The Word dwells among us in all our beginnings, middles, and ends: new year's eve year b

The first reading is Genesis 1:1-5, 14-18.
The second reading is Micah 5:2-5a.

A reading from Revelation (21:1-6a).

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;

     for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,

          and the sea was no more.

²And I saw the holy city,

     the new Jerusalem,

          coming down out of heaven from God,

               prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

     “See, the home of God is among mortals.

          God will dwell with them as their God;

               they will be God’s peoples,

               and God’s own self will be with them;

          ⁴God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

               Death will be no more;

               mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

                    for the first things have passed away.”

⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said,

     “See, I am making all things new.”

Also that one said,

     “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

⁶Then the one said to me,

     “It is done!

          I am the Alpha and the Omega,

               the beginning and the end.”

The holy gospel according to John (1:1-14).

In the beginning was the Word,

     and the Word was with God,

     and the Word was God.

          ²The Word was in the beginning with God.

               ³All things came into being through the Word,

                    without whom not one thing came into being.

                    What has come into being ⁴in the Word was life,

                         and the life was the light of all people.

⁵The light shines in the darkness,

     and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God,

     whose name was John.

          ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light,

               so that all might believe through him.

               ⁸John himself was not the light,

                    but he came to testify to the light.

⁹The true light,

     which enlightens everyone,

          was coming into the world.

     ¹⁰The light was in the world,

     and the world came into being through the light;

          yet the world did not know the light.

     ¹¹The light came to what was their own,

          and their own people did not accept them.

               ¹²But to all who received the light,

                    who believed in the name,

                         the light gave power to become children of God,

                              ¹³who were born,

                                   not of blood

                                   or of the will of the flesh

                                   or of the will of a human,

                                        but of God.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us,

     and we have seen the glory of the Word,

          the glory as of a father’s only child,

              full of grace and truth.

The gospel of the Lord.

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Today is a day of endings and beginnings.  As we end our calendar year, not only do we prepare to begin a new one, but we are already right in the middle of Christmas and the birth of God with us.  Add into that Advent being the beginning of our new church year, and we have a whole mess of beginnings and middles, even at this ending.

Our readings for today reflect this as well.  A story of beginning creation in Genesis, new hope for a Messiah to come in Micah, a hymn of beginning creation and the Word made flesh in John, and newness in Revelation.  The poetry of these readings pulls us into the mystery that comes with beginning and ending.

The vision laid out in Revelation feels magical, even, with the new heaven and new earth.  For me, especially having grown up in the mountains of Colorado, it’s like the day after a snowfall—this morning, for example.  Everything feels new and bright as the sunlight twinkles like glitter off the new flakes of snow blanketing everything.  It’s not a complete restart, but it feels new enough to be one.

Maybe that’s the real truth of all of these readings—that beginnings and endings are never only one or the other, but instead encompass so much more.  While we frequently think about the world in binaries—beginning and end, dark and light, dog and cat—that has not always been the worldview. 

My favorite Hebrew poetry technique, called a merism, actually shows up all over the place in our readings, especially the reading from Revelation.  A merism names two things typically understood as being at opposite ends of a spectrum or idea, like heaven and earth or male and female, dark and light, as a kind of shorthand to include everything in between.

So when we hear or read about God creating the heavens and the earth, we can think about the creation of the whole cosmos.  And when the One on the throne in Revelation says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,” we know it means not only the alpha and the omega, but also the beta, gamma, delta, epsilon—the beginning, middle, end, and every new beginning.

The God who comes to us as the Word made flesh isn’t just with us at the beginnings of birth and baptism and the endings of funerals, but instead the Word made flesh is with us in every moment of our fleshy lives.

The incarnation, which we celebrate particularly at Christmas, is God choosing humanity with so much enthusiasm that God takes it all on—the joy and the sorrow.  God takes on our graduations, new jobs, relationships, sobriety and recovery, as well as the layoffs, failed tests, broken relationships, and royal mess-ups. 

