So for the next month, I’m still preaching every week. After that, who knows? In the mean time, I thought I would share the sermons I am preaching. Here’s mine from today, May 28, 2017.
That They May Be One
John 17:1–26
Daniel D. Bunn Jr.
I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. Now, when I say small, I mean small—there were roughly two thousand people in the entire town. Yes, you heard me correctly. Two thousand. Not two hundred thousand. Two thousand. It was small enough that you could give directions to any place based on that place’s proximity to the—singular—stop light. Only one.
In this small town, my family and I attended a United Methodist church during my junior high and high school years. When we joined this church, there were several things I noticed about the service that I really liked. The first thing I noticed was the woman who sat down to play the piano. Now, by looking at her, I would guess that she was, oh, at least one hundred forty-five years old. She played the piano and organ at the church, and she had done so probably since the piano and organ were invented. She entered the sanctuary with the help of others. She could barely walk on her own. She was maaaybe four feet, six inches. I thought to myself, “This is going to be a disaster.” But then something happened: when she sat down to play, the room filled. She passionately played those keys. I was amazed.
The next thing I noticed was the Lord’s Supper. See, my church experience up to this point had been in a church in which for communion everyone received a drip of juice and a crumb from a cracker. So you can imagine the surprise on my face when I see the huge loaf of King’s Hawaiian bread come out on a gold plate, followed by a cup flowing with juice. I mean, who in the world would have guessed that that combination would be so delicious? What is it about dipping that Hawaiian bread in that grape juice?
The thing that stood out the most to my junior high self, though, was the way we closed the service. In this church, we ended every week by joining hands across the aisle and singing the song “Bind Us Together.” Here’s how that song goes:
Bind us together, Lord, bind us together
With cords that cannot be broken
Bind us together, Lord, bind us together
Bind us together with love
There is only one God
There is only one King
There is only one body
That is why we sing
Now these words are inspirational and motivational. But I’ll admit: it wasn’t the song part that caught my attention. No, for my junior high self, it was the holding hands part. I learned quickly that if I chose my seat so that I was sitting across the aisle from a beautiful young lady, then I would end the service by holding her hand. Hallelujah and Amen!
Now, though there was much that I appreciated about the service, there was one item that made the service difficult for me to endure. That was the Pastoral Prayer. Every time the pastor stood up to pray, my heart sank. I remember strategically planning ways to avoid this part of the service. I would start coughing minutes before, making known to the congregation my need for a drink of water, so that they were not suspicious when I stood up. I would volunteer to help in the nursery. Anything but enduring that prayer!
Sometimes, the issue was that the prayer seemed like it lasted for infinity. It just kept going on. And on. And on. And the pastor would give a false ending…and then continue. Have you ever had the experience where you’re driving, and all of a sudden you realize that you have been so “zoned out” that you’ve driven past your exit? I would frequently have this experience during the prayer. “Where am I? What’s going on? Is he still praying?”
At other times, I think the issue was that the prayers either used difficult language or talked about difficult subjects. For some reason, the Holy Spirit often seems to prefer King James English, apparently, because some of these pastoral prayers contained more “thee”s and “thou”s than I knew what to do with them. I sometimes just couldn’t even understand what the pastor was trying to say.
Memories of that experience come back to me as I read the words from John 17. This entire chapter is a pastoral prayer, offered by Jesus. Twenty-six verses of prayer. That’s a lot of prayer. Maybe you feel similar feelings. Maybe you begin to squirm when a prayer extends a little too long. Does God really need this many words? Shouldn’t you just be able to look at God and nod, knowing that he is already aware of what you are thinking? I considered that maybe the pastor was modeling himself after the widow from Luke—the one who goes before the unjust judge and begs for justice. He denies it. She comes again, begin. He denies it, again. She comes begging, again. Finally, he says, “Though I’m a pretty mean dude, and I don’t care about you, I’m going to give you justice so that you’ll leave me alone!” Maybe long prayers are ways of wearing God down until God finally just gives in!
Another reason Jesus’ prayer might be challenging to endure is because the content itself. He says things like, “I pray that you will be in me, and I will be in you, and they will be in me so that they are also in you.” Huh? What does that even mean?
