Seventh Sunday of Easter (sermon text)
Scriptures: Acts 1:15-17 & 21-26, Psalm 1, 1 John 5:9-13, John 17:6-19
The Heart of Prayer
Let’s say that you hear these words from a friend, a loved one, or even a stranger:
“I need a prayer. Will you pray for me?”
God knows our needs. Our hopes, our fears. By another name, these are our prayers. God knows all of these things, and still we pray. Why do we pray, and what does it accomplish?
I believe in the power of prayer, that God hears us and answers. The Gospel of John, including today’s reading from Chapter 17, expands on this understanding of prayer. Prayer is about being heard by God, and God answering; it is ALSO about living out God’s promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus. It is a relationship – any relationship involves communication – and specifically, a relationship that frees us from the death-dealing separation from God in sin to the true life of one free from sin, living out the love to which we are called.
A church receives emails, phone calls, and messages from strangers – or perhaps I should say “neighbors,” be they nearby or far – asking for prayer. Though it was several years ago now, I’ll never forget the first email I received from a distant neighbor. I was a student-pastor, a vicar, at a church in Washington, DC. The email came from somewhere down south, I think Louisiana. The man who wrote to us was going to have heart surgery, and so he asked for prayers. He didn’t want a response, and my guess is that ours wasn’t the only church he contacted. As he put it, he just wanted to feel that someone would be praying for him.
Over the years, I’ve become more accustomed to this type of request. In my time as a hospital chaplain, I served alongside clergy who represented many denominations and faith groups. We were, of course, frequently invited to pray with patients in their rooms, with family members in the waiting areas, and even with the busy staff in the hallways, food courts, or wherever they could pause for just one moment of peace.
We also maintained three chapels. Each chapel included a notepad and a prayer box, so that anyone who wanted could write a prayer for safekeeping. Patients, their family and friends, and staff made use of this chapel service. We even had our regulars, one of whom would leave pages and pages of handwritten notes, unsigned and anonymous. And there was the regular whose handwriting was worse than mine – their notes would always throw off new chaplains, who desperately wanted to understand what these illegible prayers said – but a lesson we all inevitably learned was to trust that God knew this person’s heart and needs.
A task of great importance to our whole team was to bless the chapel prayers. We gathered together every morning and would pray over the new requests. It was humbling, to pray for people we might never meet in person, to know that they trusted us, as strangers, to hold their hopes in our hearts, and even more, that they believed in a higher power that would listen.
At a casual glance, I was not connected to any of these people, whether as vicar or chaplain or pastor. We weren’t even neighbors in a literal sense; you’ll certainly have understood that by neighbor I mean someone I’m supposed to love according to myself, according to the Great Commandment Jesus gives his followers.
And yet, God connected us. Whether in a moment of prayer, or a lifelong relationship, Christ is present for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Our relationship was the prayer we shared, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
One could faithfully say that it is the work of a Christian community to pray. One of the many things that impressed me early on about St. Stephen’s is the prayer chain. It’s a way to stay connected, as a community, to share requests, and of course to pray for one another.
Let me say, having helped lead at churches that didn’t have prayer chains, this is an incredible ministry, and I thank God for Peg and everyone who makes it what it is. Like many of you, I spend time in prayer for everyone who shares a request through that list, and of course, as a community, we raise these names in prayer to God on Sunday mornings. Christ is alive and at work in this prayer chain.
And like many of you, I’ve added the name of a loved one to that list – I don’t know how you feel, when you request a prayer; there’s no “right” or “proper” way to feel, but in this case, I felt hopeful, a little vulnerable, and perhaps most of all, seen and known in my needs. Incidentally, we received a prayer request through our Facebook page this past week, and will be praying for two distant neighbors by name this morning. We may not know their faces, but God knows their hearts and their needs, just as God knows ours.
And one more quick story about prayer that I need to share with you. Two weeks ago, Peggy, Holly, and I visited our neighbors in the Friends Meeting during their worship service, to give a brief word of thanks on behalf of our congregation for letting us use this worship space. After we had shared, I started to leave, and Pastor Cathy said, “Before they go, let’s say a prayer.” She proceeded to lead a prayer that blessed all of us. I’ll tell you right now: the experience brought a tear to my eye. It’s one thing as a pastor to pray; it’s another to receive prayer.
Dear siblings-in-Christ, we are seen in our needs, and we are not forgotten. Christ works in us, holding us in love. Christ works through us, seeing the needs of others, lifting them in prayer, and acting on their behalf. And Christ works for us and the world he came to save, sent by God on behalf of a people who apart from our creator perish, but in Christ, have eternal life.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus prays for the disciples. This is the middle portion of Jesus’ prayer, which fills the entirety of John, Chapter 17. In the first part, Jesus prays about himself and his mission in the world. In the second part, our reading today, Jesus prays for his immediate community. In the prayer’s third and final part, Jesus prays for the believers still to come, who will know God through him – in other words, Jesus also prays for us.
Like so much of the Gospel of John, the words of this prayer seem to move in circles, repeating and expanding on words and ideas to slowly and deliberatively paint an expansive, deeply involved image of God.
And like so much of John, it stops and starts on insider and outsider language, directed as it was toward an audience of Jewish believers living after the Second Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Romans, who been ejected from their local synagogues for following the Way of Christ, and Gentiles who risked everything by following this new Way, possibly at the cost of social and financial ostracization.
I feel the need to pause on this insider-outsider language, because it’s easy to misread as hatred for the world. In closing the middle part of this prayer, for his immediate community and followers, Christ prays, “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. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
This connects directly to John, Chapter 3, and we can’t lose sight of that key piece of scripture if we want to understand Jesus here in Chapter 17. Jesus was sent into the world by God, John 3:16, out of love. Here, Jesus is sending the disciples into the world, regardless of the world’s hatred, out of God’s same love for the world. They, and we, do not belong to the world. Where it may hate us, we may still live in God’s love, and serve out of this same love.
And this love is the heart of prayer. This love is what frees us from “the world,” and while we are in it, we are not of it, being of God. This love is what connects us in prayer – to one another – to the triune God. This love is lived out in relationships, communicated by what we say and do, including in the time we spend praying to our creating, loving God.
Especially in the Gospel of John, this is the meaning of eternal life. It’s not only life after death, but true life here on earth. In some ways, it’s a similar idea to “the Kingdom of God” in Mark and Luke, and the “Kingdom of Heaven” as Matthew puts it, but for me, it’s Paul who unites the ideas. In Romans, Paul writes, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
A more familiar passage may be Philippians 4:4-7: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
This is the type of life-on-earth Christ intends for his followers. I want to make clear that it’s not a command against feeling fear – Paul knows that Christ lived on earth as one of us, and that God doesn’t hold it against us when we feel overwhelmed, whether in an instant or over time, by the awareness of danger, or by anxiety. Rather, Paul’s words are a reminder that, in Christ, we are freed from fear, to live knowing that nothing of this world can distance us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
So, let’s say that you hear these words from a friend, a loved one, or even a stranger:
“I need a prayer. Will you pray for me?” Isn’t it amazing? They are seeking a relationship with you through Christ, and with Christ through you. They, too, feel the troubles of the world, yet hope for God’s Peace, in the world yet not of it. May we feel empowered in the Spirit to open our hearts to those seeking prayer and faithful action, trusting in Christ’s real presence in the communion of our relationships.
Amen.
-Pastor Will Bevins