Sermon:         Be a Person!
Text:              John 17:6-19
Date:             May 24, 2009
Context:        WWPCCC
                     Memorial Day Sunday
                     (Outdoor worship)
By:                Rev. Steve Runholt

I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves . . .
they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

                                                                                                                                         John 17:13, 16

Our Session met this past Tuesday night.  Afterward I came home and to unwind, I turned on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.   In this particular episode Stewart focused his laser-like wit on the recent and very strange behavior of the Chrysler corporation. 

What irked Stewart was the means Chrysler employed for informing some of its most faithful dealers that they were letting these dealers go, cutting them unceremoniously out of the Chrysler family.

Most of these dealerships were mom and pop operations in smaller towns and cities.  Many of them had been loyal, faithful, exclusive Chrysler dealers for 20 and 30 years.  But even so, the big wigs in Detroit opted to inform the very people that kept the company alive of their decision to let them go.  And they did this – and this is in part what irked Jon Stewart – they did this via registered mail.

This would be like getting a letter from your own parents, informing you that after 20 or 30 years of loyal, faithful service as, say, a Runholt or an Anderson, you’re no longer part of the family.  Just like that, you’re out there on your own.

Even worse in the Chrysler case, though, and as if to add insult to injury, Chrysler informed the now disenfranchised dealers that the parent company would not be taking their inventory of cars back.  You know all those cars that people are not buying, mainly because we don’t make very good cars?  Well, you get to keep those, Chrysler magnanimously informed its party faithful.

All of which prompted Jon Stewart to launch a new segment of his show, called Be a Person for Crying out Loud!

Be a person!  It’s a wonderful slogan, isn’t it?  Be a person! 

It’s a simple but far-reaching way of saying that a person would not treat other persons with such obvious contempt, in return for years of loyal, devoted service.

Be a person.  A person would not deliver devastating news via the U.S. Postal Service.  Indeed, a person would try to find a way to avoid the devastating news in the first instance.

Be a person for crying out loud.  Be a decent human being. 

Now, the tricky part, the hard part, the part that turns a slogan into a sermon, (I hope it does anyway), is that this is much easier said than done. 

It’s not easy to live up to our best ideals.  It’s not always easy to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  It’s not always easy to love our neighbors as ourselves, never mind loving our enemies. 

One thing is for sure, we can’t do it alone.  Jesus may have known that better than anyone.  

Maybe that’s what’s behind his whole program, really.  He calls together a rag tag community – a tax collector here, a fisherman or two there, a political Zealot, a couple of loud-mouthed brothers – calls them together not just to turn them into disciples but so that together they might become fully realized human beings, fully realized people. 

As one commentator put it, Before leaving the disciples, Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom must continue to be lived fully in the midst of the world. It is never to be a purely intellectual or physical faith but a fully incarnate one (Michael Bruzzese, as quoted in Preaching the Word, sojonet.com, May 24th, 2009).

How they live their lives matters.  How they treat one another matters.  It matters so much that he informs them that this is how the whole world will know that they are his disciples – not by their range of theological expertise but by how they treat one another, how they love one another. 

It’s a risky proposition, though.  He’s made a huge investment in them, investing his very life in them, really, and now he’s about to leave them.  He’s asking them to carry on his mission, to incarnate, to embody, God’s love for the world just as much as he did, only without relying on him to guide them or inspire them or lead them. 

They will certainly be at risk of internal divisions and maybe more pressingly, from external and very real threats. 

For on the one hand, the world is dying for this embodied love.  The world needs this community.  Its disruption would signal the end of God’s intentions not just for the disciples but for all of us to become fully realized human beings. 

And yet on the other hand, the world hates them.

As Jesus himself put it, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 

This is not just because they’re weird, a bunch of religious wack-jobs who can’t be trusted to fit in with polite company.  No, it’s because they stand for a set of values that are completely at odds with the prevailing norms.

Walter Wink has pointed out that the word for world here – kosmos in Greek – would be better translated “system.”  They don’t fit in with the system because the system is broken and dysfunctional and oppressive and they resist that and stand for something different, and the system hates them for it. 

And so Jesus prays for them, one last time – a prayer for protection, a prayer for the survival of this small community of love. 

It’s an urgent prayer, and impassioned, and, it must also be said, long.  It’s also a little socially inappropriate. 

Only John gives us this scene.  The setting is the Last Supper.  Before taking his leave from them, Jesus is sitting at table with his disciples, giving them lots and lots and lots of last minute instructions. 

And suddenly he interrupts himself to have an extended conversation with God. 

Protect them that they may be one.  Gather them together so that my joy made complete in themselves.

It’s known as the high priestly prayer, and it is arguably the second most famous prayer in the Bible, after the Lord’s prayer. 

It’s famous because the unity for which Jesus prays is possibly the best hope of the church, a theological and existential vision that would unify faithful people from Arkansas to Zaire, creating a community of fully realized human beings that stands for something different from the values of a broken, dysfunctional and violent world. 

You look at our world today with all its violence and divisions and perhaps think, How quaint.  How impossible.  What a pointless prayer. 

And you would be wrong. 

As many of you know, I spent most of this week in Atlanta, attending the Festival of Homiletics.  This has become something of an annual tradition for me.  But this year I really had no choice but to go for the conference was dedicated to two of my spiritual heros – one of those being Barbara Brown Taylor.

And I must say Ms. Taylor was her brilliant self but it was the other honoree, Bishop Desmond Tutu, who stopped me in my tracks and who reminded me of how vital and urgent and powerful this prayer for protection and unity and joy remains today.

Not surprisingly, Bishop Tutu spoke at length about the struggle to overcome the evils of Apartheid.  Like the Roman Empire in Jesus’ time, apartheid was another one of those worldly systems that worshiped false gods, diminished the human person and contributed to the brokenness of the world. 

Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela and other champions of the anti-apartheid movement worked so hard, for so very long at such sacrifice to themselves to defeat apartheid and make their country more humane because every little black child asked this of them. 

And then Bishop Tutu held up an example of why is so that I will never forget.

He noted that in his tradition worshipers often genuflect in front of the Altar.  The presence of the Altar signifies that this is a holy place and people bow in reverence before it. 

But in the end, the altar is a piece of furniture.  If you want to find something truly holy, Tutu observed, something with a touch of the Divine built into it, something worth bowing down before in reverence, turn to your neighbor. 

And so they fought against this system of oppression, this de-humanizing system, with all their hearts.  With the valor of heroes they fought on, even in the face of defeat.  For they knew in those same hearts that every child in every township, every child in every country in the world, has the right to become a fully realized human being, a fully realized person. 

Every child in every township, every child everywhere, is an Altar of sorts, a place where the presence of God is manifest on earth, worth bowing down before in reverence. 

And every system that denies them their humanity is to be resisted.

And as they fought and resisted, they took comfort from this prayer.  They needed this prayer for safety for this system hated them, just like Rome hated the disciples. 

And they found strength in this prayer for a community of love, this prayer that their joy might be made complete. 

This prayer that they might be one, that they might become and remain the people God created and called them to be. 

This prayer that they might change the world.

And you know what? That prayer was answered.

They did change the world.

Amen