Jeremiah 20:7-11 (12-13) 14-18

Jeremiah Denounces His Persecutors

7 O LORD, you have enticed me,

and I was enticed;

you have overpowered me,

and you have prevailed.

I have become a laughingstock all day long;

everyone mocks me.

8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out,

I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”

For the word of the LORD has become for me

a reproach and derision all day long.

9 If I say, “I will not mention him,

or speak any more in his name,”

then within me there is something like a burning fire

shut up in my bones;

I am weary with holding it in,

and I cannot.

10 For I hear many whispering:

“Terror is all around!

Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”

All my close friends

are watching for me to stumble.

“Perhaps he can be enticed,

and we can prevail against him,

and take our revenge on him.”

11 But the LORD is with me like a dread warrior;

therefore my persecutors will stumble,

and they will not prevail.

They will be greatly shamed,

for they will not succeed.

Their eternal dishonor

will never be forgotten.

12 O LORD of hosts, you test the righteous,

you see the heart and the mind;

let me see your retribution upon them,

for to you I have committed my cause.

13 Sing to the LORD;

praise the LORD!

For he has delivered the life of the needy

from the hands of evildoers.

14 Cursed be the day

on which I was born!

The day when my mother bore me,

let it not be blessed!

15 Cursed be the man

who brought the news to my father, saying,

“A child is born to you, a son,”

making him very glad.

16 Let that man be like the cities

that the LORD overthrew without pity;

let him hear a cry in the morning

and an alarm at noon,

17 because he did not kill me in the womb;

so my mother would have been my grave,

and her womb forever great.

18 Why did I come forth from the womb

to see toil and sorrow,

and spend my days in shame? (Jeremiah 20:7-11 (12-13) 14-18, NRSV)

On April 5, 2007 (Maundy Thursday, Year One), comments were based on those of March 24, 2005 (Maundy Thursday, Year One); in turn today’s comments are based on those of April 5, 2007 with editing and supplement:

Today’s reading is comprised of the Fifth and Sixth of Jeremiah’s Personal Laments (Jer. 20:7-13 and vv. 14-18), the Sixth and Seventh by Marvin A. Sweeney’s count (The Jewish Study Bible, 2004, on Jer. 20:7-13 and 14-18; cf. comments on Mon., Tue. and Wed. of this week).

On Jeremiah 20:7-11

Jeremiah accuses the LORD: “O LORD, you have enticed me (yn9tayT9P9, pittîtanî), / and I was enticed (tPAx@vA, wā’eppāth); / you have overpowered me, / and you have prevailed” (Jer. 20:7a, b, c, d). Sweeney says, “The prophet employs strong language to characterize God’s deceptive character. Enticed: Heb. ‘patah,’ ‘to lure, entice,’ is employed in Exod 22:16; Hos. 2:;16 to describe a man’s seduction of a woman, and in Judg. 14:15; 16:5 to describe a woman’s seduction of a man. The following verbs, You overpowered me and You prevailed, suggest rape” (op. cit., on v. 7). “I have become a laughing stock all day long,” says Jeremiah; everyone mocks me” (v. 7e, f). According to Mark E. Biddle, Jeremiah accuses God of deceiving him and of exerting irresistible power over him. The same terms are used to describe the plots of Jeremiah’s enemies in v. 10” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., 2001, on Jer. 20:7-9). Jeremiah says his prophetic message is limited to bad news. “For whenever I speak,” he says, “I must cry out, / I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’ / For the word of the LORD has become for me / a reproach and derision all day long” (v. 8). This must be hyperbole, due to the intensity of his feeling. But when he tries to refrain from proclaiming “the word of the LORD,” he is confronted by an overpowering inner compulsion, “something like a burning fire/shut up in my bones.” When he tries to hold it in, he “cannot” (v. 9). Jeremiah has a major dilemma: People, including his “close friends,” denounce him, watching for him to stumble, conspiring to entice him away from his prophetic mission (v. 10). But the LORD, “a dread warrior,” will prevail, and the so-called “friends” will “stumble,” “be greatly shamed” and remembered only for “eternal dishonor” (v. 11).

On Jeremiah 20:12-13

The Presbyterian and Lutheran lectionaries include the last two verses of this lament (vv. 12-13), and the Sixth Lament (vv. 14-18). The fifth concludes with a prayer for “retribution upon them” (v. 12) and a call for praise–a “vow of praise,” an element typical of the “lament Psalms”?–“For he [the LORD] has delivered the life of the needy [not plural, but singular = Jeremiah himself] from the hands of evildoers” (v. 13). With friends like that, who needs enemies?

