In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.
Have
you ever received something and didn’t realize the treasure that it was? Maybe
it was some sort of odd tool that you never thought you’d use, but it’s become
your go-to. Perhaps there is someone you thought was only an acquaintance, but
in a moment of great need, they became your hero. For me, it was a piece of
advice. Many years ago, as I was hoping that a particular job search would
open, a good friend said, “Robert, if you want something, ask for it.” At the
time, it was simple advice, but, for me, it’s been an invaluable piece of
wisdom. Sometimes we receive things and we just don’t understand how life-giving
and important they are.
In
a small way, those examples of overlooked gifts give us a way of readings today’s
Biblical texts. The Gospel text from John truly is a gift to us. It is the
final prayer that Jesus prays before his Passion begins and we’re allowed to
eavesdrop into this prayer between Jesus and his Father. With the use of the 3rd-person
“thems” and “theys” we might not realize that Jesus is talking about us to God.
As a spiritual practice this week, you might read through this prayer in John
17 and change out those words for “me” and “us” so that you’ll know that Jesus
asks, on your behalf, for you to know God’s glory, for you to inherit eternal
life, for you to be kept forever in God’s love.
This
reality of God’s care and keeping of us all is what we read about in 1 Peter. In
this book, St. Peter is writing to a church in the midst of great suffering and
persecution. While we can take great comfort and solace from this passage, we
do need to be careful not to read the “fiery ordeal” about which Peter writes
as being too similar to the pandemic that we are living through. When Peter
speaks of the fiery ordeal, he’s not exaggerating or using hyperbole. Followers
of Jesus were actively being persecuted by the empire and sometimes being
thrown into literal fires. While this pandemic certainly is an “ordeal,” we are
not suffering on account of our faith in Jesus. The last thing we need is to
develop a martyr-complex anytime things don’t go our way. With that caveat
being addressed, the same comfort that St. Peter offers to early Christians is
offered to us.
And
before getting to the heart of these words of consolation and hope, it’s worth
remembering who this letter is attributed to – St. Peter. This is the same
Peter who denied Jesus three times on the night of his betrayal and the same
Peter to whom Jesus came after the Resurrection and restored their
relationship. Peter, first hand, knows the grace of God in his life. He’s been
forgiven, restored, and assured of God’s love for him. And this forever changed
him and he wants us all to know of the grace and comfort of Jesus. Thus, he
writes, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.”
Now,
we’ve got to be very clear on this point – St. Peter is not saying that if we
cast our anxiety on God or are absolutely resolute in our faith that everything
will work out. That’s a heresy called the Prosperity Gospel and you can find it
being peddled in churches all over the place. Jesus is not our personal
assistant whose job is to take care of all of our problems for us. Notice that
Peter doesn’t say, “cast your anxiety on him, because he’ll make it all better.”
Nor are we told to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. No, we cast our
anxieties on God’s graciousness because God cares for us. When we cast our
worries on God we remind ourselves that we are never alone in those ordeals of
life. This is what Jesus is all about – Emmanuel – God with us.
Sometimes we don’t
realize just how great a gift it is to have God’s presence in our trials and temptations.
In a world full of prowling lions of all shapes and sorts, having Jesus with us
makes all the difference. And with Jesus on our side, it means that we don’t
have to be tempted to be our own saviors. When Peter writes, “Resist the devil,
steadfast in your faith,” he’s not telling us to do battle with the forces of
evil – for one, Jesus already went toe to toe with them on the Cross. Secondly,
if we try to resist evil on our own, we will certainly fall. Instead, the word
that Peter uses here is where we get our word antithesis. So it’s not an exhortation to fight a losing battle
against these prowling lions, but rather to stay resolute in the faith and not
become like one of those lions. Don’t prowl on others. Don’t devour others. And
by being steadfast and obedient to the faith, hope, and love of Jesus, we become
aware of God who is standing with us. We just might miss God’s comfort though
if we’ve acting like wild animals instead of the bearers of the Divine image
that we are created to be.
