Devote Ourselves to Prayer - Redeemer Episcopal Church

John 17:1-11 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

17 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,’ 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

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This sermon was preached and recorded for a certain context in a certain time (Redeemer Episcopal Church for the 7th Sunday in Easter), but we believe that God can and will speak outside of our own limitations. I hope that it can speak to you in whatever space you are in today. You can read the sermon below, listen to it at this link, and see the sermon preached at this link. 

Let us pray. God of in-between times, be with us now in our waiting. Comfort us in our prayer and call us to further devotion in this time, trusting in your promise of hope and peace. Amen. 

When I read all of the scripture for this morning— the first reading, the psalm, the epistle, and the gospel— I hear a common thread about difficult times, changing, and challenging times. 

In the Gospel text we just heard, Jesus prays for his disciples, his friends, for the last time before he is betrayed and handed over to the authorities. This are about to get really messy for everyone involved. They are about to lose their teacher to death on a cross. 

In Acts, we see another turbulent time for the disciples. They have once again found themselves without their teacher. 

Ascension Day was this past Thursday, when Jesus was taken up into heaven to be with God the Father for eternity. 

Up until that time, Jesus was with his disciples again after being resurrected from the dead. What an incredible time that must have been for them, to have the fullness of joy after seeing their friend and teacher be killed. 

But now he is going to leave them again. After only being with them a short time.

This week in our lectionary season, Jesus has ascended to heaven and Pentecost has not yet come.

We heard last week that Jesus told his disciples that once he was gone, he would send the Paraclete— the advocate, friend, comforter, the Holy Spirit— to be with the disciples. But that happens next week. 

It’s in this in-between time where we find ourselves this morning.

This week… we wait. So there are ten days in our liturgical calendar where we wait again, like Holy Saturday, to see what God will do next. 

It strikes me that what the disciples do during this time is they constantly devote themselves to prayer. All together, Acts tells us, the disciples gathered in a room apart from everyone else and devoted themselves to prayer. 

It is not some new age way of worshiping that Father Wiley has called us to when he encourages us to create a worship space in our own homes for prayer and devotion. It is not bizarre that Heather, our formation director, and Hannah, our youth director, have encouraged us to pray with our families during this time, providing opportunities for faith formation in the midst of our work and family life. 

They are following the examples of the disciples. They are following the example of the first Christian church, the one that waited desperately for a time when they could safely go back into the world and proclaim the wonder and good news of Christ Jesus. It sounds familiar…

I imagine it was a long few days for them— as they waited to see what God would do next, clinging to the promises that Jesus had, indeed, fulfilled in the resurrection. And now clinging again to his promise that he would send someone else, a comforter, an advocate, a friend, to continue to guide us and give us wisdom. 

And in this long, difficult time, what do they do? They stay with one another and they devote themselves to prayer. They’re not praying because they believe it can solve some kind of problem. They probably aren’t even praying that Jesus come back or things go back to normal. They devote themselves to prayer because they know that when God feels far away, we pray. When God feels far away, we talk to God and feel closer. We talk to God and we ARE closer. We listen for God and feel comforted. Prayer is not some holy problem solver. It is a practice of putting ourselves deliberately and intentionally in the presence of God. In a time right after the disciples literally watched Jesus be raised to heaven, when he left them once again, what else are they supposed to do? 

We, too, are in a similar liminal space. I remember in the beginning of this season, thinking that this would only be a short time away from everyone. A few weeks, perhaps— maybe it would even be a sort of welcomed vacation for me. I hunkered down and began making preparations for when we would come back together. I began busying myself with all sorts of things. 

I don’t like feeling out of control, so I began finding problems I could solve on my own. Things I could do or fix. I told myself I would complete all of our house projects in these few weeks. I began staying up too late, distracting myself with mask-making and reading news articles. I was constantly looking for ways to spend my time so these couple of weeks would go by faster. I was constantly finding problems that I could solve in an effort to keep my mind away from the helplessness I was feeling. 

And then the weeks drew on and I began to realize that this would be a marathon instead of a sprint. And I began to notice myself drifting away from scripture, drifting away from my usual habits of prayer and devotion, drifting away from the assurances of God and God’s promises for us. I was busying myself in an effort to distance myself from God, thinking I could solve this pandemic on my own.  

So it feels appropriate that we are in this time in our church year and hear these stories of the disciples while we wait anxiously for government officials to give us more information, while we wonder what comes next for our careers, the economy, our health, and our church. I have found myself unsettled and wondering what, exactly, am I supposed to do while I wait? 

Well, what else are we supposed to do but follow the example of the first church and devote ourselves to prayer? To keep alert and to notice what God is doing next, clinging to the promise of the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. So that soon, we might emerge once again into the world, renewed in the Spirit once again, to proclaim the good news of Christ Jesus with new joy and hope on our lips. Amen.