Scripture John 17:6-19. The Message
(This passage is Jesus’ prayer to God for his followers)
I spelled out your character in detail
To the men and women you gave me.
They were yours in the first place;
Then you gave them to me,
And they have now done what you said.
They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
That everything you gave me is firsthand from you,
For the message you gave me, I gave them;
And they took it, and were convinced
That I came from you.
They believed that you sent me.
I pray for them.
I’m not praying for the God-rejecting world
But for those you gave me,
For they are yours by right.
Everything mine is yours, and yours mine,
And my life is on display in them.
For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world;
They’ll continue in the world
While I return to you.
Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life
That you conferred as a gift through me,
So they can be one heart and mind
As we are one heart and mind.
As long as I was with them, I guarded them
In the pursuit of the life you gave through me;
I even posted a lookout.
And not one of them got away,
Except for the rebel bent on destruction
(the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).
Now I’m returning to you.
I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing
So my people can experience
My joy completed in them.
I gave them your word;
The godless world hated them because of it,
Because they didn’t join the world’s ways,
Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways.
I’m not asking that you take them out of the world
But that you guard them from the Evil One.
They are no more defined by the world
Than I am defined by the world.
Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth;
Your word is consecrating truth.
In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world,
I give them a mission in the world.
I’m consecrating myself for their sakes
So they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission.
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Message Consecrated in Truth
Marv Meyer was a professor of religious studies at Chapman University, a member of the Jesus Seminar, a respected Historical Jesus scholar. You may have seen him on a National Geographic program on 1st Century Christianity some years back, looking very Indiana Jones-ish. He was widely acknowledged as an expert in the study of ancient Coptic Christian texts - and by widely acknowledged I mean he had people like the British Museum calling to have him determine whether a particular fragment they received was genuine - and he was an elder in his Presbyterian congregation. He taught his classes to use historical criticism in their reading of scripture - or any text for that matter. That is, to carefully investigate the origins of the text in order to understand "the world behind the text.”. When we do that we often discover that what we think a particular passage means may not, in fact, be the actual intended meaning at the time it was written.
Marv was once challenged to a debate by a pastor who was the sponsor of The Refuge, a conservative Christian student group on campus on the topic of Truth - is there one Truth? This was a greatly anticipated event, as I am sure you can imagine. On the night of the debate most of the students from the Religious Studies and Philosophy Department gathered, as did the members of The Refuge, to witness what was sure to be an intellectually stimulating discourse. Marv went first, speaking at some length - Marv was famous for speaking at length - about a number of ancient civilizations, how the development of their origin stories and legal codes had contributed to the creation stories and laws later immortalized in the Hebrew scriptures, and how many religious traditions share a number of basic elements - love for each other, care for the poor and oppressed, and so on. And that all of these contained Truth. He concluded, therefore, that Truth can be found in many places, not just one. The fans of Marv applauded enthusiastically when he (finally) finished. (I did say he was famous for speaking at length.) and we settled back to hear what the pastor had to say. He said, “I am the way, the Truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) and “I, the Lord, speak the Truth; I declare what is right.”. (Isaiah 45:19b). And that was about it. Oh, there was a bit more to it than that, but his entire and very brief argument was that the Bible said it, the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and therefore, that is the one, absolute and incontrovertible Truth.
Those of us who were anticipating a well presented scholarly discourse were a bit taken aback. I mean, yes. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And yes. God speaks the Truth and declares what is right. But, I don’t know about anybody else who was present that day, but I was hoping to hear why we so ardently believe that to be so. It reminded me of the time in a Wednesday night class at my church when I was in high school when I asked the priest “How do we know there is a God?” Now, I was kind of messing around - I asked this kind of unacceptable question all the time - but I also kind of wanted a way to answer people I knew who weren’t sure about God. The priest said, “You just have to believe.”. He may have added, “or you will go to Hell.” I’m not sure. I got home that night and complained to my father, who growled about the priest’s inadequate answer, then took me into the back yard and showed me a tree. He told me about the root system, and showed me how the nutrients were carried from the soil all the way to the ends of the little veins in the leaves. I had learned these things in science classes, so it was nothing really new. But then he told me how impossible it would be for that tree to have just happened. The tree, all of nature, with all of its intricate systems and details, he said, proved there is a God. And that’s kind of what I was hoping for all those years later in that debate at Chapman University. I was hoping that pastor would tell us how we know God is Truth. “You just have to believe” really still doesn’t do it for me.
