Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
The scene that we encounter in the reading from John today is quite striking. Jesus raises his eyes to heaven and begins to speak. He is praying to God. He is not talking to the apostles or teaching them how to pray. He’s talking to God, the Father, as he puts it. This is an extraordinary gift to us—a rare and intimate glimpse into a communication between Jesus and God. In his prayer, Jesus remembers what God called him to do and how he answered that call all the days of his earthly life. He reports that his teaching has had powerful effects. The Logos was not just heard but taken (like the Eucharist) into people’s minds and bodies and made into their flesh and soul. Thus, he tells the Father, they belong to God now. God called Jesus to this work, and he has done it. As he anticipates his passion he knows that he has done what God asked.
In Acts, we encounter Paul as he is giving his departing word to the Ephesian elders at Miletus. Unlike the reading from John, which is between Jesus and God, this reading is not between Paul and God. Paul is not praying. He is talking to the people of the church he has made possible, and he is reminding them of his ministry—his courage to preach knowing he would suffer for it, his conviction to witness to the truth of Jesus Christ, his humility to live out the calling he got straight from Jesus with no effort whatsoever to promote himself.
As some very wise person said at some point—I don’t know either who or when—Christianity is always only ever one generation away from its extinction.
God called Jesus to be the Logos, and he was. Jesus stopped Saul in his tracks and called him to be the Logos in his time and well beyond that. And he was and is. So too have we been called. It’s not of our doing. As it was not of Jesus’ doing. As it was not of Paul’s doing. We have been called to follow Jesus—the one who loved especially those who society loves to hate.
As we learned over the Memorial Day weekend, there are people today (many more than showed up at the courthouse square in Dayton with their hateful and fear-mongering message on behalf of white supremacy) for whom Jesus’ teachings of love of the stranger and the enemy is not just nonsensical—it is anathema. And not a few of the people propagating that message today also call themselves Christians.
As Paul leaves Miletus, he charges those who remain to live faithfully into God’s love for them. To reject fear and to preach the truth of that love. And the text from John tells us that Jesus is praying for us—that we might have the wisdom and courage to truly follow him who commanded us to love our enemy. May we embrace Paul’s charge and live into Jesus’ prayer for us. May we simply love whatever the cost. Amen.
- Sue Trollinger