Perhaps another reason why this difficult is that we definitely get what is being said, but we question it. We wonder whether it’s a good prayer. I would imagine that this is a large part of the reason why we struggle not only to hear prayers, but also to offer them ourselves. The nature of prayer is that it walks a fine line. On one hand, we don’t want to ask for something too bold; we fear that we are asking too much. So we might pray, “O Lord, please let gravity hold up again today.” Something safe. Something sure. On the other hand, we recognize that prayer is an opportunity to talk with God, so we are inclined to say big things: “O Lord, end world hunger today.” I mean, he is God, after all. So when we hear a prayer, maybe we wonder, Does that go too far, or does it go far enough? It’s challenging.
In Jesus’ prayer, one part stands out, in this regard. He prays multiple times here that the disciples may be one. Let them be one, as you and I are one. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to look around at the human community and recognize that our tendency is not toward oneness always. Well, unless by “one” we mean “me.” We see that the church is not immune: we have as many denominations and groups as we have people. We have different ways of doing things, sometimes incompatible.
So when Jesus says, “Let them be one, as you and I are one,” we might respond in one of two ways. We might imagine that Jesus is cynical. We might consider that he prays this prayer tongue-in-cheek: he really knows better, that his followers being one is not possible. Yet he prays it anyway, because it sounds good and brings in larger offerings. Or perhaps we think he’s naive: “Let us all join hands, and together we will walk on and overcome any obstacle that comes against us.” Maybe Jesus hadn’t seen enough life to understand how impossible this prayer is. So he might have been cynical or naïve; but both have the same result: this prayer is not possible. So hearing Jesus pray it makes it difficult for us to hear.
But perhaps there is a third way to hear Jesus in this chapter. What if Jesus actually believes that this is possible, and that it is essential for it to happen? What if Jesus doesn’t just enter into wishful thinking here, but what if we recognizes the fundamental necessity of it? And, more importantly, what if he believes that the God whom he calls Father is able and willing to make it a reality?
Throughout the prayer, Jesus’ talk about this oneness is confusing. “Just as I am in you and you are in me, Father, let them be and me so that they will be in you so that they can be in each other…one.” If we do not get bogged down in the details, we see a clear picture that emerges: for Jesus, oneness is the characteristic that marks his connection to the Father, the Father’s connection to him, and his relationship to us, ours to him, and ours to each other.
In other words, because the connection between all of these figures is so strong, so intimate, it’s difficult to tell where one ends and one begins. For Jesus, you cannot talk about God the Father without talking about his relationship to Jesus the Son. You cannot talk about our relationship to the Father without talking about our relationship to the Son. And still further: You cannot talk about our relationship to the Father, Son, and Spirit unless you talk about our relationship to other Christ-followers. First John puts it this way (paraphrased): If anyone says that he loves God yet hates his neighbor, that one is a liar! Liar, liar, pants on fire! Your relationship with God is intimately connected to your relationship with one another.
How many of you remember chemistry class? Do you remember molecules? Molecules are important. We cannot live without them. Take a water molecule, for instance. Do you know how a water molecule is made? It’s made when you take one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, and combine them together. They meet up, they hang out, and they decide to share: the one who has more shares with those who have less. They share electrons. In the process, a bond is formed between these atoms, and the force of this combination produces a water molecule. You cannot have water unless you have oxygen, hydrogen, and bond between them. If you separate them, each of the parts no longer makes up water. It’s only as they are united that they form water.
Jesus, in his final words with his disciples, prays to God that they will be one. That they will be so united that it is difficult to tell where one begins, where one ends. Is this prayer naïve? Is it too optimistic? Does it pray something that is impossible? Perhaps. But Jesus knows that it is essential. Without the bond between Father, Son, Spirit, and disciples, the body of Christ will not exist. But once this bond does pull together the various elements involved, the oneness created can accomplish more than we could ever imagine.
This is why we sing:
Bind us together, Lord, bind us together
With cords that cannot be broken
Bind us together, Lord, bind us together
Bind us together with love
Amen.