Local Preachers’ Group on John's Gospel
Notes of meeting held 10th May 2010
John 17: 20 – 26
Over the last few weeks the lectionary passages have been from Jesus’ final discourse. In these chapters Jesus prepares his disciples for His death, resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. These passages are used by the church in the weeks after Easter for exactly the same reason to prepare the people for Pentecost and then Trinity. We began the meeting with a discussion on just how important this final discourse is in John’s gospel. It covers five chapters and takes up a quarter of the gospel. As this is not narrative, to get the most out of any of these snippets in our lectionary, it is important to have at least a working knowledge of what has gone before and what follows. Therefore the preacher needs to give a brief but comprehensive fill-in before tackling the day’s passage. This makes preaching on any of these passages more difficult as we have to balance our preaching to accommodate those in the congregation who will have a better knowledge and understanding than others.
As we read through the passage it was immediately apparent that our different versions were not helpful. After the first verse (20) had been read, the next reader had no idea where to carry on from because the edition they were using was completely different to the one just read. After the read-through we all read our verse 20 just to see how different they were, and found that in NRSV the word prayer is not mentioned, but replaced by the word ask! This was not helpful. In some Bibles this section is titled ‘Jesus prays for all believers,’ but in other translations there is no separate title to this passage and it follows on from ‘Jesus prays for His disciples’.
The passage seemed to us to be a particularly dense one. For first-time readers or hearers it sounded confusing and needed reading slowly and carefully by someone who did understand what it was about. We felt that some visual aids of Jesus’ being in God and God in Jesus would be helpful to a congregation coming to this cold. We did have a brief discussion on the value of readers from the congregation. It is important to have good readers for passages like this one which are complicated and difficult to understand at first hearing. Some preachers prefer always to read their texts, while some will read for themselves only at particular venues.
Once again the passage starts in the middle of a thought. The whole of chapter 17 needs to be looked at together but, on looking at the Worship book, we realised that chapter 17 is split over the three years of lectionary so both preacher and congregation have to wait a year to fill in the gaps in the thought process. This does seem to assume a congregation with good Biblical knowledge and some pre-service Bible study.
Once the passage was in the context of the whole of chapter 17, we thought that it was an encouraging passage. For here Jesus prays specifically for all believers, which gave us a sense of being at one not only with God but with disciples and followers of Jesus down the centuries. The passage might seem difficult, but it does have a straightforward sense of unity. The prayers in chapter 17 take the place of the Gethsemane prayers in the synoptic gospels.
Like last week’s passage, this passage reiterates that unity between Christians is of vital importance to mission; it is through the love shown between Christians that God will be known. This is a generational message which has been passed down to us through generations of believers. This idea stems from the new commandment Jesus gave the disciples in chapter 13 of the gospel. This link shows how important it is to know the whole discourse, not just bits. In both his letters to the Ephesians (chapter 3) and the Corinthians (chapter 13) Paul picks up on this idea of the importance of love and the power of love. We felt that this was one of the most important ideas for preaching on this passage, and good use could be made of the above chapters of Paul’s letters for this purpose. It was pointed out that the Prayer Handbook also uses this image of love – Flame of Love - also Psalm 24 and 704 in Hymns and Psalms could be useful. We all express love in different ways. This has led to many different denominations and ways of worship which unfortunately has led over the centuries to arguments, but in one true sense we felt that all Christians were uniform in their love for Jesus, God and each other. The twelve original disciples were all so different; we are too. This passage shows how despite difference God loves all people equally. This knowledge and acceptance of this knowledge should help us to cover any differences in worship across denominations.
In verse 24 Jesus refers to His glory. Grayston and other commentaries inform us that Jesus’ glory means the crucifixion in John’s gospel. In Chapel Allerton we have a banner which shows Jesus on the cross from the back with the words Such Love. The glory of Jesus’ crucifixion is the love shown in this sacrifice. Although the glory of God is somewhat mysterious, it is linked with love which is timeless and eternal. It is the enormity and timeless quality of God’s love that flows across the universe now as then. The following is a link to an internet site which may be useful to a fuller understanding of what Glory might mean;
http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/undated/tsglory.html
To preach on this aspect of the passage – the enormity and timeless quality of God’s love seen in Jesus’ crucifixion - impinges not just on the sermon but on the quality of the worship for the whole service. We have to convey this not just by saying it but by being it. People can tell when we are being sincere whether we are saying or being. The further we are on our journey of faith certainty lessens but faith strengthens. The warmth of our congregations to our efforts as preachers shows our unity. We felt that this unity helped our preaching, and that the itinerancy of our calling was a privilege.
We felt that if we could get a sermon out of this passage we would want to preach it more than once. We would probably use the other texts for the day and refer back to the gospel, rather than use the gospel as the main text.
SC