On Jeremiah 20:14-18

This lament, like the second (Jer. 15:10-21) echoes the emotion and language of Job’s lament (Job chap. 3), but this one is even closer to Job’s language:

Let the day perish in which I was born,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Let those curse it who curse the Sea. (Job 3:1, 8 NRSV)

Cursed be the day/on which I was born. (Jer. 20:14 NRSV)

Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! (Jer. 15:10 NRSV)

The sixth lament focuses on the fact that he (Jeremiah) was born. He “curses not God but his own existence” (Mark E. Biddle, NOAB, 3^rd ed.). Dr. Charles A. Pitts, in comment on the second lament, says, “Surely, he is questioning his call, since God had told him that the call was before birth. Jeremiah wishes that he had not been born, thus avoiding the prophetic role altogether. “ The second lament was included in the reading for Tuesday (April 7, 2009), with comments from Dr. Pitts. For comments on other laments, see the notes for the last three days. Dr. Pitts discusses the whole set of Jeremiah’s Confessions (Laments) in a separate page on his own web site (http://www.hgst.edu/Faculty_Staff_Pictures/Pitts/website/Lecture%20Notes--Jer%20Ez%20Jeremiah's%20Confessions.htm). If this link does not work directly, copy it and use it as the URL.

1 Corinthians 10:14-17; 11:27-32

14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. 15 I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:14-17, NRSV)

Partaking of the Supper Unworthily

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. 30 For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:27-32, NRSV)

On 1 Corinthians 10:14-17

Earlier, Paul warns the Corinthians against idolatry, “Do not become Idolaters as some of them [the wilderness generation of Israelites] did” (1 Cor. 10:7, citing Ex. 32:6). He draws a parallel between the statement, “the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel” (Ex. 32:6; ‘rose up to play” as cited in 1 Cor. 10:7) and the meals in pagan temples with revelry to follow. Ben Witherington III says, “Paul exhorts the Corinthians not to be idolaters and then quotes directly from Exod. 32:6, the story of the golden calf (v. 7). He uses this text for its special relevance, in particular its allusion to sexual play or amusement after the idol feast” (Conflict & Community in Corinth, 1994, p. 221 on 1 Cor. 10:1-11:1).

Paul now draws a contrast between such idol feasts and the Christian Eucharist (Lord’s Supper). After giving the command to “flee from the worship of idols” (1 Cor. 10:14), and a call for understanding, “I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say” (v. 15), he asks the Corinthians, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” (v. 16). Both questions are introduced by the negative adverb oujciv (ouchi, a strengthened form of ouj, ou), which implies an affirmative answer. The “cup of blessing” is in fact “a sharing in the blood of Christ,” and “the bread that we break” is in fact “a sharing in the body of Christ.” Paul explains: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (v. 17). According to Richard A. Horsley, “This interpretation of the bread in the sense of communal sharing is unique in the New Testament. In the main point of his argument, Paul combines the body of Christ, represented by the bread, with ‘body’ as a standard political symbol of how the people of a city-state, though many, are united” (NOAB, 3^rd ed., 2001, on 1 Cor. 10:16-17). “In v. 17,” says Witherington,

Paul is talking about the bread as that which binds believers together into one body, not merely the common sharing in bread, but the more profound spiritual uniting that it signifies. All the believers share from the common loaf. Another clue to the meaning of koinōnia (koinwniva) here must be the use of the verb ‘partake/share’ (metechō [metevcw] ) . Paul stresses all sharing because of the analogy in v. 18 with OT Israel. (op. cit., p. 225, on v. 17).

            On Corinthians 11:27-32 (in context, including 11:23-34)

In this reading from 1 Corinthians, we have what is considered the earliest written record of Jesus’ words that are known throughout the Christian Church as the Words of Institution of the Lord’s Supper. For a comparison of 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 to the records in the Gospels (Mk. 14:22-25; Mt. 26:26-29; Lk. 22:15-20), see the separate file, Words of Institution of the Lord’s Supper, Recent comments on these texts from the perspective of Luke’s account are available in the Archive for June 27, 2007 (Wednesday in the week of the Sunday closest to June 22, Year One).

