The Gospel for The Seventh Sunday of Easter (May 8, 2005)
John 17:1-11
After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you; so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world existed. I have revealed your name to those whom you took from the world to give me. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now at last they have recognised that all you have given me comes from you for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have indeed accepted it and know for certain that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me. It is for them that I pray. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
We recall that Jesus always went off to pray with the Father. Now we know some of what He prayed about, at least with his friends around Him.
A Reflection
"I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us."
Yesterday I read about a group calling itself "Baptist" traveling to a faraway city in the US to picket others churches including an Episcopal congregation because of, according to the picketers, the consecration of Gene Robinson to the episcopate.
To which, I must admit, I responded in a most unloving manner, in my heart.
It went something like this:
If this bunch of travelers violated the sabbath by traveling to a far place and using cars and restaurants (probably non-Kosher restaurants, at that), how do they get off picking on a congregation that had nothing to do with Robinson's consecration, in the first place? Which parts of Torah and the purity codes does a person have to adhere to in order to avoid their ire?
Of course, that made me just like the travelers, didn't it? Whenever I can utter the word "they" in a religious context, I'm probably making Jesus cry, given what he is quoted to have said in the last verse of today's gospel selection.
I'm sorry, Jesus. I will do what I can to accept all your children into my love.
The Collect
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
7:44:48 PM 
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