God's Main Thing

Have you ever wondered if there is one main thing God wants us to do in this life? I mean, it's clear from the Bible that God wants us to do lots of things: offer sacrifice, love God and neighbor, care for the poor, forgive one another, not be afraid, live in peace, to accept the fact that we are, each of us, beloved of God, and lots more. But what is the one single thing upon which all else rests?

I've been thinking a lot about that lately, and it's tonight's gospel reading that has really helped me zero in on something that I consider to be God's main thing.

We're coming to the end of the annual Eastertide cycle of Sunday gospel readings from the Fourth Gospel. The final one will be next week's Pentecost gospel in which Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection and greets them by saying, "Peace be with you."

Tonight, we are given the final seven verses of chapter 17 in John's gospel, which consists entirely of Jesus' prayer to his father in heaven. It is the final part of that long discourse at his farewell dinner with his closest friends beginning at chapter 13. From chapter 13 through 16, Jesus addresses them directly, but in chapter 17 he shifts and begins to address God the father while the disciples listen in. Jesus honors them by allowing them to eavesdrop on an incredibly intimate moment of personal prayer.

The prayer that makes up all of chapter 17 is variously called by biblical scholars "The Great Prayer" or "The Great High Priestly Prayer," and it is in three parts. The first (vv. 1-5) is a prayer for himself. The next (vv. 6-19) is a prayer for the disciples who were there with him at dinner. The third - and this is where we come on the scene in tonight's gospel - is for all who follow, that is, for all of us.

Now, this last third of The Great Prayer begins with the phrase, "...that they all may be one." This has most often been used as a text that is heard as a cry of the heart of Jesus - a plea for unity among his followers. Some scholars reflect on the fact that there was already disunity among Christians when the Fourth Gospel was written and that these words are a plea to God for the divisions to cease. Indeed, these words have been the rallying cry of generations of Christians who have tried to heal the wounds of The Great Schism of 1054 and the Reformation of the 16th century.

But when we read these words a little differently, I think there is another way of understanding them. Jesus seems to me to be stressing the necessity of all of his followers being unified not so much with one another - although I think he means that too - but also of being unified with God the father just as he himself is. The emphasis is, in other words, more vertical than horizontal, more concerned with our relationship with God than with one another.

I think the key to understanding this part of The Great Prayer the way I am suggesting lies in the final two verses where Jesus, still addressing the father, says, "...the world does not know you, but I know you..." and then, "I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that [in order that] the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Jesus is praying to the father that we will be one with the father just as he is. He acknowledges that we do not know God in any way remotely like he knows God. And finally, he says that the kind of love that he has been teaching us about simply cannot be experienced and cannot be transformed into action unless - unless - we are completely united with God.

Jesus seems to me to be saying that without a deep, abiding, ongoing, developing relationship with God, all the good we do is incomplete. It is perhaps not enough to love our neighbor unless we complete the sentence: love our neighbor as God loves us.

It is not love for one another that animates Christian ministry, but love for God. Make no mistake: it is a good and noble thing to have love for fellow human beings, and you don't have to be a Christian to do that. But Christian ministry must always be rooted in love of God first and foremost, for it is this godly love that makes our ministry distinctive and recognizably Christian. And if it is recognizably Christian, then it will have the effect of drawing others to God.

I perhaps should have mentioned at the outset, when I was describing what this 17th chapter of John is all about and how it is structured, that its overarching theme is the glorification of God the father and the glorification of Jesus, and, through him, the glorification of us all. In other words, this whole prayer is about heaven, and moving toward heaven - the dwelling place of God through eternity. And this prayer of Jesus attests that it is not only God's home, but our ultimate home as well.

With an eye toward heaven, we begin to grasp that living the Christian life is not a life of social work or humanitarianism. There are many churches that have forgotten this and have placed all their emphasis and their common life on doing good things for other people and for the environment. They have forgotten to connect the dots between feeding the hungry and Jesus Christ who commanded us to love one another as God loves us. They have forgotten to connect the dots between concern about global warming and the creator of the world.

Here's a litmus test for you to consider: when you can't tell the difference between a parish church and a local soup kitchen, or between a Christian congregation and the Sierra Club, then you know God has been left out of the picture.

Just in case someone here might misunderstand me because I'm not being clear enough, I want to state firmly that I believe that social justice initiatives and environmental programs, and so on, are important - even essential - parts of Christian ministry. I believe those who call themselves Christians and who ignore the environment and their oppressed brothers and sisters and those in need are just plain wrong. And these are not political concerns; they are moral concerns, gospel-centered concerns.

But I am saying that others who call themselves Christian and who work to relieve suffering, promote justice, and protect the environment are equally wrong if they do not, with a loud voice, connect every action explicitly to our relationship with God who is the origin of all love. If we do not connect these dots between the good that we do and the gospel of Jesus Christ, then there is nothing distinctively Christian about what we do. And that is a lost opportunity to proclaim by our words as well as by our actions the love of God in Jesus Christ.

So what is this prayer of Jesus in tonight's gospel calling us to? What is God's main thing?

I believe it is to spend our lives worshiping God and being his friends. If we will do that faithfully, then all the good works will flow out from us, because as we come to know God and become his friends, love of neighbor is an inevitable consequence. And an inevitable consequence of love of neighbor is good works. We don't get to God by doing justice; we do justice because we know God. And if we know God, we will not be able to contain our enthusiasm and joy at the gift we have been given, and that will animate our ministry.

Duke University's Dean of the Chapel, Anglican priest Samuel Wells, says this:

So Jesus' prayer to his father in heaven is really an invitation to us to a life of prayer that will lead us to oneness with God and an outpouring of love for the whole world.

Thanks be to God!