, Sojourner Truth, Isaac Newton, George Washington, and the Trololo guy. The Trololo Guy! I find that to be absolutely remarkable.
We’re more connected than we know. We’re much more connected than we know.
And our text tonight, is a beautiful prayer recorded in the Gospel of John. Jesus prays this prayer in the upper room, the night of his arrest, the night before his death. In chapters 13-17 of John’s Gospel, Jesus is depicted in the upper room, washing the disciples’ feet, encouraging them, testifying to the Holy Spirit who will be their Comforter and Advocate, and finally, before his arrest, this beautiful prayer is spoken on their behalf.
Love is spoken all over the place, and several thematic words seem to emerge throughout the text. A crucial word in the text is the word “one,” and it’s associated with a union of love. Jesus is one with the Father, the disciples are called to be one with Jesus, and Jesus prays for those who will believe in him through the testimony of the disciples – people like us – and asks that they may also be one. That word seems to be all over the place in the prayer. Listen to these words again: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Wow. As the Son and the Father are one, we are called to be one. . . like that! Wow.
And another important word is “in.” It’s all over the place too. “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Jesus is in the Father. The Father is in Jesus. Jesus is in his disciples, and they are in him. And Jesus is in those who will believe in him through the disciples’ testimony. And did you catch that? “May they also be in us.” We are in God!
Love invites us to be in one another and even in the life of God. And actually, we are in one another because we are in the love and life of God, a love and life deeply given to us. Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Quite remarkable, isn’t it? We are in one another; we share the same air. And we are in one another; we share the same love of God that is bestowed upon us. It’s unfathomably beautiful, and we can hardly wrap our minds around it.
And I believe that much of the Christian faith is like that: unfathomably beautiful, and we can hardly wrap our minds around it. Here’s a question. When you think about the Trinity, what comes to mind? On one hand, we could say something Sunday-School-Answer-ish. “The Trinity is a word to describe God, that God is one God, and that God exists in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” I suppose that’s one way we could describe God, and we would be saying something true. But this truth isn’t just Sunday-School-Answer-ish, and it’s not some weird math equation for us to figure out – How can one equal three, and three equal one? No, if we stayed there in that frame of mind, we’d be missing the depth of this love. The truth of Who God Is is much more beautiful, mysterious, and life-altering than a math equation. God can’t be diagrammed or mapped. Thank God for that!
No, God is a communion of love. God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are One. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in. We are invited into oneness – into the communion of God. We are invited into the in-ness – into the life of God’s loving communion. God exists as a community – a communion of love, and that love spills over to include us and to include the entire creation. We’re not God, but in love, we truly are swept up into the life of God! That’s remarkable too!
The reason we have language about the Trinity is because of the experience of Love. No one sat down one day in front of a bunch of other Christians and said, “Hey! I’ve got this great idea about God. I’ve thought it all out. In fact, I’ve got it all figured out! Here, let me show you my blueprint.” No. Instead, what happened is that the early Christian community believed that they had experienced the embodiment of God in the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, and they saw the communion of love between Jesus and God, who he called Father. And they had an experience of love expressed in the Holy Spirit, who they also witnessed the Holy Spirit to be in communion with the God the Creator and God the Son. Without trying to create a math equation, they came to express language that gave praise to their experience and to the experiences they witnessed in the Scriptures.
And so, I don’t have a way to map this out. I don’t have a flow chart or a blueprint. I also can’t say everything definitive about what Jesus voices in this prayer. This prayer isn’t high, ivory-tower-theological discourse of definition. This is a prayer of love, praise, and petition. God is Love. God isn’t a Definition. But that being said, I do believe that this prayer speaks beautiful language about who God is – who God is in communion – and that has something to say about who we are and who we’re called to be.
One thing that’s beautiful about the life of faith is that the questions are just as important as the answers. And faith is beautiful in the way that it invites us to be imaginative. So disclaimer: What follows is speculative and imaginative, but I believe, ultimately true. Very true.
God is a communion of love beyond anything we can imagine or define. And in that communion of love – that three-ness – God’s love spills over to include us. What if we – mere human beings – are called to lives that kind of communion? What if our lives – unaware as we often are – are moving in that kind of direction? Again, we’re not God, and we’re not becoming God, but what if God is moving us into an experience that is somehow Trinitized, that is, moving us to be the unique, particular persons we are, who love so fully that we are one with those we love? We can’t do this on our own – we are absolutely fallen – but what if God is constantly recreating us to love in this direction?
In one of our Bible Studies this semester, we began to ask some questions about the
Now that may all sound like speculative gobbily gook, but again, imagination can be powerful and is a gift from God. If all that were true, we came to this conclusion: That would mean that if I died tonight, I wouldn’t simply be reunited with people who had died before me. I would enter something not confined by time and space. That means from my experience, you would all be there! I mean, it would kind of stink to just be waiting on everyone else, just being separated. But whatever happens upon death, I have a feeling that we enter something very full, a mystical communion of love deeper and more rich than we can imagine, something somewhat Trinitarian. God is sweeping us up into the communion of Love. Unfathomable, and we can hardly wrap our minds around it.
I’ll tell you another interesting story based on some of these speculations. What if by the grace of God, we are on our way toward living in that kind of communion? Oh, we mess it up royally now. But what if that’s the direction we’re moving in? What if God has created us for that? What if, in the fullness of the
If it is, it means that we’re being fashioned to learn how to be one – that is, to be unified in love in community, and can you imagine this? When we enter that kind of love in God more deeply, what if we begin to love others in such a way that every single person feels like the unique love of our life? After all, that’s how God loves us. What if God is creating and molding us – purely by God’s grace - to love like that? Here’s the story.
I know someone who was taking a walk around West Campus a few weeks ago, and she was feeling anxious about some decisions she would have to be making soon. And in her anxiety, she felt like she should stop focusing about her worries, and simply notice what was around her. What did she see? She told me that first thing she noticed was that she saw students walking around in every direction, and she was intrigued at one observation. All of these students seemed to be entirely in their own world. It wasn’t that they seemed selfish. It was just that they truly seemed to be in their own world – their own awareness without the awareness of those who were also walking around them. Some were listening to ipods, some were just staring, thinking through their own thoughts. She said to herself, “Wow. These students don’t know they’re connected.”
She began to think about some of the questions I just asked, and then, she thought this. I love it! She thought about who God was constantly creating her to be, and how she was ultimately called to love, and as she passed each person, she said this in her mind: “Someday, you will be the love of my life.” Isn’t that interesting?
“Someday, you will be the love of my life.” That is, “If I am being swept up in the life of God, to love all people with a love I can’t begin to fathom, I will one day, view each person has the unique love of my life.” I love it. And if that’s where we’re ultimately headed, that means, we can try by God’s grace, to love people more fully now! I mean, can you imagine how different this world would be if we all believed that someday, every person would be the unique love of our life! We’d probably start treating them better right now. We’d probably start loving them right now.
Thanks be to God that we are created to be one. Thanks be to God that we are created to be in. Thanks be to God who is Love for us and for all. Amen.
-Renée Roederer, Campus Minister, and the Austin Agape Community
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