Scripture/Sermon of the Day. May 29, 2022
John 17:20-26
20 “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on
behalf of those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be
one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that
the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me
I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 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. 24 Father, I desire
that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my
glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the
world.
25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but
I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to
them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me
may be in them and I in them.”
Reflection/Sermon:
I.This is our Memorial Day weekend edition of Sunday
Worship. It’s also the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Memorial Day usually falls
during one of the Sundays of Easter. We have two kind of opposite themes
happening simultaneously — resurrection — which is about life — and war, which
is about death. Newscasters say this weekend we honor people who made “the
ultimate sacrifice.”
II. Last Tuesday nineteen children and two adults also
made the ultimate sacrifice in Uvalde, Texas. And ten days before that, at a
supermarket in Buffalo, New York, ten people made the ultimate sacrifice. Both
veterans and civilian adults and children have sacrificed their lives for the
right to call themselves American.
III. The shooters of both these mass killings were
just boys, 18 years old. The one in Texas just turned 18 so he could legally buy
the two assault rifles he wanted made by Daniel Defense, in Georgia. At the
National Rifle Association Convention this weekend in Houston, Texas, Daniel
Defense decided not to set up their booth because they said it would not be
appropriate to sell more guns when two of theirs just killed 19 children and two
of their teachers. So their space at the convention was given to vendors selling
popcorn and baked potatoes.
IV. Right now our country is about as divided as it
has ever been. It might be time for congress to change our name — maybe to just
"States of America".
Our country was named on September 9, 1776, when the
Continental Congress formally declared us to be the United States of America,
replacing the name “United Colonies” which was in use before that.
The dictionary says UNITED means: MADE ONE — combined
into a single entity. “Made one” — isn’t that what Jesus prayed for in our
reading this morning?
V. Jesus prayed to God for us all to be ONE. The
reason he asked God to make us one is because he knew we can’t do that by
ourselves. It’s not in our nature to do that! Our country’s documents say we are
created equal — but not united. Only God can do that — so Jesus asked God, not
king Herod or Pontius Pilate or the High Priest Ciaphas. Only God can unite us
because love comes from God and it takes love to connect people.
We need a vision like the one the Trappist monk Thomas
Merton had on a street corner in Louisville, Kentucky. He was there shopping for
the monastery on March 18, 1958, and while waiting on a busy downtown street for
the traffic light to change, he experienced what he called AN EPIPHANY WHERE HE
SAW EACH PERSON AS HE IMAGINED GOD SAW THEM. ALL OF THEM IN SEARCH OF MEANING
AND JOY. ALL IN NEED OF LOVE. He wrote in his diary “I was suddenly overwhelmed
with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I
theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total
strangers. IT WAS LIKE WAKING FROM A DREAM OF SEPARATENESS.” That feeling of
being connected by love to every human being on this earth stayed with Merton
until he died ten years later.
This morning we pray THAT JESUS’ PRAYER WILL BE
ANSWERED IN OUR LIVES — SO WE MAY BE ONE AND IN LOVE WITH ALL PEOPLE — awakened
by God from our dream of separateness.