This is a sermon that I workshopped with the ersatz Preaching Club that some of us set up at VST, and so some credit for its eventual form needs to go to the four women that were at that meeting on Friday the 26th (they know who they are!). Thanks.
Comments are appreciated.
Murr
“Longing to Belong”
May 28, 2006
John 17:6-19“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from evil. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
One of the most important questions that John’s community had to deal with was, why did Jesus come, and why did he have to go? Pretty big question.
Today’s passage is the middle part of a longer piece of scripture that is sometimes called “The Prayer for the Disciples.” It is the conclusion of this part of John’s gospel, and it takes place at the end of the Last Supper scene - these are things that are not obvious when the reading for the day is just one big speech by Christ, but that’s where it belongs. It’s the Last Supper, and Jesus has just delivered a tremendous speech to the disciples... the speech includes lines like, “Love one another as I have loved you...” “I am the way and the truth and the life...” “I am the vine and you are the branches...” and so much more, and then he begins to pray, and he prays on behalf of the people who are sitting with him.
And he says a remarkable thing to begin with... it’s not in today’s reading; it was in the reading for this day last year... at the beginning of the prayer, Jesus turns his eyes toward the sky and says, “Father, the hour has come...” The one who for sixteen chapters has been saying, “the hour is coming and now is...” now says, “the hour has come.” In some ways, therefore, this prayer is the climax of John’s gospel. It all comes down to this. And it involves the big question: why did Jesus come, and why did he have to go?
One of the things we do as preachers and readers of the bible is to look for key words that might ‘unlock’ the passage - show us where it’s going and what it wants. It’s the same thing people do who study poetry and other literature, too. And one of the key words in this passage is “world.” In Greek, it’s “kosmos” - it’s where we get English words like cosmic, cosmology, microcosm... It simply means “world” - but it certainly isn’t a simple word. Sometimes, it refers to the entire universe; the entire order of things; all of creation. Sometimes it refers to people (as in something my stepmother used to say, “the entire world was at Safeway today"). And sometimes, as in the gospel of John, it means something a little different.
According to a very influential Christian writer from the 20th Century named H. Richard Niebuhr, ‘kosmos’ in John refers to the cultural ‘world’ in which John’s community found themselves, and by extension, as we approach the Bible as revelation, the cultural ‘world’ in which we find ourselves as well. It is the works of humanity and the social world in which we move. Another writer, a man named Robert Kysar, who is a specialist in the gospel of John, says that the “world” is the realm or powers that are opposed to God’s revelation in Christ. The kosmos is the opponent of the logos. The world is the enemy of the word.
So for our purposes, let’s think of the world, the kosmos, as the realm of human achievement and culture that is not directed towards God’s revelation; God’s word. And then let’s look back at our passage for today. “The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from evil.”
When you start seminary as I did two years ago, one of the big names you will almost certainly hear is H. Richard Niebuhr. He’s the one I mentioned a little bit earlier, and he wrote a very important book almost fifty years ago called “Christ and Culture” in which he suggests that there are at least five different ways that Christ and Culture, or logos and kosmos, relate to each other.
Two of the ways are very visible in our societal environment right now. One of these is called “Christ of culture” - cultural Christians, Niebuhr says, “interpret culture through Christ” and also “understand Christ through culture” -- they pick and choose from both sources (the kosmos and the logos) those things that seem to satisfy both, and ending up with a sort of lowest-common denominator. Sometimes it’s called “reductionism.” It has the benefit of putting the church into the world - how do we love our neighbour, here and now? What is the practical dimension of the Christian faith? But it also means that we sometimes end up creating God in our image... revelation becomes domesticated to the point that God isn’t scary or challenging, and the church begins to speak on behalf of the world without reference to God.
What this means in today’s world is that churches and Christian communities run the risk of buying into the consumer culture, if you’ll pardon the pun... we run the risk of buying into the consumer culture and measuring the success of the church in terms of things like “market penetration” and “customer satisfaction” - we run the risk of sacrificing an important part of the gospel when revelation is reduced to consumerism.
Another one of NIebuhr’s five models that is visible in our world right now is what he called “Christ against culture.” Christian communities in which this is the primary model of understanding insist that one must make a radical choice to be loyal to one or the other. Either you belong to the world or you belong to Christ, and if you belong to Christ then you have no business in the world. This position is helpful and appropriate in situations of oppression under evil governments and other cases when the culture demands absolute loyalty.
The problem arises when a Christian community takes this position when it is not necessary or not appropriate. Many people today, many of our Christian brothers and sisters, isolate themselves among people who are just like them. They distrust outsiders and those who are different, and they understand Christ as someone who operates completely outside of the natural world and the human world. They’ve taken a separatist position when it’s not necessary or appropriate.
