What does it feel like to have someone praying for you? By name, in person, one-on-one? John Indermark remembers a childhood experience of being in the hospital for surgery when he was ten years old. He says he remembers a priest praying for him: "I seem to recall that as he came and stood at the foot of my bed, I felt a mix of wonder and fear. I did not know him, but he prayed. For me. He took time to bring my name and need before God. That I knew. That I still know. That I carry with me in ministry." [1]
I don't know about you, but I know about me, and I know what a blessing it is to know that someone is praying for me. In my first appointment in that little country church in Hawthorn, Pennsylvania, we had a weekly Wednesday night prayer meeting. Actually, we had three prayer meetings in each of the three churches—one on Wednesday and two on Thursday. Of course, we didn't have kneelers in the pews, so the pattern was that everyone would kneel at the seat of their pew, facing the back, and everyone would pray out loud, at once. This "season of prayer" would go on for a few minutes, then gradually die down, almost as if on cue, and Archie Neill's voice would be the last. He was one of the oldest members of the church and perhaps he had the most to say, but I think there was an unspoken understanding that he would get the last word. And whenever Archie would pray, one of his petitions was always: "Lord, we pray for our preacher and his wife as they labor here among us."
Another one of the saints in that congregation was Percy Copenhaver, my first Lay Leader. He was a retired coal miner, not well-educated, poor in grammar, but deeply formed in the walk of faith. I was young and eager and had made some mistakes, and to be honest, there were some folks in that church who weren't particularly patient or forgiving. It came to a head in a contentious Board meeting one night. After it was over, I was upset and I went out for a walk late at night around that small village. Percy's light was still on, so I walked up on his front porch, and it was as if he had been waiting for me. He was sitting there in his recliner, his well-worn Bible on the end table. I walked in and started to fuss. I paced and fumed, and he smiled and cried with me. And I will never forget, after a while he stood up and put his hands on my shoulder, and with tears in his eyes he said, "Listen, son, you've got your whole ministry ahead of you. Don't let it get you down." He prayed for me, and in many ways, he saved my ministry that night. In the words of John Indermark, Archie and Percy "prayed. For me. They took my name and need before God. That I knew. That I still know. That I carry with me in ministry."
Throughout the thirty years which have passed from then to now and right down to today, I have been humbled and blessed. And I am convinced that my feeble attempts at ministry have been saved by the prayers of others.
"So," Indermark asks, "who prays for you? Who lifts up to God your life, your journey, your hopes, your fears?" [1]
And what if that someone is none other than Jesus himself?
Last week we looked at what should really be called "The Disciples' Prayer," since it is in fact the model Jesus offered to us, saying, "When you pray, pray like this…" This week we look at what truly is the Lord's Prayer, the prayer our Lord prayed around the Last Supper table, just hours before his agony in the garden, the brutality of the beatings and the suffering of his cross.
In this prayer, Jesus prays for his disciples—the ones God has given him, the ones who have received his word, the ones who will carry his word into the world. He prays for the eleven who remain and he remembers the one who has left. Even Judas makes it into Jesus' prayer in a kind of regretful, pained acknowledgement of the loss of one who had traveled with him, prayed with him, ministered with him, and now goes to betray him. Jesus prays for his disciples…
And he prays for us. Jesus looks across the miles and millennia and prays for those who would follow, for those who would believe because of the disciple's word, and he prays for you and me.
1. His first prayer is that we would all be one.
With a kind of rapid redundancy and blinding repetition, he prays, not only for his disciples, "but for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one."
St. Paul will pick up the theme when he calls the Ephesians to "the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace with one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and in all and through all." (Ephesians 4:5)
And when we hear our Lord's Prayer and look at the life of the church today, you can't help but wonder what it must do to the heart of Jesus.
Every once in a while I listen to talk radio, just to get my blood pressure up. Just listen to the arrogant, self-righteous rhetoric of most of the religious media these days: critical of anyone who doesn't share their pet positions, degrading other Christians who hold different political views, sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong, and often misrepresenting and misquoting and exaggerating someone else's position in order to show how unchristian they are. In a day when our nation and world are divided by heated political rhetoric and religious fundamentalism, there is a desperate need for the church to model the kind of inclusive community where we can discover a unity beneath our diversity and oneness amid our differences, the gracious community in the Body of Christ.
Jesus' prayer for the church is that we would come together across the divisions, bridging race and clan and national allegiance, liberal and conservative, pro-life and pro-choice, creationist and scientist, management and labor, city and suburban, rich and poor, black and white as one body in Christ; that we come together celebrating our diversity and sharing our differences, but building upon the strong foundation of our common faith in Jesus Christ.
Lord, make your people one,
Let your will be done.
Finish, O finish the world begun.
Lord, make your people one.
Let me share with you a brief conversation which took place in an airport boarding area. Two people in quite similar suits with equally similar briefcases sit down side by side. They strike up a conversation:
I see you are reading the Bible.