God is with us in all of that and each week as we celebrate communion, we receive a tangible reminder of that love and grace that chooses to be with us for it all.  In the bread and wine, which are the body and blood of Christ, Jesus, the Word made flesh, joins in our flesh and journeys with us throughout the week—at every Table, bedside, and bus stop.  

Jesus sticks with us no matter what, so that at the end of all things, we are not surprised to find God with us for what may not be an ending, but just the middle or even another beginning.

Thanks be to God.

god is hope in the face of disappointment: advent 3b

The first reading is Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11.

The holy gospel according to John 1:6-8, 19-28

⁶There was a man sent from God,

        whose name was John. 

                ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light,

                        so that all might believe through him.

                         ⁸He himself was not the light,

                                but he came to testify to the light.

¹⁹This is the testimony given by John

        when the Judeans sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him,

                “Who are you?” 

²⁰John confessed and did not deny it,

        but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” 

²¹And they asked him,

        “What then?

                Are you Elijah?”

He said,

        “I am not.”

“Are you the prophet?”

He answered,

        “No.” 

²²Then they said to him,

        “Who are you?

                Let us have an answer for those who sent us.

                        What do you say about yourself?”

²³John said,

        “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

                ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”

                        as the prophet Isaiah said. 

²⁴Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 

        ²⁵They asked him,

                “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

²⁶John answered them,

        “I baptize with water.

                Among you stands one whom you do not know, 

                        ²⁷the one who is coming after me;

                                I am not worthy to untie the thong of their sandal.” 

²⁸This took place in Bethany

        across the Jordan

                where John was baptizing.

The gospel of the Lord.

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When I was in college, one of my majors was Spanish, which required me to spend at least one semester in a study abroad program in a Spanish-speaking country. 

I was really excited about this—I’d traveled some and part of my interest in a Spanish major was because I loved getting to know new cultures and new people.

So, as I prepared for my semester in Argentina, my excitement only grew as more and more of my fellow students told me that studying abroad would be “the best experience ever!”  When I finally dove into my five months in Buenos Aires, ready for an unequivocally awesome time, I … was disappointed.

My study abroad experience wasn’t terrible.  I made friends in and outside my program, some of whom are still friends today, and I got to know a lot about Argentine culture and history.  I learned a lot in my classes and I did a lot of soul-searching, discovering more about who I was and, like John in today’s gospel, who I was not.  I also, as with many people spending time in big cities, got catcalled.  I spent more than a few lonely nights at home.  And I had plenty of miscommunications to deal with.

All in all, the experiences that made up my five months in Argentina were probably no better or worse than anyone else’s study abroad experiences, but I had definitely gotten my hopes up ahead of time.  Everyone had said that it would be amazing and not once did someone suggest that there would also be times that were hard or lonely or even just awful.

I wasn’t expecting the hard times because nobody had mentioned that there would be any.  I thought it would be great all the time.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like that—planning the perfect party or vacation, or even a holiday celebration that only ends up with disappointment—but the original hearers of today’s readings would have been quite familiar with disappointment.

In our first reading, Isaiah is speaking to a people who are finally back from exile, which they’ve longed for for what feels like forever, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  Life isn’t all of a sudden perfect like they’d thought.  The devastation of the exile is still too present in the destruction of cities, the hard memories of their time in exile, and the changes they’ve experienced. 

And yet Isaiah proclaims, “The spirit of the Sovereign God is upon me, because the Sovereign has anointed me; God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. ”  Isaiah’s message, which Jesus will reiterate in his ministry, is good news for those disappointed people. 

This liberty, this release, this good news doesn’t have the delivery time that every online retailer currently seems to be offering—“oaks of righteousness” do not grow over night, after all. 

Isaiah states that “as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Sovereign God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations,” but he never says it’ll be quick.  The seeds are planted and will grow into oaks … eventually, but not on the timeline of these people who have finally returned from their exile and just want everything back to the way it “should be” now.  Patiently or impatiently, joy will come, but now it’s time for them to wait.

