Last words

Betty Stroud

Year C Easter 7 2025

John 17:20-26

Do you remember the first prayer you were taught?

I can remember a prayer that my mum taught me to say before I went to sleep. It was a prayer that asked for God to bless all the members of my family and then to remember those children who didn’t have anywhere to sleep and who didn’t have any parents.

Then there were other prayers that I was taught during my childhood:

A grace which was said not only by my family but also by my aunts and grandmother who lived next door to us. – and the Lord’s prayer which I learnt at Sunday School

Prayer: It’s an important aspect of a Christian’s life.

We have all different sorts of prayers:

Take a moment to think about the sorts of prayers that we pray. Any thoughts?

Jesus knew the value of prayer. There are many accounts in the gospels of Jesus taking time out to ‘go away’ on his own to pray.

The reading we had from John’s gospel is a prayer: Part of a long prayer that Jesus prayed on the night before he died. A prayer in which he sort of recaps to God what his ministry has been about and what it has meant to his disciples.

It’s a prayer which is, like a lot of John’s language, fairly convoluted. It’s a bit hard to follow in parts. But it has at its heart a simple and inclusive understanding of faith.

It’s a bit like some of the bedtime prayers we learnt as children – one of which might have gone something like this:

“God bless Mummy and Daddy..
Bless my brother except when he’s mean to me.
Bless Paddy, our dog, because he’s not feeling well.
Bless Aunty Ann and Uncle Tom
and don’t let granny forget my birthday present tomorrow…”

This prayer and others like it were prayers that included everything in a child’s world and which trusted in God.

And so it is with this prayer of Jesus.

In general theological term we could say there is a generosity in this prayer – a generosity based on a simple and inclusive understanding of faith.

Just as in the prayer I stated before where mum and dad, aunt and uncle, brother, dog and presents are all connected – so, in his prayer Jesus is saying that he, God and his disciples are all connected, and that they should know it and live by that truth.

Let’s move out of the Biblical world and take a step into our time – and let’s think about where there is a need to think and act generously and inclusively – acknowledging that all things are connected?

As we do this, I want us to think about three things.

Firstly, we – and all living things – are connected by nature.

More and more we are learning how physically interconnected we are: that in nature we form one ecology and we belong to a complex chain of events.

As we look at the complex eco-systems of this planet we can see how much we, and other forms of life are connected and dependant on one another. We don’t live in isolation from the rest of nature. We are part of it. We are one with it.

I was talking with an Aboriginal elder the other day and discussing how much Aboriginal spirituality can teach us about our connectedness to our land and to each other. For Indigenous people – the very essence of life, is about being connected.

In this prayer, Jesus is reminding us of our fundamental one-ness.

Secondly, we are connected through our common humanity.

We are one through the creativeness of our God. Whilst we are each unique in our personality and appearance, we share a common humanity. We are linked together through that common humanity. We share the same sorts of pain, we share the same sorts of joys and love. Whilst these might play out in different ways through the various cultures that criss-cross this planet, the fact that we share a common humanity calls us to recognise there is no place for prejudice, racism, or bias.

During this week I have read a couple of articles by Jewish people in which they remind their readers that what is going on in Gaza is against every moral and ethical principle of the Jewish people. Their words reminded me that we share a common humanity, and every fibre of our being must revolt against actions that break that humanity apart.

Thirdly, We are connected through grace.

God lurks behind everything in this world – sometimes God is hard to find, and sometimes God is hard to recognise – but if we opened our eyes and ears and hearts at the beginning of each day and asked for a bit of help in finding God then we would probably be surprised.

We live in a grace filled world if we would but recognise it.

And when we do recognise it, we can know that we are embraced by a common Spirit that infuses all things.

Three ways in which we are connected

We are one in nature, so we must reverence our world.

We are one in humanity, so we must respect one another.

We are one in grace, so we must acknowledge the God who often is hard to find.

Over 50 years ago an American theologian called Bernard Meland wrote the following words: They were written in 1953 so the language is not inclusive:…. He said::
“Man is not fashioned in a mechanism, a world-machine; he is cradled and nurtured in a creative community of love which extends beyond the visible bonds of human relations”

Our life experiences certainly occur within individual lives.

But they are never simply an individual, subjective event, rather, they are a happening within relationships that take on public character with social consequences.

Our life experiences are always experiences we have in community. We are connected!

Where does Jesus’ prayer fit into all of this?

At its heart, this prayer that Jesus offers, is about re-imagining.

Re-imagining the world:

The prayer prayed by John’s Jesus was an invitation to the people of John’s community to be inspired, to re-imagine.

To think of what Jesus’ life had been on about and to translate that into how they lived their own lives.

And I think that we today might well consider it an invitation to do some re-imagining and to think about new ways of living and the possibilities that might then open up to us.

Prayer is not just something that we say by rote at the end of the day. Nor is it something that can evolve at a moment’s notice. Rather, prayer comes from the connectedness we have with our world, with each and with our God.

If we are truly connected then we will find ways to pray effectively and as we do this God’s Spirit will work in our lives to change our hearts, to reroute our habits and habitual responses; to help us adjust to and find good in all that we can’t change, and to see the light in each person, no matter how difficult we might find them.

Jesus, in this prayer re-imagined the world. Re-imagined it in such a way that he saw everything fitting perfectly together through God’s love.

And now for a story I came across when I was doing some reading for today.

An immigrant from Russia was telling his children and grandchildren about life in the Old Country and told a story about his father.

One winter’s day, his father was away from home with his horse and sleigh, when a terrible blizzard began.

Soon, the man could no longer see through the storm.

He was lost and afraid and cold.

The wolves howled.

It looked like he might not make it home and he thought he might die.

The man slackened his hold on the reigns, letting the horse find the way home.

And he prayed.

The horse took off.

The wolves seemed very close.

On went the horse.

Eventually, the man realised that the looming shapes ahead were his house and barn.

He leapt out of the sleigh, led the horse in to barn, ran into the house, and fell to his knees in thanksgiving to God for his deliverance.

As his descendants sighed a sigh of relief that he had made it safely home, the youngest child whispered to her cousin. “He should have thanked the horse.”

We are one in nature.
We are one in humanity.
We are one in grace.
This morning, let us remember and celebrate that.
Especially as, and when, we pray.