Just like a prayer

Prayer.  Spending time with God, speaking to God, listening to God, making out needs known to God, seeking the will of God.  We pray out of need, out of obedience, and even out of habit.  We do it when things are going great…we do it more when the chips are down.  We pray individually when it’s just us and God, we pray corporately in group settings, and Pastoral Prayer or Priestly Prayer as it’s called in other faith traditions.  There are prayers of thanksgiving, watchful prayers, prayers of warfare, prayers of supplication…but my favorite type of prayer is the prayer of intercession.  Praying on the behalf of others or other things.  Needs that are known, needs that remain unseen. 

Every Sunday, we take some time and we name the needs of this congregation, we name the blessings we have received, we talk about those who are sick, or traveling.  We take this time to claim the events in our lives, and then we take them to God in prayer.  There are certain things I always try to mention in the pastoral prayer:  leaders of the people, both here and abroad, the earth and our care for it, the church in all its expressions, the sick, the oppressed…and we give thanks for the many wonderful moments we have experienced through the past week.

This morning, in the text from John’s gospel, we have moved around a little in time from where we have been.  We’ve gone back and revisited a moment in the human life of Christ before everything took that final turn toward the cross…moments before that turn, in fact. 

Last week we talked about Jesus telling his disciples to keep his word, after they had shared the last supper.  Today’s events are right after that.  Jesus is in the garden.  He is praying.  He knows what is about to happen.  He knows that he is about to leave his friends.  A million things are racing through his mind…and we are given a window into this talk between Jesus and God…this privileged conversation between Father and Son. 

So what does Jesus pray for?  He could have focused on himself…I would have.  He could have spent his final moments as a free person begging to be spared, begging to be numbed to the pain that was about to come, pleading for some other way, but we see that this prayer is a prayer of supplication and intercession. 

He prays for unity.  He prays for alignment.  He prays for love.  It is a prayer not of hope, but for hope. 

When Jesus surveyed the ragtag group of fishermen, tax collectors, carpenters and misfits that had come together to form the core group of his ministry, he knew the commonality that kept them together, was him.  Would this remain in his absence?  And what of the next generation, and the following? 

Jesus didn’t just pray for unity for the disciples, he prayed for a unity of the disciples that was like the unity shared by God the Father and God the Son.  A unity and alignment that is modeled after two parts of the same entity.  A closeness, a bond…almost not being able to tell where one ends and the other begins.  A bond not only shared among the twelve, but the twelve with the Father and Son, and the Father and Son with the twelve.  This hope, this prayer, we see stretches beyond the twelve, to those who will believe through their word. 

In these final moments, in these last free breaths…Jesus stops to pray for you, and you, and you, and me, and all the saints that have come before us, and for all of those who will come after us.

This is true selflessness.  This is the first being last.  This is being servant of all.  This is humility.

So this hope for unity within His people…how are we doing with that? 

I don’t know about you, but it’s something I struggle with.  It’s hard!  We talked about it last week.  Some people are easy to be aligned with…others not so much.  And when it gets difficult, I’m thankful there is a place I can come, in my brokenness, a place where we can all be one, unified, us in Christ and Christ in us in all our brokenness…and it’s at this table.  A table where we can gather not because we are worthy…but because we are hungry, and said yes…and there’s always room for more. 

This morning Christ invites us to take our place around this table he has set for us, as we turn to page 15 in our UMH and prepare to receive the grace that can be found in bread that is broken, and wine that is poured out….