Every once in awhile I give you a sermon, because sometimes, preaching sermons is just what I do. Given to the good people at St. Paul’s San Rafael, one parishioner said it was more theological than (my) usual. I’ll let you be the judge of that. Enjoy!
A friend and her daughter were in from out of town yesterday, as the daughter was running at a track invitational with hundreds of other children from up and down the West Coast. Laney College in Oakland was filled to the brim with spectators and athletes; clubs had elaborate tent and food set-ups, while families mingled in the bleachers and on the grounds before their children competed.
At one point, when Brita and I were sitting in the stands watching group after group of children run the 100-meter dash, one particularly fast child crossed the finish line. From the time the starter gun went off, it was evident this boy could run, like Usain Bolt run.
He sprinted off the block, quickly grabbing the lead. He kept his head down, focused on his lane and on the run ahead, not looking at his competitors on either side of him.
When he finished the race 12 or so seconds later, the crowd uttered a collective sigh. Wow. This kid was fast.
But his dad’s reaction was my favorite.
“That’s my boy!” He exclaimed, jumping to his feet from the stands. “That’s my boy, that’s my boy.” A huge smile spread across the dad’s face, his head shaking from side-to-side, not even looking at any of the people sitting near him. Instead, he looked down to the ground, then up to the sky; wonder and amazement at his boy his to own in that moment.
It was beautiful to witness. And it was beautiful to recount in light of today’s gospel reading.
Because the text we find ourselves immersed in today, three days after Ascension Day (which happened this Thursday, 40 days after Easter Sunday), happens when Jesus is still on the ground, in the thick of ministry. But for John’s introduction to Jesus in the first verse of the chapter, John 17 is entirely dialogue-driven: Jesus prays that he would be glorified, because “the hour is coming.” He knows his time on earth is soon coming to a close: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do,” he says to the father. So now, “glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” There’s a whole lot of glory and glorifying and presence being thrown around in those verses, because one thing is true: Jesus wants to honor God in everything that he does.
After that, Jesus prays for his disciples, then he prays for all believers everywhere – and it’s here, when Jesus is praying for the twelve who have been traveling and working and beingwith him for the three previous years, that he utters a prayer of mine.
I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world, he prays. 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. (So) 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.
Mine. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.
The words that come out of Jesus’ mouth are not the squawk of seagulls like one hears in Finding Nemo, but the words of the who calls us his own.
Jesus calls you his own. Jesus declares that just as you are his beloved, you are God’s beloved too. In words recorded by the beloved disciple, you are Christ’s own because Christ has been glorified in you.
When you pass the peace, making peace reign and old divisions cease, Christ is glorified in you. When you care for the men on Death Row, Christ is glorified in you. When you greet one another with a holy kiss, when you remember a name, when you drop off a steaming casserole at the doorstep of a sick parishioner or neighbor, Christ is glorified in you.
And here’s the really wild thing: beyond conversations of glorification, another simple truth exists. You are God’s beloved, God’s mine solely because of your humanity.
You are God’s mine, not because of anything you’ve done but simply because you’re you.
This, perhaps, is the hardest truth to gulp down and swallow, because sometimes we humans want to earn our gold Christianese stars. We want to perform and get it right and do all the Really Good Things for God so that God might call us God’s own.
But as Jesus demonstrates in this passage, we are God’s own not because of anything we have done or gotten right, but entirely because of the relationship that exists between the two of them: Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, Eugene Peterson writes of this verse in The Message. And my life is on display in them.
That’s it – start and end of story. We are God’s beloved, because we are Jesus’ beloved – and we are Jesus’ beloved, because we are God’s beloved.
Years ago, I participated in a spiritual direction program called Soul Care. For nine months, we gathered for monthly meetings down in Woodside, with two day-long retreats at the front and back end of the program.
All twenty of us were in full-time ministry, some working for churches, and others, like myself, working for parachurch ministries alongside the church.
Although I don’t remember every detail, I do remember this about our very first meeting: we gathered in a beautiful living room of a mansion, nametags on our lapels and new binders on our laps. The leaders of our program gathered at the front of the room and said there was really only one ground rule.
One ground rule? I remember thinking to myself. Should spiritual direction programs really have rules?
Our one ground rule is this, they said. You are not to talk about ministry while you are here.
We looked around the room, we gazed down toward the floor: we weren’t supposed to talk about ministry? But ministry is what we did. Ministry was who we were. All of us were like professional Christians, people who were PAID to be Jesus people, because we’d been CALLED to be leaders in the church. And they wanted US not to talk about ministry?
But they were serious: we weren’t to talk about ministry, because our time together wasn’t about what we did. It wasn’t about how many people showed up or didn’t show up to our programs and churches. It wasn’t about how much money we raised, or how well we preached, or how many people we managed on any given day of the week.
Our time together was simply about being God’s beloved. That was the point of our time together.
So, until we could understand the God who stands up in the middle of the stands, shouting, “That’s my boy! That’s my girl! That’s my human, right there!” we weren’t fully understanding the depth of the mine God calls us.
Because that’s who you and I are: the mine of God and the mine of Jesus.
You and me, the beloved of God. God’s mine.
Amen.
As a card-carrying track mom, this essay brought me to tears. So beautiful and necessary.