This reading begins with a tradition about the institution of the Lord’s Supper that Paul says he “received from the Lord” and that he “handed on to you,” that is, to the Christian believers at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:23a). According to this tradition, “the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me’ ” (vv. 23b, 24; cf. Mk. 14:22; Mt. 26:26; Lk. 22:19). At this point, it is noteworthy that the words “when he had given thanks,” and “Do this in remembrance of me” are found in the versions of Luke and Paul (1 Cor.), but not in Mark or Matthew, though, later with the cup, the words “after giving thanks” are included (Mk. 14:23; Mt. 26:27; cf. Lk. 22:17). Paul continues with the cup, “In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’ ” (1 Cor. 11:25). The first part of this saying is close to Luke’s version, “And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’ ” (Lk. 22:20). But only Paul’s version repeats the reference to “remembrance” here: “Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”

A significant difference in the traditions is the order of using the bread and the cup. In the versions of Mark, Matthew and 1 Corinthians, the reference to the bread is first (1 Cor. 11:23b, 24; Mk. 14:22; Mt. 26:26), followed by the cup (1 Cor. 11:25-26; Mk. 14:23-25; Mt. 26:27-29). Luke has this sequence, the bread (Lk. 22:19), followed by the cup (v. 20), but these are preceded by a prior reference to the cup (Lk. 22:17-18), which begins in close parallel to the words devoted to the cup in the versions of Mark and Matthew. Compare Luke’s statement, “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves’ ” (Lk. 22:17), with Mark’s, “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it” (Mk. 14:23). Matthews is similar, but ends with an imperative, “Drink from it, all of you” (Mt. 26:27). And Luke’s earlier reference to the cup continues with the same explanation that is found in Mark and Matthew. After giving out the cup, saying, “Take this and divide it among your selves” (Lk. 22:17), he continues, “for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (v. 18; cf. Mk. 14:25; Mt. 26:29)

As noted earlier (June 27, 2007, see above), Elwyn E. Tilden and Bruce M. Metzger explain the difference here, in comment on Lk. 22:17: “Some Jewish meals included prayers over the cup of wine and several such prayers might be offered during the meal (see v. 20). Luke’s order of events may be related to this fact, or to variations among early Christians in the way they observed the Lord’s supper. Jesus transformed a Jewish devotional meal into a continuing expression of association with himself in death and victory” (NOAB, 2^nd ed., on Lk. 22:14-23). A complete Seder Supper celebration is not described here, which has four “cups” in all; but Luke’s initial cup perhaps fits with his emphasis on the meal as a Passover meal.

Matthew, Mark and Luke present this as Jesus’ actions during a Passover (Seder) meal. Eric Franklin sees Luke’s “emphasis that it is the passover meal that Jesus shares with the apostles” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, pp. 954-955, on Lk. 22:1-38 ). Many have noticed that John’s narrative has Jesus crucified on “the day of Preparation” (Jn. 19:31), which would be before the Passover (Seder) meal that evening. There were differences in religious calendars between the Jerusalem priesthood and other Jewish groups, and these differences probably explain the apparent discrepancy. .

Most Christian denominations celebrate the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper “in remembrance of me [Jesus]” (Lk. 22:19; cf. 1 Cor. 11:24-25). Their understanding of how the presence/coming (parousia) of the Lord relates to this celebration varies, but all do emphasize this presence. Even the Quakers, who focus on the spiritual significance, apart from “outward” ritual ordinances, have emphasized “The Presence in the Midst,” the title of a picture of Quaker worship which can be found at this web site: http://www.quakerinfo.com/quak_wor.shtml (accessed again June 24, 2007; scroll down to see this picture).

On the traditional Friends (Quaker) view of Communion

In the Friends (Quaker) tradition, emphasis is placed on “Communion, or Participation in the Body and Blood of Christ” as inward and spiritual (from Proposition 13, [Robert] Barclay’s Apology in Modern English, edited by Dean Freiday [Barclay Press], c. 1991). The fuller statement of this “theological thesis” follows (p. 11):

The communion of the body and blood of Christ is inward and spiritual. It is by participation in his flesh and blood that the inward man is nourished daily in the hearts of those in whom Christ dwells. The breaking of bread by Christ with his disciples was a symbol (1 Cor 10:16-17; John 6:32-33, 35; 1 Cor 5:8). For the sake of the weak, it was used in the church for a time, even by those who had received the substance.

Just as abstaining from things strangled and from blood was practiced for a time (Acts 15:20); this, and the washing of one another's feet John 13:14) and the anointing of the sick with oil (James 5: 14) were all commanded with no less authority and solemnity than the breaking of bread. But since they were but shadows of better things, they are no longer to be practiced by those who have obtained the substance.

