Abundant Love at the Earth's Foundations

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Prays for His Disciples

20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Jesus prays for us, for the disciples, for those who would follow the Christ.

Anticipatory of Pentecost - the Unity that will be after

Reflective of the Journey - the Unity that is being established among Christ-followers

Unity in the Present/Presence - It is through Christ which binds us together that we can establish love.

So, in Christ…what does this mean?

To be in Christ is to be in love.

To be in Christ is to be in abundance, extravagance, expansive presence.

To be in Christ is to be connected to the source, the foundation, the Word above all other words.

In this passage, Jesus’ ministry is drawing to a close and he is moving toward the end of his life. His words in are spoken as a prayer on behalf of his people, his church, the called ones who have gathered and repented and turned their lives into the Way that he has proclaimed around the Judean countryside and in Jerusalem. This passage is a benediction, a sending, a blessing and a hope for the people of God.

And Jesus clearly is not only praying for the disciples and those around him in the moment. There is a deep anticipation in his prayer for all that will encounter the glory of God and come into this Way as well. This prayer is for all people, for you and me, for all nations and races, for all who will hear this message and witness God’s power for all time to come.

Of course, Jesus can do this, pray on behalf of all creation for all time. Because Jesus is the Christ. And the Christ (so much more than Jesus’ last name) is the embodied presence of God that weaves through all time, animating and putting sinews and flesh on the work of God. The Christ is who prays, the Christ, the firstborn of Creation, the Word become flesh. It is the Jesus the Christ who stands outside of time in this prayer and lifts up past, present, and future to the glory of God, praying for unity across all time and space, praying that the glory Jesus has received would be expanded and envelope all those who hear his words as well.

Hear the first lines of the prayer: “I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples and those present), but also on behalf of those who will believe in me (notice the future tense) through their word, that they may all be one.”

This is a prayer from the Eternal Word, the Christ, for us.

Hear the next lines again: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Not only is this a prayer on behalf of all who would put their trust, their allegiance, their faith in the Christ for all time, but it is a prayer of invitation into that eternal presence with God.

Let’s pause there and unpack that a bit.

God - Creator, Christ, and Spirit - is Three in One. God is a community of parts that form a whole which lives and moves and interdependently loves within God’s-self. For all time, from all time. This is what theologians call the Doctrine of the Trinity. Basically, it’s our way of describing the mysterious relationship between the persons of God, the ways God manifests in Creation among us and through history. God the Creator, in whom the whole Universe is held and supported and life is made. God the Christ, the embodiment, enfleshment of God (for God does not remain distant, rather, as Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr says, “God loves things by becoming them.”) So the Christ is God becoming human, living and breathing in Jesus, walking among us and being with us. And Spirit, or the Holy Spirit — the part of God which abides now in us, the awakening and enlivening force among us that calls us to action, to movement in the world, the Great Inspirer and Provocateur. Spirit of God hovers over the waters and all creation and is the spark of possibility that we experience as we come to know God’s presence.

As I said, this is the Doctrine of the Trinity.

But the amazing thing is, the Trinity, which is complete union in itself, is not finished with its own complete unity, but rather invites you and me and all people into participation with itself. God invites our participation in this perfect union. We are invited to dance with God.

Going back to Jesus’ prayer, it’s what he’s describing here: God’s glory that was given to him, the Christ, is now being asked to expand and include and invite us into glory too. The glory of God is not limited, it’s abundant and given and expects us to “come on in!”

And make sure you hear this very clear, the next words of Jesus’ prayer: “Father, I desire that those also (us), whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

We’ve gotten a little confused. Or maybe I’ll put it more strongly: We’ve learned a lie.

There is a cultural belief, a negative orientation, that doubts this invitation to be true. We’ve been taught that because we are so sinful, so broken, so unholy, that the invitation has been rescinded. Or that we’re only invited to the dance as a pity date. Maybe Jesus doesn’t really want us and then God pulled him aside and said, “hey son, there’s some awkward, smelly kids who didn’t get an invitation to our dance, so, because you’re such a nice guy, will you go ahead a just invite them to come along. You don’t have to like it. In fact, you’re not going to like it because even as you invite them in, they’re gonna want to kill you. But, you know, you’re a good guy, so will you just invite them anyways. Ok. Thanks. Bye.”

We’ve learned a lie, that we are second best, that we’re not truly loved. And it has sunk in deep.

The lie takes other forms. Another way to look at it is that we believe that somehow God’s dance card is actually full. Sure, the Christ prays for us, but God doesn’t have room for us. There’s no room on the floor, God won’t actually listen to us, or we can’t sit at the table.

Speaking of the table, that lie creeps in to how we think of God’s providing for us. We look at this table, this feast, and expect that the riches of the table are limited. Limited Grace. While supplies last. Certainly not for me. Certainly not for him. We put parameters around who can come to the table because we, deep down, worry that there will not be enough.

This is a lie!

There is so much for us at the table! There is way more than we could ever imagine or need. I’m not talking about simple elements of bread and cup, body and blood — though it starts there! I’m talking about Presence - the unlimited, expansive, all encompassing loving presence of God that we encounter at this table and that speaks of a whole world rich with, dripping with, soaked in the loving presence of God.

Do not believe that God cannot provide enough. God is Abundance. God is Unlimited Presence. God is the Source of it all.

Don’t take my word for it: hear the invitation from Jesus to this way of Abundance. The Christ’s dance card is far from full: “Father, I desire that those also, who you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Key words here: Desire! Love! Foundation of the world!

This is no pity invitation. This is desire! Do you know what desire feels like?! Feel it my friends, it’s in your gut, it’s in your deep parts, it’s your passion, your fire. Jesus wants us to be a part of the Presence, the Dance of God and uses the word “Desire” to describe how he feels about it. Don’t let this reading pass you by: There is desire from the Christ, the Word of Love, for you and me!

You can’t desire out of a mindset of scarcity. You desire with expectation that there is so much love to give, so much energy to share.

So Christ desires for us to be in the dance, at the table, in the Way with God.

My final question for us today is this: How? How can this be? How can this possibly be that there’s enough love and space and presence for all and any of us to be a part of this dance with God?

The answer - written into this poetic text and woven as a thread through the whole of Scripture is this: Everything…everything…all things…every thing…stands upon the foundation of abundant love.

Again, vs. 24: Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” And on to vs. 25-26: “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

The LOVE that God, in Christ, held and knew and expanded from at the very beginning — this love is the foundation upon which this invitation comes.

This is the love out of which all creation came: The universe expanded, the earth formed, the stars and the heavens and the galaxies and trees and animals and water and molecules and atoms and pizza and kombucha and roses and lavendar — all things from this love. The love that Christ knows intimately in the participation with God. This is the love that is being requested by Christ for us.

I’ll say it plainly: This is the love out of which EVERYTHING came. How can it not be expansive, abundant, full? There are no limits to this love.

And it is this love that is being given to us. It is this love we are being invited in to. So we no longer worry if there will be enough. We no longer fear whether God will provide or not. This love is under it all, the foundation of it all. And, in Christ, it is given to us to use for the glory of God throughout all creation, for all time, to all people, to restore, remake, transform, and awaken all things, again, for the Glory of God.

We — us — St. James Presbyterian — and all that we touch — we are invited to tap into that love. Come to the table this morning to know that presence, to taste that Goodness. And be sent confidently, filled with that love to pass it on, to invite others into it, to call out all that is light and good and true and beautiful and invite others to dance.

Amen. And Amen.