READINGS

John 17:20-26

HOMILY

Traditionally there being 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost.

It's understood that the Ascension was on the 40th day and Pentecost is the 50th day, so that's how the mathematics of it works.

In this seventh Sunday of Easter we're given our last chunk of John to help us sit into, lean into the coming of the Holy Spirit which is going to come upon us soon as part of what our living the risen life of the Lord is.

And this Sunday we get the last part of Jesus's last talk with his disciples.

Immediately after today's Gospel, the account of the passion begins.

It's immediately after this that he goes out with his disciples to the Kidron Valley and from then on it's all action.

This is his last big set-piece speech.

And as many commentators have noticed throughout the years, it is referred to as Jesus's High-Priestly speech.

This is not simply a piece of Christian as it were poetic license, it follows quite strictly the form of prayer proper to the High Priest at the feast of the Atonement, both as that is set out in the book of Leviticus and, as more contemporary to Jesus, we know it from the Mishnah Yoma, which describes how this works.

And this works that at the beginning the priest prays for himself, then he prays for his immediate household of priests, and finally, he prays for the people, the rest of the public.

And here Jesus begins - chapter 17, verses one to six - he looks up to heaven and then prays that the Father may glorify the Son, give the Son the reputation that the Son had with the Father before the foundation of the world.

That goes on for a number of verses and then from verse six onwards he turns to his disciples, and then from 20 he turns to us, those who will have received faith through the word of the disciples, the successors to the disciples, in other words, the rest of the people.

And towards the end of that phrase, he says: Father, I desire that those also whom you have given me may be with where I am to see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

That comes towards the very end of today's speech.

So at the beginning, we have a reference to before the foundation of the world and at the end - before the foundation of the world.

Why is that important? Because that brings out that this is a High-Priestly prayer.

The understanding in the rite of atonement was that, on the day of atonement, the High Priest alone would go into the Holy Place, what we call the Holy of Holies, entirely by himself taking within the blood of the lamb which would then be sprinkled on the various artefacts in the holy place.

At the time of the first temple, there were artefacts, but then (just on the walls in the Second Temple period), before he came out to actually perform the thanksgiving sacrifice with the pieces of the lamb, the portions of the lamb that had been chosen to stand in for Yahweh.

Because the original understanding was that the atonement that the High Priest stood in for Yahweh.

Yahweh became interpenetrated, became one with the High Priest just for that occasion, and so that the High Priest didn't actually kill himself.

The lamb stood in for the High Priest.

So the understanding is that the lamb stood in for the High Priest who was standing in for Yahweh, which is why the lamb was called the lamb for Yahweh as opposed to the other stainless lamb, the one that was drove out, which was the one stood in for Azazel, for the prince of the demons.

The key thing is that all this took place within the Holy of Holies.

One of the ways that people referred to the holy of holies which was considered to be a microcosm of everything from before creation, everything before the foundation of the world, one of the ways that people referred to that place as 'before the foundation of the world'.

In other words, it was understood that if you were in the holy of holies, you were doing something outside and before material existence.

That was what the holy place symbolized.

It stood in for the reality understanding that the whole of creation already happened.

The whole of atonment already happened before anything was brought into being and the holy place was the place where the High Priest communed with that reality.

So here in John's Gospel, we have Jesus communing with that reality himself.

First of all, praying about how he's going to receive the reputation, the glory that he had with his Father before the foundation of the world - the glory, the reputation which is going to be shown in him sanctifying himself.

It doesn't mean he needs to make himself holy: he's going to manifest the holiness which he has through giving himself up to death.

That's the manifesting that sanctifying himself doesn't mean I'm going to engage in a number of strange little things.

It's a manifesting my holiness, God manifests God's holiness at various times.

Immediately before our Gospel this week Jesus says: and for their sakes - referring to his disciples - I manifest my holiness, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

In other words, the way of the cross that I'm about to engage in will be how I manifest my holiness, and I'm doing this so that they can themselves walk in truth by learning to see the mechanism that leads to people being crucified and occupied peacefully, not being run by fear of death or fear of accusation, but being sanctified in truth, occupying that space and being able to transmit it to others.

Then having asked that for his disciples, he then asks it for the rest of us: I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word.

We who, two thousand years later, have heard the Gospel through parents, through teachers, through friends, through reading certain books, through certain preaching - who knows how the word reached you, how it was brought to your attention that the word is beyond death that there is something greater than the whole of human culture run by death that has been spoken into our midst by God.

Who knows how that act of communication reached you.

Just think of the strange way it reached me, but this is the act of communication from God, which we call God's word, which is living, dynamic, which is born the Holy Spirit and which is part of what Jesus was giving his disciples.

On behalf of those who will believe in me through their word that they may all be one.