What is at stake here is the relationship between logos, and kosmos, and the big question of why did Christ come, and why did he have to go?
People who take either of the positions I’ve just described, the accommodationist or the isolationist, have both missed some important points, one of which is in today’s passage and has been printed for your reflection in the bulletin. Let’s read it together.
Jesus said: “The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from evil.”
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world.”
Clearly, there is an appropriate place for the disciples to be, and it is in the world and engaged with the culture.
How do we manage this struggle? Staying in the world, but not belonging to it?
We all have an urge to belong, and we all have an urge to be different. How do we manage this struggle?
Part of many cultural trends is the presence of a forced binary choice... a yes/no, an in-or-out, a cool, or uncool. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in high school, and in my high school in the 1990’s, the question of inside and outside was a pretty big deal. There were some people who spent a lot of energy demonstrating that they were “in” - and a lot more energy defending the boundaries of who else could be considered “insiders.” And there were some people who wore their “outside-ness” for all to see... spending a lot of energy refusing to participate or accommodate. But it always seemed to me, that the people who were actually getting important things done were the ones who refused to play the game... who were able to find a third way of being that was neither “in” nor “out.”
Cultural trends... things that belong to the world... will often present us with in-or-out questions. I think it’s the job of the church to present a third way. A way of being that neither accommodates the culture nor separates from it. Jesus is quoted as saying, in Matthew 5:31, that if a soldier strikes you on the right cheek, you are to turn the other one to him as well. You see, the culture provided only two options for someone in that situation. You either fought back and were then arrested or more likely beaten; or you backed down, and submitted yourself to public humiliation. Christ told his followers to find a third way. Do not strike out, but do stand your ground. Dare the soldier to slap you again. The act of turning one’s cheek means little, but as a refusal to participate in the culture, in the ways of the world, it means a great deal.
When the disciples in the gospel of John are told that they do not belong to the world, it means that their “fundamental loyalties and perspectives are at odds with the dominant society” (Kysar).
H. Richard Niebuhr presents us with a possible third way of being. He calls it “Christ as transformer of culture.” If you read Niebuhr’s book -- I’m not necessarily recommending it, it’s long and boring and I haven’t read it either -- you’ll see that he thinks this is the best choice out of the five he describes.
Christ as transformer of culture. He thinks that out of the five (which are all important and useful in their own ways) this is the one that comes closest to the biblical view and is the most appropriate for the world as he saw it.
According to this view, society and civilization are deeply troubled and in need of reform and redemption. According to this view, Christ is independent of the cultural world but intimately engaged with it. And according to this view, Christ has a mission, to reconcile the cultural world with the revelation of God - the kosmos and the logos - and to bring both to fruition. By bringing the word into the world, he sanctifies it -- he nudges it gently in the direction that God would have it go.
He is in the world but he does not belong to it. And the world, which is wrapped up in itself and not interested in the revelation of God, hates him because he (1) will not accommodate to them and (2) will not go away. He belongs to God, who he calls Father, and so they cannot use their tools of conformity against him. He has no longing to belong. He has no need for security, safety, or certainty, which are the things that the culture of the world uses to play with our emotions. He has these things in his relationship with God.
The church is not outside the world, but it does not belong to the world. It is not above the world, nor is it irrelevant to the world. What is it? It is called, called to be in the world and engaged with it. Called to be a transforming influence. Called to bring the ‘Logos’ into the ‘Kosmos’. Called to offer a third way.
Christ prays to God to “sanctify” the disciples in the word - to nudge them in the right direction. He tells God that he is sending his followers the way he was sent... that they might walk the way he walked, and continue the work that he has done.
The call of God in our lives, the call of sanctification, is ever-present if we are able to listen. Let those who have ears to hear, hear. Every moment is an opportunity to move in the direction God is calling us. God calls and God nudges and through the divine presence God prays constantly that we will respond, willingly and cheerfully.
Here, at the end of the Last Supper, at the emotional and theological climax of John’s gospel, after he confesses to God that the hour has come... What does Christ do? Christ prays for the disciples. He prays for his followers.
Why did Jesus come?
To bring God’s truth into a world
that was concerned only with itself.
To reconcile the broken world to a loving God.
To follow the path that God was nudging him along,
and by his example to sanctify the world.
And why did Jesus have to go?
So that, by the grace of God,
that mission could be passed on,
across the world and down the generations.
And we can all participate,
longing to belong,
but knowing that we are called.
Living in the world,
but sanctified by the word of God.
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