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Jesus prayed: “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.” John 17:20-21
By rough estimate, in the past 24 years including weddings and funerals, I’ve preached over 1,200 sermons here at St. John’s. So today I took the preacher’s prerogative and chose readings different than the ones assigned in the common lectionary. The first from Isaiah, was read at my ordination on August 10, 1980 in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Allentown. To hear that those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, shall mount up with wings like eagles, shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not faint, gave me hope and confidence that the God would be with me as I tried to be a pastor. Indeed, for the most part that has been the case. And when it wasn’t, it was usually because instead of waiting for the Lord, I was living in fear and doubt. When that happened, it was difficult for the congregation and my family. Often God would send a saint to talk with me – at St. Bartholomew’s it was Gladys Walz or Bill Schendlinger and here at St. John’s, it was a Trinity of retired Pastors — Ken Ensminger, Tom Kochenderfer, Wally Reimet as well as our saints – George, Emma, Ginny and many others.
When Isaiah first made this proclamation, it wasn’t only for the priests and rabbis, but for all the people who’d been in exile in Babylon and now were returning home where they would faced many challenges. This is true is for God’s people in every time and place, including now. Gilda Radner was right, who through her Saturday Night Live Character, Rosanna Rosannadanna, told us, “It’s always something!” Today it’s COVID and all the uncertainty that goes with that, the ongoing struggle for racial justice and now a change in pastoral leadership for St. John’s and in life for me and my family. Let us live into the promise that the Lord will renew our strength.
We can dare to do so because Jesus is praying for us. Just before he leaves to go the garden where he will be met by Judas and betrayed, Jesus prays. While the disciples listen, he prays for them and for the ones who will believe through them. It’s been about 2,000 years, 130 generations, and Jesus’ prayer includes you and me.
Jesus promises us glory. In Hebrew, the word is kavod and means the substantial, presence of God. In Greek, it’s doxa referring to splendor and grandeur, radiant beauty. Imagine glory to be the outward manifestation of inward holiness. We have experience glory in worship when hearing the choir soar to such heights that we’re certain they are singing with the angels and one day, they will sing again. We hear glory when the Gospel is proclaimed. We touch glory in the passing of the peace – and will again We taste glory in the bread and wine, the Body and Blood of our Lord. We live glory when we are sent out in peace to serve the Lord. All of this, GLORIOUS!
We’ve known the glory in ministry with refugees from Somalia, Sudan and Iraq who with courage and determination became New Americans and along the way blessed us beyond measure. Their strength and perseverance continue to amaze me. We’ve lived the glory as part of the Phoenix rising, helping our town to “Trust Our Wings”, to care for one another so that no one gets left behind, to be good and faithful neighbors. Who knew that blue lamp-posts could be so inviting? Beyond here, we’ve been part of God’s glory in the hollows and hills of Appalachia as homes are restored while our young people grow into who God intends to be. And in Tanzania, we’ve seen glorious miracles, one after another, a three room dispensary becoming Selian hospital, an empty piece of land in Arusha is transformed into a first class medical center, then Plaster House, a health care education center and most recently a new nursing school. And for sixteen years, we witnessed glory in the approximately 20 St. John’s Girls at the MaaSae Girls Lutheran Secondary School in Monduli who have become teachers and accountants, nurses and doctors, architects and pilots. God’s outward manifestation of divine holiness, God’s glory surrounds us!
In our Gospel today, Jesus prays for us – and for those who will believe in him through us. There is such grace in his prayer. He knows that in less than 24 hours, one of his own disciples will betray him, another will deny him, and almost all will flee. He realizes that though he has given us the power to become children of God, we will fall far short. And as he prays that we may be one as he and Father are one, he recognizes we will mess it up with sibling rivalry and conflict. Still, he prays that God’s love for him might be in us, as he is in us. Hearing the prayer is humbling and empowering both at the same time. Humbling because we know that we are not worthy of his love, that we live by grace alone. Empowering because Jesus persists in his expectation, that through our word, others will believe in him. And they do and they have, and it is continually amazing.
Being pastor in this community of faith has been one of the main joys in my life. To serve among you for 24 years has been a blessing. It hasn’t always been easy, nor did I expect it to be. As I continually reminded myself and you, we are sinful and unclean to the core of our being, that we live by God’s grace alone, that forgiveness is a gift and that only because of that gift, given to us through our Lord’s death and resurrection, can we live in love. So, if I have hurt or disappointed you, if I have failed to be the pastor you needed or sinned against you in any way, I ask for your forgiveness. And if you have hurt, disappointed me or sinned against me, you are forgiven. We can dare to do so because of a cheer from the first letter of John. At a Stewardship Rally years ago, a dozen energetic young cheerleaders shouted “We love because God first loved us” over and over again until it seeped into their and our hearts and minds so that we will ever forget it.
Now a prayer first written by a Pastor to the church at Ephesus. It’s prayer of empowerment, especially this day, a prayer for us. The Pastor begins, “I pray that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through the Holy Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3: 14-21)