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. (John 17:22-24)
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So that I will be in you
and you will be in me and you and I will be one so that they may be one in you
and you and me…and on and on it seems to go!
When I first started reading the gospels – like really reading them – I
fell in love with John’s gospel.
So mellifluous – so poetic – this way in which Jesus speaks. I’m not sure when it changed for me – maybe when
I had to write sermons – I read this chapter and my head starts to spin.
I want Jesus to speak
plainly – without going on for so long about what sounds like the same
thing. But the more I wrestle with it –
I think I begin to see why the author of John’s gospel has Jesus speak this
way. He is trying to put words around
sometime indescribable – something that isn’t doctrine or dogma. But something that is relational – and
experiential.
Interbeing. That word – from another tradition – Buddhism
– explains what I think Jesus is talking about here. Interbeing was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh –
monk and author – to name our interconnectedness. Imagine the ocean he writes. You look at the
ocean and you see the wave. You see the
froth. You see ripples within the
water. You know there is salt and
minerals and oxygen all within that water as well.
Not one of those
elements, which in tandem constitute a ‘thing’ into which you can submerge or
float, can be extracted and retain their intact relationship to the water. You cannot disconnect the wave, or the froth,
or the salt, or the oxygen and have it continue to be distinct in its own right
while maintaining its being as water. [i]
That visual is a helpful
metaphor for me. It’s how I hear Jesus describe how we are connected to God and
God to us. I think that’s why in John’s
gospel, so often, Jesus says – abide.
Abide in me as I abide in you (Jn 15). Not as if God is the home where
we will eventually go – but encouraging us see we are at home in God, now,
right now – because God is already within us. Those who abide in me, Jesus says, and I in
them bear much fruit, for apart from God we can do nothing. (15:5)
If we “think” our way
into that truth – if it’s purely an intellectual ascent – then, ok – but Jesus
is asking us to live that way. To trust
our interbeing with God and with each other, as Jesus does.
We are – again this Easter
season – at the Last Supper – the night before Jesus dies. So we can excuse the long-windedness because
this is the final soliloquy, the last time Jesus will really speak to his
disciples before his crucifixion. Now it
would seem more than appropriate if Jesus were to conclude his time with them
in teaching – spending this meal delegating responsibilities – describing next
steps – and instructing them in all they would now be responsible for. But instead – Jesus prays.
This is helpful model for
us. Since it can be hard at times to
know when to let go of control – and accept the future is not in our
hands. When Jesus gets to that point -
he prays. Not for himself – and what he
is about to endure – but for them. For
the followers gathered around the table – and for the followers who do not yet
know God – and for the followers who will come to know God. In other words – Jesus prays for everybody –
the whole human family. And he prays
that all may come to know God through love.
In early April I listened
to a story about a young woman who had been born in China. Her name is Jenna Cook and she had been
abandoned on a street in Wuhan in 1992 as a baby. Adopted by Americans and raised in Massachusetts,
she decided in college at age 20 to go back to Wuhan to see if she could find
her birth mother.
She said, laughing, that
she was naïve – thinking that with a poster and her face, her body as some sort
of evidence – as in a family member recognizing her – she’d be able to find
someone – or to be found. But tens of
thousands of Chinese children were brought the U.S in recent decades. And Wuhan was a place where leaving infants for
a variety of reasons – well, it happened a lot.
Where she was left – it
was sort of a visitor’s bureau – next to a bus station. She went there with her poster – to see it –
and thinking perhaps someone would be there who worked there then. There was.
But when Jenna asked the worker if she remembered finding a baby in
March 1992 – the woman sighed, saying “back in the day” they found abandoned
babies all the time – so much that authorities stopped recording them.
A friend of a friend got
Jenna in touch with a newspaper and her story took off, went viral. When the day came for her to meet with
possible birth parents – over 50 families showed up. Thinking there would be only mothers – she
was surprised to see how many fathers came by themselves – surprised to see
that some families brought the extended family with them – grandparents,
siblings, grandkids even.
All of these families had
left children in that same place. All of
them wanted to know – was their child ok?
Had they done well? Had they
survived? One woman brought a frayed and
tattered piece of cloth. She had
intentionally sewed a baby suit – for the day she and her daughter would
part. Hoping that one day – when she
could reunite with her daughter who would have the baby suit – and she would
have the fabric – and as with a lock and key, or second half of a locket – the mother
and daughter would know without a doubt.
But Jenna didn’t have
that baby suit – she said while the mother was standing before her – sobbing
with this thin piece of cloth in her hand – she was distraught she couldn’t be
that woman’s daughter. She wanted to
have the suit – just to ease the woman’s suffering. Jenna shared that was what happened most that
day – mothers and fathers – siblings and grandparents – crying and holding –
and sharing in the grief they all knew.
Jenna said – more than finding her mother - she so wanted to be
everybody’s daughter that day.[ii]
That longing is what I
hear Jesus praying for. Praying that we share our love of God through deep
compassion for each other – living as though we are part of God’s family. In two other gospels – a much more
straight-to-the-point-Jesus – Jesus says – Who is my mother – and who is my
brother? Those who hear the word of God and do it. (Matt 12:4850; Lk
8:21). We all know that Jesus spent his
ministry constantly breaking down the “clubs” the families – the groups – the
nationalities – the religions – that people invoked as reasons other people
needed to be kept out. For Jesus those claims
are barriers to God. To abide in God, to
seek to love as God. A love that desires
to uplift and uphold the human family – God’s family – from which we all come
from.
I don’t know about all of
you – but sometimes, I’ll confess – I’ll take God’s family over my own. Sometimes the ones you are closest too can be
the hardest to feel closest too. Yet it’s dawning on me, slowly through
experience – and it is a surprise – that as I struggle to practice Jesus’
family values with the human family – there is more forgiveness, more
compassion, more awareness of all our frailty, within my own.
When asked if she was
still continuing her search for her mother – Jenna Cook said – well yes, but
not actively. She was letting go and
letting God (leaving it up to fate, her words). For she felt she had in some ways met her
mother. She had a better understanding
of why she had been let go. And she
believed that she had given something to all those families she had met
with. She wasn’t their daughter – but for
an afternoon, in a way, she was. She
represented hope and possibility. And – she
bore witness – she let those families hold her, share their story, and weep.
Besides the genetic stuff
– it’s the shared story of our lives that makes family, isn’t it. Opening ourselves to other people’s stories
is risky – it’s hard – but it’s what moves us from “them” to “us.” This morning we hear Jesus praying for us -
all of us. That we will bring the story
of God into our lives in ways that reveal whose family we belong to most of
all.
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