Like those early Israelites returned from exile, the Judeans in the gospel reading are also waiting.  They’re anticipating this coming messiah, and John seems like a pretty good candidate, so the religious leaders send some priests and Levites to investigate.  Filled with hope and expectation for the one who will deliver them from the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire, they ask, “Who are you?”

John’s reply, however, is another disappointment. 

John.  Is.  Not. 

“I am not the Messiah.” Not Elijah, not the prophet.  Not any of the really important titles they want to give him. 

Instead, John is the voice.  The voice crying out not of despair, but of hope—in preparation.  The voice who is a witness to the one who is coming.

John’s call in this moment is to hope and prepare for the one who is to come.  John’s work—crying out in the wilderness—may seem a bit fruitless.  But those seeds, scattered with his words on the wind and splattered with the drops of baptismal water, will find a landing place.  John’s witness will take root in the one to come—the one who shall be called Jesus.

In this time of Advent, we wait and hope.  We wait for Jesus to come again.  We hope for God’s reign to be made manifest all around us.  We wait and hope for peace.  We wait and hope for Good News in the midst of disappointment. 

Even as we sit in this Advent time of knowing that God wins—that Jesus conquers death and evil—we are also sitting in this disappointing time of God’s reign not yet fully on earth as it is in heaven.

This Advent time when the seeds are planted and may even be sprouting, we are still far off from the sturdy “oaks of righteousness” to come.  And yet, this is the time that we make for ourselves.  To join with John in preparing for God to come—bearing witness to Jesus and sharing the hope of a God who will come to us as the baby of homeless peasants who will soon flee to Egypt as refugees.

This time of waiting anticipates joy to come—it knows the ending.  And we can look back to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we can look back at the ways that God has been at work, not only 500 years ago during the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, but every day before and since. As I look back on my study abroad experience in Argentina, I am grateful.  While it was an experience filled with both disappointment and joy, I recognize God’s presence and work in me through that time.  Without it, I wouldn’t be the pastor I am today.

The holidays to come will also be joyful and disappointing.  They will be filled with memories both good and bad, which will bring any number of feelings up for us.  And yet, in all of those memories, God is with us.  In recognizing God at work in the past, working for good even in the midst of disappointing situations, we gain hope for the future that God is bringing about—a future of hope, a future of joy, and a future of Good News for us all.  Our hope rests in the oaks springing up, in the One who comes to us as Jesus, the Word of God, God-With-Us, Immanuel, our Hope and Joy.

Thanks be to God.

The Holy Spirit Entangles us with Jesus: reformation 500

The other reading referenced is Romans 3:19-28.

El santo evangelio según San Juan (8:31-36)

³¹Then Jesus said to the Judeans who had believed in him,

      "If you abide in my word,

            you are truly my disciples;

                  ³²and you will know the truth,

                        and the truth will make you free."

³³They answered Jesus,

      "We are descendants of Abraham

      and have never been slaves to anyone.

            What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?"

³⁴Jesus answered them,

      "Very truly, I tell you,

            everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

                  ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household;

                        the son has a place there forever.

                              ³⁶So if the Son makes you free,

                                    you will be free indeed.

El evangelio del Señor.

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As we celebrate the 500^th Anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, there has been a lot of reflection throughout our denominations on identity and meaning as people of faith.  Where is our identity rooted?  What does it mean to be Christian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Protestant?  Throughout the country and the world, Lutherans and Catholics especially, as well as a variety of people from different Christian denominations, have been gathering for ecumenical worship services.  Well, that’s old hat for us—we worship ecumenically every single week!

But as Jesus talks to those who believe in him—that is, us—in today’s gospel, the source of identity comes into play.  Jesus is talking to his community—his followers.  They believe in him, and yet when he questions their identity, they respond with the identity they’ve always had, “We are descendants of Abraham.”