Jesus, knowing that his time is very short, gathers his disciples around him and prays over them, speaking to God on their behalf, asking that they be guarded and guided after his time with them is done. He says “I spelled out your character in detail.”. He said, “They were yours, then you gave them to me.” He said, “the message you gave me, and I gave them, they believe . . they were convinced that you sent me.” They didn’t believe because he said they should. They were convinced by his sincerity, by his words and actions. They were convinced because he doubled down on the words of the prophets, and the Shema. He didn’t say, here is new stuff to believe. He said, this that has been taught to you since forever, these two commandments given to you by your God, this is truth. He quoted from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”. And from Leviticus 19:18 “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone … but love your neighbor as yourself.” They were convinced by the evidence of their own eyes, by the feelings that touched their hearts, by the fact that he put everyone else ahead of himself.
I have often told you that the God I was taught to believe in as a child is not the God I believe in today. What I was taught did come from the Bible, but even though it was in the Bible, I don’t think that I was taught Truth, at least, not the entire Truth. I think I was only told bits and pieces of what we know to be true about God. It wasn’t until I started seeing people who truly believed in God’s love and God’s goodness and God’s forgiveness, and who tried to live with love for others, even returning good for evil, that I was convinced, even as Jesus’ disciples were convinced, that this was truly God’s character, as Jesus had spelled it out for his disciples. To know this Truth, I had to learn about Sodom and Gomorrah and punishment for the unrepentant, but also about Ninevah and forgiveness for those who turned from their evil ways. I had to learn about the rewards given to those who labored in God’s fields all day, but also that those who came at the 11th hour were rewarded equally, that they were all loved equally. I had to learn about the many times the people of Israel “did what was evil in the sight of God” and were nevertheless forgiven and rescued, when they repented. I had to learn that God gave us not just a second chance, but as many chances as we needed, even 70 times 70 chances. More importantly, I had to learn that these Truths were not just words in a book, but reality as had been seen and experienced by people I knew.
We know the truth of God’s love, in part because of the stories we read in scripture, but more so because we witness it all the time. We spend a portion of our worship service talking about those moments during the past week where God entered our lives and blessed us. Jesus asked God to “guard them as they pursue this life . . . so they can be of one heart and mind, as we are one heart and mind. And to “make them holy - consecrated - with the truth . . . so they may be truth consecrated in their mission.” For just as God gave Jesus a mission, so too he has given us a mission, to carry the Good News - the Truth - of God’s kingdom to the ends of the earth, to love one another, and to spread that love throughout all the lands.
We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.
We here in this place and watching on YouTube, come from many different religious traditions and backgrounds. We come together here because we believe in the Truth of God’s love and acceptance, because when we say all are welcome, we mean everyone - because All means ALL. And all means ALL everywhere, and every when, not just in church on Sunday mornings. As Disciples of Christ, not just as a denomination or a congregation, but as individual disciples, let us be truth consecrated in our mission to love one another - no matter who the other is, no matter what political party or opinion on vaccines or on masking or who the President is or whatever . . . Those things, those divisions, are of the world, not of Christ. Our Christ given mission is to reconcile the world with God, to speak and act in such a way that those whom we encounter will know the Truth of God’s character, will see that we are made holy - consecrated - in God’s truth. When we go from this place, let us go in united in purpose, to carry the Truth of God’s love with us to every person we encounter, no matter who they are. As the hymn says, let us be “a lamp of burnished gold, to bear before the nations your true light as of old.” Let us carry the light of Truth into the darkness of division and strife, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Hymn “O Word of God Incarnate” CH 322
O word of God incarnate, O wisdom from on high
O truth unchanged, unchanging, O light of our dark sky
we praise you for the radiance that from the hallowed page
a lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age.
The church from you, our Savior, received the gift divine;
and still that light is lifted o’er all the earth to shine.
Your word is chart and compass that, all life’s voyage through,
mid mists and rocks and quicksands still guides, O Christ, to you.
O make your church, dear Savior, a lamp of burnished gold
to bear before the nations your true light as of old.
O teach your wandering pilgrims by this our path to trace,
till, clouds and darkness ended, we see you face to face.