The story from Luke
is a great example of not recognizing this gift that has been received, which
gives me great comfort to know that when I make mistakes, I’m in the company of
the disciples. These followers of Jesus have heard his teaching, they’ve seen
the healings, they’ve seen the Resurrected Jesus and had meals with him – and yet
they still are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to salvation. They ask, “Is
this the time you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?” They had so imagined
that the Messiah would overthrow Rome and return the nation of Israel to glory
that they struggle to see it any other way. Certainly, Jesus is going to do those
things, just in very different ways. The Roman Empire would eventually adopt
Christianity as its official religion in the 300s and the Messiah of Israel
becomes the person that billions of non-Jews follow throughout the millennia.
But that’s not how the disciples were expecting the gift to come, and they
almost missed it.
Jesus isn’t here
to lead a nationalist movement about political power. The Kingdom of God doesn’t
come with a regime change, but with a very different kind of power. The power
that Jesus gives us isn’t the power to control other or to be in charge; no, it’s
the power that Jesus has in mind is the power of the Holy Spirit to make us
witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”,
which includes Salisbury. Our power is in witnessing to the new life of Jesus’ Resurrection,
to the saving grace of his Crucifixion, to the transforming power of his love.
Our power comes when we share with people the peace of Christ, when we serve
those in need in his name, when we forgive others just as we have been
forgiven, when we are generous just as God has abundantly blessed us. This is
the gift we are given: the very Spirit of God dwelling within us so that we
might be a witness to God’s grace and love.
But this isn’t
always the gift we’ve been searching for. We quite like our comforts, our
riches, our luxuries, our preferences. When Jesus tells his followers that they
are his witnesses, the word is the Greek word martus – we are to be martyrs. Now, not all of us are going to be
called to die by the sword for our faith. But the gift we’ve been given is
worth dying for. And in many smaller ways, our faith leads us to die to self
that we might rise with Christ. Prioritizing the needs of others over our own
desires, being charitable with our time and money, and recognizing the
God-given dignity of everyone, especially those with disagree with, all make
demands on us. These are difficult things to do, but they make us witnesses to
Jesus, they show us the way of abundant life that Jesus intends for us
Returning to John,
Jesus tells us what is at the heart of this gift that we have been given. He says,
“And this is eternal life, that they (and remember that means you and me) may
know God.” Knowing God is the greatest gift of all. And it’s a gift that can
never be taken away; it is ours for all eternity. Now, knowing God isn’t an intellectual
sort of thing. It’s not knowing about God in a way that a plumber knows about
pipes or a physician knows about the body. It’s knowing as in having a
relationship – as in, do you know that person, could you ask them a question
for me? And once we know God in this sense, we have eternal life. Eternal life
is not the reward for knowing God, it is the result of knowing God. When we are
in a relationship with the Lord of Life, we will be kept forever in his grace.
And, remember,
eternal life doesn’t begin in the future. That’s not eternal. Eternal life is
happening right now as we know God through Jesus. Knowing God puts us in the
stream of the faithful throughout space and time, knowing God roots us in the
peace of God that passes all understanding, knowing God trains us to trust that
all shall be well. Sometimes eternal life is translated as “fullness of life,”
and that is what Jesus gives us by putting us in a relationship with the only
true God.
You may have
noticed in John that Jesus talks a lot about glorifying the Father and the Son.
Glorify simply means to show others the glory and grandeur of something. Jesus
says that he will be glorified in us. That’s the wonderful gift that we’ve been
given that we might easily overlook. In you and me, by the power of the Spirit,
Jesus is witnessing to the glory of God. And because it happens in us, we get
to participate in this glory. One of the greatest prayers in the Prayer Book
prays, “O God of unchangeable power and eternal light… let the whole world
see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and
things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are
being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were
made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” That’s the gift that Jesus has
given to us – that his glory, his redemption, his Spirit is given to us. In
Jesus, we have come to know God, and knowing God is eternal life. And in this
eternal and abundant life, we find the comfort of God’s presence always being
with us as we face the ordeals of life and stand firm against evil.
Maybe that wouldn’t
make any top 10 lists for reasons why people join a church or call themselves Christians,
but that’s the gift that we’ve been given – that our lives become a witness to
the glory of God. And what a gift it is!