They may believe in Jesus, and even want to follow him, to be his disciples, but their identity is not rooted in him.  It’s rooted in their ancestor, Abraham.  So then we are left to ask the question: what does it mean to believe in Jesus if it doesn’t reshape—or re-form—your identity?

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he focuses on the power of faith, using a phrase in the Greek that can mean both a faith in Jesus Christ and the faith of Jesus Christ.  Because the original Greek can be both, it lets us explore the potential meanings.  A faith in Jesus Christ is our trust in the Word made flesh who has come to abide with us.  And the faith of Jesus Christ is Jesus’ faith in and for us, a love for all of creation and a faithfulness to all of creation, even when we are unfaithful.

And as a Lutheran who cherishes the theology that affirms a both/and God who can hold paradox in tension together, even in the midst of our either/or world; and as a queer person for whom binaries, especially around gender and attraction, don’t fit, what I find most compelling is that Paul can mean both senses of the word.  It is not only our “faith in Jesus Christ,” but also and especially the “faith of Jesus Christ” in and for us that manifests God’s righteousness.

This divine entanglement of faith, where the two are entwined into informing each other, makes the difference between believing or trusting in Jesus and being entangled with Jesus so that our identity cannot be separated out, but must necessarily be rooted in Jesus, who makes us free.

As we are entangled with Jesus, we change.  Throughout this month we have been learning about different reformers throughout history and even into today.

One of the common characteristics of these reformers and others that we’ll name today during our communion liturgy is that their faith in and of Christ re-formed their identity.  As they took to heart Jesus’ invitation to “abide in my word,” Jesus also re-formed their identity, rooting it so deeply in Christ that they could live out of it, reforming the world and the church, Christ’s own body.  This divine entanglement re-forms not only individuals, but the whole body of Christ as well.

Argula von Grumbach, Catharina von Bora Luther, Katharina Schutz Zell, Marie Dentière (Dahn-tee-air), and Olympia Morata all challenged the common identities their cultures held for what it meant to be a woman as their identities reformed around faith in Christ and the liberating theology that the Protestant Reformation brought about.

Theologians and pastors like Jehu Jones, Vine Deloria Jr., Soren Kierkegaard, Mama Leo, and Darnell Moore were all informed by their faith to a deeper call and identity in Christ, which entangled them with others and the world in such a way that Jesus had to make change through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The list is endless.  And it raises our question again today.  Where is your identity rooted?  A great upheaval,      or reformation, takes place in the Church about every 500 years.  It is a time for us to dig deep and wonder about what our faith means, where our identity is grounded, and what needs to change.

This is the time to ask as individuals, as a community of faith, and as a whole body of Christ, who believes in the resurrection: what needs to die for resurrection to break in?  What parts of our identity are we trying to keep separate?  How is faith with Jesus entangled in our past, present, and future?

The Holy Spirit is alive and active in this community of faith.  I have seen her at work throughout these last two years as we have struggled together to make sense of where she is leading us.  The Holy Spirit calls us all to new things—to death and resurrection.

This 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation is the perfect time to take seriously our identities in Christ—identities entangled in the cycles of life, death, and resurrection.   

Identities not rooted in false ideas of the past or what could have been, but instead rooted in the liberating work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  

Identities grounded not in a specific building or location, but instead grounded in the way this community lives out God’s love for the world.   

Identities not held back by fear or anxiety about what the future might hold, but instead willing to risk for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is no guarantee of comfort or ease in our walks of faith, but there is a guarantee of Christ’s presence and faithfulness.  The Holy Spirit is calling us all into the death and resurrection of a life of faith.   She entangles us forever with Jesus, the One who makes us free.

Thanks be to God.

The Holy Spirit Stirs us up: pentecost a

The first reading is Acts 2:1-21.

The second reading is 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13.