And here we have one of the things that Jesus is repeating from the atonement rite, at-one-meant rite, which is the time when everything becomes one.

The prophet Zechariah even says: on that day, God will be one.

There is a sense of the creation as a dispersed reality that hasn't yet achieved oneness, and that the power of the creator tends to making things one.

And that can be quite a frightening thing for us because one can be a way of making everybody fit into the same little hut, it can be a reductive thing, but it's quite obvious that Jesus is understanding the way in which God makes things live is an ever greater, it's one in the non-mathematical sense of 'is', 'with' so much diversity that harmoniously works together that we are able to rejoice in being brought into it, that the Father is in Jesus, the spirit which has been given is in both of them, and is shared with us so that we find ourselves actually coming alive in them.

It's being inhabited by something, it imagines us as malleable not as individuals with individual spirits, but as malleable inter-individuals, as my guru Rene Girard would say, who are able to be possessed by evil desires and spirits coming from others, but also able to be inhabited, indwelt by the Spirit which is making us with all our distractions and separations, and envies, and rivalries.

It's turning us into one.

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.

So part of the prayer of the atonement rite was the High Priest expected to be at one with the Most High by becoming an emanation of Yahweh, the second person, the Son.

This is what Jesus is doing - he's enacting that in real-time, not in a building, temple, but in what will become the future of the temple, in other words, our midst.

As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

In other words, our finding ourselves at one with each other thanks to Jesus's word is really the only thing that could possibly show the world that God's message is true.

Witness is all, we are being turned into witnesses.

People who are without even necessarily being aware of it give off delayed show, the true reputation of God who God really is, the one who gives themselves away in the midst of our violence, our fear, unworried, peaceful loving.

The glory that you have given me I have given them so that they may be one as we are one.

A reputation that enabled Jesus, his understanding for years, enabled him to come to this place to give himself away, that is what he's going to give to us: I and them and you and me, so that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

In other words, the whole of this is to produce people who are able to bear witness to love.

That's how we know that it is of God.

Titles, authority - none of those things is at the beginning of a hint of as much importance as this.

Are we in any sense at all the latest symptoms of God's love, or are we people who think that the love is only for me and not something that I receive from others and I'm able to share with others?

Father, I desire that those also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory.

In other words, from generation to generation we are in this same place.

This upper room which is also the holy of holies with the Holy One who is giving himself so that we can learn always to detect where he is.

It's going to look different, our imitation of it is going to be flexible from generation to generation, but this is the witness that we're going to bear.

That they may be with where I am to see my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

In other words, this plan precedes everything, this is not a reactive plan, this project of opening up creation through including us and bringing us into the possibility of discovering what is true, how things really are, what the way that the whole pattern of creation really works is, being on the inside of that was what he wanted from the word go.

Righteous Father, just Father, the world does not know you. It couldn't.

Our ordinary forms of learning of power or concerning what is powerful are completely distorted by our own living of power.

But I know and these know that you have sent me.

In other words, they have picked up that there is something about what Jesus is doing that suggests that he is a genuine act of communication from God.

I made your name known to them, I made who you really are available to them.

And I am going to make it now.

In other words, being on the cross that will be the maximum sign of who God really is.

There is no other image of God than Jesus on the cross.

So that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

This is the last phrase of Jesus's public address, his cycles.

The whole purpose of this was to enter into that place as to reveal what the heart of the creator of all things is in such a way that we might be contaminated by it, contacted by.

Maybe, it may be contagious among us so that we too can start to bear witness to what really is.

SUMMARY

Last part of last talk with the disciples.

High-Priestly speech.

Father, I desire that those also whom you have given me may be where I am to see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

If you were in the holy of holies you were doing something outside and before material existence. The whole of creation already happened.

The whole of atonement already happened before anything was brought into being and the holy place was the place where the High Priest communed with that reality.

I manifest my holiness, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

The way of the cross that I'm about to engane in will be how I manifest my holiness.

I'm doing this so that they can themselves walk in truth by learning to see the mechanism that leads to people being crucified and occupied peacefully.

Not being run by fear of death or fear of accusation, but being sanctified in truth, occupying that space and being able to transmit it to others.

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.

Everybody, despite rivalries or envies, being brought into One.

What God really is: the one who gives themselves away in the midst of our violence, our fear, unworried, peaceful loving.

The whole of this is to produce people who are able to bear witness to love. That's how we know that it is of God.

Are we, in any sense at all, the last symptoms of God's love, or are we people who think that the love is only for me and not something that I receive from others and I'm able to share with others?

The whole purpose of this was to enter into that place as to reveal what the heart of the creator of all things is in such a way that we might be contaminated by it, contacted by it, and may be contagious among us so that we too can start to bear witness to what really is.