In one of his writings, Thomas Carlyle told of a country boy who went to a fancy dinner. In the midst of the meal, he got a piece of hot potato in his mouth. Much to the embarrassment of all those dignified ladies and gentlemen there at the table, he spit the piece of potato out and put it back on his plate. Then he looked around at the shocked faces of all those gentled people and said, “You know, a fool would have swallowed that.”

We come today in our preaching through John’s GospeI to the 17th chapter. It is one of the most majestic utterances of Jesus. A farewell discourse, coming just before his death on the cross, it is a prayer. The temptation of a preacher, certainly my temptation, is to try to handle the entire chapter in a sermon. Inspired by Thomas Carlyle’s country boy, I’m re…