The holy gospel according to John (20:19-23)

¹⁹When it was evening on that day,

      the first day of the week,

            and the doors of the house where the disciples had met

                  were locked for fear of the religious authorities,

      Jesus came and stood among them and said,

            “Pokoj vám!”

            “La paz sea con ustedes.”

            “Frieden sei mit euch.”        

            “Peace be with you.” 

            [“Peace be with you.” in ASL]

         ²⁰After Jesus said this,

            he showed them his hands and his side.

                  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

      ²¹Jesus said to them again,

            “Pokoj vám!”

            “La paz sea con ustedes.”

            “Frieden sei mit euch.”         

            “Peace be with you.”

            [“Peace be with you.” in ASL]

                  As the Father has sent me,

                        so I send you.”

      ²²When he had said this,

            Jesus breathed on them and said to them,

                  “Receive the Holy Spirit.

                        ²³If you forgive the sins of any,

                              they are forgiven them;

                        if you retain the sins of any,

                              they are retained.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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I love birthdays!  They are the one day of the year that a person—unless they’re a twin—gets to be the focus.  For that one day, everybody celebrates this person’s life, the ways they’re meaningful to them, and hopes for their life to come.

I also love the ways that different cultures celebrate birthdays.  Some cultures have unique parts of every birthday celebration.  Growing up, we always sang happy birthday—holding the last note purposefully off-key for as long as we could—the birthday person made a wish, and then attempted to blow out all of the candles on the cake in one breath.

While I was in Slovakia with the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission program, I learned of a tradition that had been lost in my family since my dad’s ancestors came over from Central Europe.  It is a tradition that I have carried with me since my time in Slovakia to varying degrees.  In Slovakia and other Central European countries, it is customary to bless the birthday person.

While I usually leave the shot of palinka or slivovica out of my blessings, with close friends and family, I make a point of blessing them and the new year of life that they are beginning.  I try to be realistic and hopeful in my blessings, so that someone who gave birth or is pregnant might be blessed with new experiences, and also sleep, or that someone who has been at the forefront in work towards a moral and just state budget is blessed with and in the struggle and also with triumph.  Each blessing becomes its own unique celebration.

In some cultures, certain birthdays are particularly important.  In Mexico, quinceañeras, or 15^th birthdays, are a particularly big deal.  As I was reflecting on and reading about Pentecost, which we typically consider the birthday of the church, I was reminded of Korean traditions around first birthdays.  In Korean culture, the first birthday is a big deal.  I’m sure D told many of you about her granddaughter’s first birthday, so I will just mention the thing that most stuck with me, especially as Rev. Theresa Cho wrote about her family’s celebrations in an article in the Christian Century.[i]

One main part of the first birthday dol or doljanchi, “a ceremony in which the child is blessed with a prosperous future,” is a table set out with a variety of different objects.  The objects represent types of prosperity.  The child is then placed before the objects and whichever object the child chooses represents the destiny that child claims.

What captivated me in Rev. Cho’s explanations of the objects was the openness to interpretation: the golf ball her first child chose could be a symbol for athleticism or for being a quick thinker.  When her other child chose grapes instead of any of the items laid out, it could signify a healthy appetite or the self-assuredness to determine their own destiny—to take the less obvious path.

As we celebrate the birthday of the universal church and particularly this year’s momentous 500^th Reformation anniversary and the accidental birth of Protestantism, we too have destinies laid out for us.  And these destinies are the ones that have been laid out for millennia.

In Acts, Peter points back to the prophet Joel, saying, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your children shall prophesy, and your youth shall see visions, and your elders shall dream dreams. ¹⁸Even upon my slaves of all genders, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”  This destiny is laid out for us and though we may not know what it will look like or what Joel and Peter mean, it is a destiny of new hope, change, and new life.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul sets before us some of the gifts of the Spirit: the utterance of wisdom, utterance of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, various kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

None of us possess all of these.  Many of us possess at least one of these, and some of us possess other gifts that aren’t listed here.  But as we sit with them spread out before us, not knowing quite what they will mean or how the Holy Spirit will use us or our destinies, one thing is certain: the Holy Spirit is at work.  She has come as tongues of fire and rushing wind, she has come in languages we do and do not understand, she has come in water, wine and bread, and she brings with her upheaval of the systems that harm us and all of creation and she brings new life to everyone.

