Sermon, May 27, 2001
7th Sunday of Easter, Year C
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Gospel: John 17:20-26 from Jesus‚ High Priestly Prayer

Thoughts matter. If we believe something strongly, it is likely that we will see evidence to support our belief. The other side of the equation is that our beliefs will blind us to much that is outside our frame of reference. What we think tends to manifest itself. What we experience will be limited by our thoughts and by our expectations.  

You've probably heard the famous story from Commander Cook's explorations. His ship sailed into the bay of an island that was unknown to him and to his maps. His sailors detailed geographic information about the island and its native inhabitants, who didn‚t acknowledge the ship‚s presence at all. A few years later when more permanent contact was made with the islanders, the English discovered that among the native people there was no memory whatsoever of Cook‚s visit. The people had no word for his sailing ship, and so no one saw it. No one spoke of it, or related to it, or remembered it. A British Man-of-War simply had no existence in their world. So, they didn‚t see it.

To a great degree, we all see what we expect to see. We live lives full of self-fulfilling prophecies. So, thoughts matter. We have the power to bless and the power to curse through our thoughts and expectations. 

That's why Jesus‚ words from the great High Priestly Prayer are so significant. It is a moment of high drama in John‚s Gospel. Jesus speaks of his vision, his expectation, his thoughts. These are thoughts that matter.

It appears that Jesus has a particular way of thinking about human beings. He sees them all as one. He imagines them united in a relationship of intimacy that is like his own sense of unity with God whom he calls Father. He sees humanity as sharing in his glory, and he prays that the love with which God has loved him may be in all of them. And, more than that, in mystical words that we can hardly conceive, he wants to be one with them. When he sees another human being, his thoughts are of unity, shared love and glory, oneness.

How you think about people makes a difference in how you treat them. Throughout the Gospel we see Jesus shocking his friends because he doesn't think about others the same way his friends do. A Canaanite woman breaks into the meal of these kosher Jewish men. The disciples seek to send her away. Jesus heals her child and honors her faith. A man from the I.R.S. who has cheated his own people on behalf of an occupational oppressive government climbs a tree to see Jesus pass. He goes to his home for a meal and seals his friendship. A woman of ill repute comes to a well at noon to avoid the whispers of scandal. Jesus speaks to her openly and gives her living water. He touches the untouchable leper and faces the schizophrenic with compassion. He heals a Roman soldier‚s child as surely as he does child of the leader of the synagogue. When a woman who is unfit for society washes his feet with her hair, he does not send her away; he blesses and honors her. 

Once you know that Jesus thinks of himself as one with each of these people, it‚s easier to see how natural his reaction to them actually is. He assumes that each person is part of his own life, part of his own glory, part of his own love. It is the most natural thing in the world for him to act with compassion toward people when he believes they are intimately part of himself.

How different might his actions have been had his thoughts about people have been different. What if instead of seeing others as essentially one with him, he saw each person as a fallen sinner destined for the deserved punishment of eternal hell unless that person made some public profession of correct belief. How might that set of thoughts changed his perception of those people? 

He would have first seen their faults and their wrongs. That would have been his lens for perceiving others. He would have needed to convict them of their shortcomings and their need for changing their wrong beliefs. He would have corrected their faults and their false doctrine. He would have filled them with fear lest they fall back again once they had been forgiven. He would have hoped for the best, but in a fallen world, there‚s really not much to hope for is there?

Actually, there was one group of people that Jesus did treat in some such a cavalier manner. It was those who themselves looked at others as fallen transgressors deserving punishment and thus separated themselves from the sinners. Jesus did spend a good bit of time trying to convict them of their hypocrisy and correct their false doctrine. He tried to tell them that we are all one. He tried to tell them that systems of moral purity and social domination ravage the unity that is our heritage. But that message was too threatening to their power and status, so they silenced him through execution.

That brings us to our thoughts. Your thoughts matter. If you think some people are different from you, that‚s the way they will appear to you different. What if you thought like Jesus? What if you started looking at every other human being as being one with you sharing your life, your glory, your love? How might your thoughts change the way you experience the world? It's a pretty radical way to think. We might end up in the middle of some misunderstandings like Paul and Silas did in the city of Philippi. There they entered a consumer culture where people were thought of as means of making money. The values of oneness and the values of consumerism are not the same. Paul got so annoyed at the destructive behavior of a woman that he freed her from her compulsion. But it was bad for business, and he and Silas ended up in jail. But then they found themselves one with the jailer, and bringing oneness to him and to his family.

It might be the most healing and radical thing in the world for us as followers of Christ to claim our oneness in Christ with every other human being. It might open our eyes to the grace and suffering of people we might otherwise ignore. It might empower us to bring more blessing than curse to the world. It might help us walk out of some of the conflicts that threaten to divide and injure our people. It might help us to know that God loves us just as God loves Jesus. It might be the answer to Jesus‚ heartfelt prayer on the most fateful night of his life. May his prayer be fulfilled in us. Join in Jesus‚ desire that you enter into the mystical oneness that he intends for you. Listen again with the ears of your heart to the words of Jesus‚ prayer.

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us. ...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 become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, ...so that the love with which you have love me may be in the, and I in them.