The glory you have given me, I have given them. Jesus’ words from the Gospel of John.
First, let me say how wonderful it is today to be honoring this year’s Wally Owen Award recipient, Patrick Wynne. We’ll say more about him, and the award, at the announcements. I was thrilled to learn that he would be this year’s recipient. Patrick is a Good Human Being. He’s a great listener. He breaks down complicated issues. He has that rare gift in a leader, perspective. He doesn’t waste time. We have members of his family here with us today, and I trust I'm on the mark with these observations.
And Patrick: the one thing I want to say to you directly is (and I want to say it from the pulpit!): this award isn’t being given as the culmination of your labors here. Just to be clear. This isn’t a send off. Not even close. In fact I think I have you booked for three meetings in the next two weeks. :)
We’re so grateful for your service. More about that, and about him, shortly.
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In these latter weeks of Easter--and today is the last Sunday of the Easter season--our Gospel readings do something strange: they take us back to the Last Supper, and the words Jesus spoke there to both God (in prayer) and his disciples (in fellowship). Only John’s Gospel narrates the prayers and conversations that they had around that table, and typical of this Gospel, John presents it as probably more esoteric than what was actually said that night. And that’s OK, because it’s beautiful. Poetry would be one way to describe Jesus’ words throughout this section of John. It’s a nice way to cap off the season of Easter.
In this particular excerpt, Jesus prays for unity--between him and the Father, the Father with the disciples, and the disciples with one another. In the wider church we call this Jesus’ “Prayer of Christian Unity.” You saw it quoted a lot in the twentieth century when there was a real effort among different Christian denominations to agree about certain basic tenets of our faith. “That they all may be one,” Ut Unum sint, It was the title of a papal encyclical about Christian unity by John Paul II. All that hard work hammering out agreements was successful enough that I don’t think most of us really fret over Christian divisions anymore.
But it’s important that this was one of Jesus’ parting wishes for his disciples. As Christians we need to take it seriously--both across denominations and in our own pews, with the people closest to us. We mustn’t forget that.
But there’s another theme in this prayer that caught my attention this week: glory. Jesus says it eight times in this chapter alone, chapter seventeen, five times in the first five verses. We’re meant to notice it. The glory you have given me, Jesus says here, praying to God, I have given them.
Glory. It sounds like lightness, like angels floating with translucent wings. In the New Testament it has associations with light, and can imply a kind of heavenly (as opposed to earthly) state. But in the Old Testament it’s just the opposite. Glory brings with it a sense of weight, of heft. God has glory. God isn’t like us, weightless and transient. We’re like grass that withers and blows away, flowers that fade, as the Psalm says. But God, God is glorious and permanent, and has weight that we’ll never have.
Except that in Jesus’ prayer, we’re given that. The glory you have given me, I have given them.
We’re made for glory.
Last month at Holy Cross Monastery, about two hours north of here and where I was lucky enough to spend a few days in reflection before Holy Week, I read a book by a chess grandmaster, The Moves that Matter. There’s a section on faith, and at one point he talks about being heavy, rather than light--in a good way. We need to know we’re real, that our existence matters. A meaningful life isn’t one that aspires to being happy, but to having weight. Last Sunday when I was away, I worshiped around the corner with the Quakers, my husband’s tradition, and he explained to me this week that Quakers, who call themselves “Friends,” have a term for this: a “Weighty Friend.” That’s a term of respect for members with spiritual and moral authority.
And we gain that weight--I say that in a positive sense, for a change!!--through our obligations, through deepening our connections to the world and the people in it.
Want assurance that you exist? That you matter? Go help out at a food bank. Take a moment to talk to someone after church, ask them how they’re doing and really listen. Or sit around a table on a Monday night hashing out the church’s finances because you understand that if you didn’t, if someone hadn’t always been willing to do this, that baby wouldn’t be baptized next Sunday, or that healing prayer said over the parishioner who just lost her mother, that person at the food bank your church supports wouldn’t get fed. So If you’re moved, join the Altar Guild. The Finance Committee. Property--we need people on the Property Committee!! Patrick has recently agreed to head up the Property Committee, so sign up and work with him!! :)
Patrick (and I mean this in the best possible way): you have lots of weight. Moral, spiritual heft. GLORY. You are a Weighty Friend. Today is a celebration of that, but let’s remember, we’re all made for glory. It was one of Jesus’ parting wishes that we understand this. It comes not from a life of ease and serenity, but of sacrifice, and giving. The life Jesus led, and the life we’re called to follow. Amen.