Sometimes the work of the Holy Spirit makes us uncomfortable, sometimes defensive, and sometimes confused.  But these are good things!  They are blessings, because it is in struggling and being uncomfortable that we learn from each other and about ourselves.  The Holy Spirit rarely calls people to what is comfortable, but she does bless us with what is meaningful, which is ultimately life-giving.

The gifts and blessings of the Holy Spirit on this birthday of the church and each day are gifts of diversity and difference—new ways of being and connecting.  The Holy Spirit changes us and gives us new ways to proclaim with Jesus, “Pokoj vám.” “La paz sea con ustedes.” “Frieden sei mit euch.” “Peace be with you.” [Peace be with you in ASL].

Amen.

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[i] https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2015-04/may-24-day-pentecost

jesus prays for us: easter 7a

The holy gospel according to John (17:1-11)

¹After Jesus had spoken these words to his disciples,

      he looked up to heaven and said,

            “Father, the hour has come;

                  glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,

                        ²since you have given him authority over all people,

                              to give everlasting life to all whom you have given him.

                                             ³And this is everlasting life,

                                    that they may know you, the only true God,

                                    and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

            ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.

                  ⁵So 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.

            ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;

                  ⁸for 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.

      ⁹I 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.

                              ¹⁰All mine are yours,

                                    and yours are mine;

                                          and I have been glorified in them.

            ¹¹And 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.”

The gospel of the Lord.

-----

Today, as Jesus brings his time with his disciples to a close, he prays for them.  This prayer is one of the last prayers they will hear before Jesus’ death and so he really packs it in.

Jesus’ prayer is not only a prayer for his disciples in 1^st century Palestine, but for us as well.  It is a prayer for us as individual followers of Christ and as a community of faith.

In my second year of college, one of my high school friends died in a car accident.  Before I went home for spring break and the memorial service, my roommate made me a small survival package to go with me.  Included were several colorful note cards with bible passages on them to provide comfort in my grieving.  These note cards have traveled with me each time I move to a new place or face a new challenge.

One of the bible passages my roommate included was Jesus’ prayer in the 17^th chapter of John, only instead of all of the “they”s referring to the whole group of disciples, she put my name, so that Jesus was praying specifically for me.

So, for the next part of the sermon, I’m going to pass out today’s gospel, with an additional part, as the prayer actually continues for the whole 17^th chapter.  There will be blanks instead of “they”s and I changed the verbs, so they should match a singular person.  Please find one other person and take turns sharing Jesus’ prayer for each other, by adding their name in the blank.  Some people go by nicknames and full names, so please check with the other person to know what name they want you to use.

Jesus prayed:

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

¹⁷Sanctify _________ in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent _________ into the world. ¹⁹And for _________’s sakes I sanctify myself, so that _________ also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰”I ask not only on behalf of _________, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through _________’s word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may _________ also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given _________, so that _________ may be one, as we are one, ²³I in _________ and you in me, that _________ may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved _________ even as you have loved me.

Because faith and discipleship are so rooted in community, it’s important that even as we are praying for each other individually and lifting up Jesus’ prayer for each of us individually, we also pray within the context of this larger community of faith.  And it is precisely for this larger context of a community of followers of Christ that Jesus is praying.  So, now, hear this prayer from Jesus:

Jesus prayed:

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

¹⁷Sanctify First and Trinity in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent Trinity and First into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that First and Trinity also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰”I ask not only on behalf of Trinity and First, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may First and Trinity also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given Trinity and First, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in First and Trinity 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.

Amen.