Yes, I am.
May I ask, is it King James or RSV?
King James, of course.
So is mine. Is yours the red-letter edition?
Yes.
Thomason Chain Reference?
Of course.
So, then, you are a Christian?
Yes, I am.
Born again?
Definitely.
Baptized?
Yes.
Immersed or sprinkled?
Fully immersed.
Pentecostal?
Yes, I am.
Holy-roller?
Yes.
Pre-millennial or post-millennial?
Pre-millennial.
And in your worship, do you use old-style hymns or contemporary music?
Contemporary.
Organ or praise band?
Praise band.
Video screens?
Of course.
And what about the preacher?
Well, I'm the preacher.
Oh, so am I!
Wonderful.
Seminary-trained?
Yes.
And do you preach with notes or without?
Without.
Wooden pulpit or Plexiglas?
Plexiglas.
Plexiglas pulpit! Well! It's obvious we have NOTHING in common!
And Jesus' prayer is still…"That they may all be one."
Just look at this band Jesus gathered at this Last Supper table:
· Fiscally conservative Matthew, the former task collector, across the table from bleeding-heart liberal Phillip, who was always ready to give away the farm.
· Macho men like Simon the Zealot gathered with the band of women like Mary Magdalene and the other women.
· Sons of Thunder James and John, alongside reflective, thoughtful Thomas, the doubter.
Jesus claims them all as a gift from God, and around the table he creates a new community of love and grace.
One of the best new books I've read lately is Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy. His sub-title is "Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post-Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/ Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-Yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian."
He says Jesus didn't come to create an "in" group which would banish everyone else. Jesus wanted to create a "come-on-in" group which sought to welcome…not to conquer or badger or vanquish others, but to save them, redeem them, bless them, love them, befriend them and embrace them. [2] And when the church is wasting its time and energy, fighting with itself, we deny the desire and prayer of our dying Lord "that they would all be one…"
2. So that the world might believe.
Jesus says he has sent his disciples into the world in the same way God the Father has sent him. Now he prays for us to be one, "so that the world might believe." Christian unity and fellowship within the body have one clear purpose—to enable the church's mission and witness so that the world might believe. Sometimes we get it all turned around…as if unity and fellowship within the life of the church was for our benefit, to make us feel good, comfortable and caring.
I remember another one of the small churches I served early in my ministry. I remember a woman named Goldie, truly one of the saints, who helped create a warm, caring fellowship within the congregation. She was pure gold. I can remember her saying, "Oh, we just love our little church…it's just like family." And it was. If you were part of the family, it was wonderful. But if you were an outsider—a newcomer, a stranger or a visitor—you could also tell it was "like family." It felt as if you had dropped in on someone else's family reunion and you knew you didn't belong. No wonder it has remained, to this day, a small, family church.
Unfortunately, that's typical of all too many congregations. Just last week Bishop Michael Coyner was addressing a meeting of the General Board of Discipleship in Nashville. Bishop Coyner said:
There is one number in our denomination which keeps going up. It's the number of churches which have not received even one person as a new member by profession of faith. That number is up to 43 percent.
Describing too many of our churches and too many of our members, another participant in the meeting said:
We are producing a generation of religious consumers who are always looking for what the Lord can do for them, instead of committed disciples who are looking for what we can do for the Lord. [3]
Jesus calls us together as one, not just so we can enjoy the cozy comfort of a little family. Jesus calls for oneness, unity in the life of the church, so that through our life together, the world will come to know the love of God made known in him. Unity within is for the purpose of mission without. Oneness in the body serves the purpose of witness in the world.
Jesus prays for us to be one…so that the world may believe.
Today is our annual "One Great Hour of Sharing" in support of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. But the fact is, "One Great Hour" is shared across the Protestant denominations and models our participation with many other Christian bodies in shared concern for God's world.
One great hour of sharing.
One in compassion and caring.
One in Christ.
So that the world might believe.
John Indermark says:
Things can get dicey out there in the world…dangers do abound. But our trust in Jesus' prayer allows us to step out in faith and to continue stepping forward. Christ holds us in prayer.
So Jesus prays for those whom he sends. So may we pray as those who are sent. Go in peace. Amen. [4]
NOTES:
The "dialogue" between the two men in the airport has a source. I just can't find it. I heard it somewhere and recreated this from memory, and though I have tried to find the source, I haven't been successful. If anyone can find the original source, I welcome the information.
The statistics on the denomination are really more troubling than just the number of professions of faith. For a current report on our membership statistics, go to http://research.gbgm-umc.org and read the "Background Data for Mission" documents.
1. John Indermark, Traveling the Prayer Paths of Jesus, page 93-94
2. Brian McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy, page 247
3. www.umc.org, "U.S. Churches Face Crisis," by Linda Green, 3/21/06
4. Indermark, Traveling the Prayer Paths of Jesus, page 108