As One…

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is John 17:6-19. I’ll admit that when I read it last Sunday evening following worship as I began preparing for the following Sunday’s sermon, it didn’t exactly warm my heart. This passage is at the end of what biblical scholars call “The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus” (John, Chapters 13 – 17) I have to admit that for the first time in years, I was actually stumped by this passage. The words literally began to swim around in my head and swirl as I read them over and over and over again.

I guess you could say that this fits right in with the picture at the top of the blog. I took the picture in 2013 on one of my many visits to Grayton Beach off of County Highway 30-A. Watching the waves come in over and over and over again can be incredibly mesmerizing. As I took picture after picture and simply stood and listened, I lost track of time. It wasn’t until I went back and actually examined the photographs today that this particular photo jumped out at me. There is something about the way it captures the beauty and the power of the waves that strikes me.

You can easily get lost in the details of this particular passage. Between the summary Jesus was sharing with God of what he had done, and all of the deeper language, it is easy to get lost. The verse that caught my eye the first time I read the passage on Sunday evening was verse 10. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.” The specific phrase that stood out for me was “All mine are yours, and yours are mine”. The verse that jumped out at me today was verse 16. “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.”

When I stand on the shore of the Gulf and watch the waves crash against the beach I am often reminded just how small I am in comparison to the rest of God’s creation. I almost said small and insignificant, but slowly over the years I have learned that we are not insignificant at all. When you look at the vastness of what God has created… when you look at all of the intricacies found in particular bits of that creation… just the number of grains of sand on that particular stretch of beach or the amazing way that the seabirds soar and fly and dive… that God pays attention to us at all is simply amazing!

Even though we are a small part of this massive world and universe, we are not overlooked by the creator. The words of Jesus hit home when you look at them in the context that God does not overlook us despite the vastness of the universe. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine…” Each one of us is significant in the eyes of God. We are, to use the words of Paul in Ephesians 2:10, God’s masterpiece. We are God’s poiema (ποίημα) in the Greek… does the word look familiar? Not only are we God’s masterpiece, we are God’s poetry!

While Jesus prepared for the final showdown with the Empire and the Religious establishment, he prayed. Jesus prayed for himself. Jesus also prayed for his disciples. Jesus was claiming God’s care for himself and for the disciples. They don’t belong to the world, they belong to God. They were being called, just as Jesus had been called, to serve God in the world. And as they served, Jesus’ prayer was “may they never forget that they are one with God as you and I are one.”

No matter how difficult or dark the journey may be, remember this: You are God’s beloved… You are God’s poiema… You are God’s poetry… You belong to God, not to the world. In a world so filled with hatred it is easy to lose hope. Dear reader, do not lose hope. You are not alone and the hatred of this world cannot own you. Only God can make that claim… and God is love!