As for the other propositions, fifteen in all, a full chapter is devoted to Proposition 13 (327-361). While there is not room here for a fuller treatment of Friends views according to Barclay, a couple points might be of interest to some. (1) Barclay suggests that if John Calvin had been consistent he would have come to agree with the Friends on this issue (260-261); and (2) Barclay urges the Friends to exercise tolerance (“they may be indulged”) for those who “practice this ceremony with a true tenderness of spirit, and with real conscience toward God, and in the manner of the primitive Christians, as recognized in scripture” (261):

(1)Indeed I am inclined to look very favorably on Calvin's ingenuous admission that although he can neither understand nor express it in words, he knows by having experienced it that the Lord is spiritually Present. No doubt Calvin sometimes had a sense of his Presence without the use of this ceremony. It is probable that the understanding of God that was given. him then made him justifiably reject the false notions of transubstantiation and consubstantiation. But he did not know what to put in their place.

If he had waited entirely in the light that makes all things manifest (Eph 5:13), rather than using his own imagination, he might have come closer to understanding this mystery than those who went before him. If that had been the case, he would not have decided that the external ceremony is the chief or principal place where the spiritual presence is to be found. It is not the only place, as he well knew from experience. (261-2)

(2)Finally, if there are any in this day who practice this ceremony with a true tenderness of spirit, and with real conscience toward God, and in the manner of the primitive Christians, as recognized in scripture, that is another matter. I do not doubt but that they may be indulged in it. The Lord may take these facts into consideration and appear to them for a time when they use these things. Many of us have known him to do this for us in our own times of ignorance. But there is always the provision that they must not try to force these things upon others, or to be critical of those who have. been delivered from these things and who do not cling to them with pertinacity.

John 17:1-11 (12-26)

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

17:1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 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. 9 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. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

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.”

On April 5, 2007 (Maundy Thursday, Year One) comments were based on comments from March 24, 2005 (Maundy Thursday, Year One), April 4, 2005 (Monday in the week of the Second Sunday of Easter, Year One), April 5, 2005 (Tuesday in the week of the Second Sunday of Easter, Year One), April 6, 2005 (Wednesday in the week of the Second Sunday of Easter, Year One), March 2, 2006 (Thursday in the week of the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year Two), March 3, 2006 (Friday in the week of the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year Two), and from March 4, 2006 (Saturday in the week of the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year Two). The comments of April 5, 2007 are repeated here. On more recent occasions, these texts have been treated with different emphases, for example, February 7, 8, and 9, 2008 (Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the week of the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year Two).

Yesterday we took note of what were essentially Jesus’ final words for the public at large (in Jn. ch. 12). After four chapters of teaching for the disciples at the supper (Jn. 13:2), we come to what has been called Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. Someone said we should call this “the Lord’s Prayer,” and call the other prayer “the Disciples’ Prayer,” the one given to the disciples when they asked, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples” (Lk. 11:1). The prayer is for the disciples and for “those who will believe in me through their word” (Jn. 17:20). In the sequence of events, this prayer holds the place of Jesus’ agonizing, but submitting, prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mk. 14:32-42; Mt. 26:36-46; Lk. 22:39-46 at “the Mount of Olives”). This difference in sequence, or better, selection, is a matter of emphasis, John’s choice of what to emphasize, for he includes the prayer as a conclusion of Jesus’ teaching at the “supper” (Jn. 13:2), before they departed for “the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden” (18:1). The prayer emphasizes Jesus’ relation to the Father (17:5), his teaching of those who “have believed” (v. 8), his prayer for the disciples’ protection “from the evil one” (v. 15), and the unity (being “one”) of the Father and the Son, which he prays will also be unity of the disciples with the Father and the Son (v. 21), including “those who will believe in me through their word” (v. 20), a unity through love (v. 26).

The prayer begins with reference to “the hour” which “has come,” and Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you” (Jn. 17:1; cf. 12:23, 27 [twice]; 13:1). This “hour,” is the one mentioned earlier as not yet having come (2:4; 7:30; 8:20). It is associated with the end of Jesus public ministry on earth and his glorification in what we think of as his passion–the arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection, through all of which, he and his Father are in control, despite all appearances to the contrary.

And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father. (Jn. 10:15-18, NRSV)

Jesus’ prayer continues with the theme of “eternal life,” which the Father has given the Son to give “to all whom you have given him” (Jn. 17:2). There is reference to “eternal life” in John 3:15, 16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:24, 39: 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68 [Peter]; 10:28; 12:25, 50; and 17:2, 3. Appearing as it does in Jesus’ last public words (12:50) as well as in this prayer for his disciples, the reference to “eternal life” is clearly of profound significance for John’s understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. “Eternal life” is defined, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (17:3). The hour of glory has come. Jesus says, “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed” (vv. 4-5).

Having celebrated the coming of the hour of glory and “finishing the work” (vv. 1, 4), Jesus’ prayer turns to more focus on his disciples. He has made the Father’s name known “to those whom you gave me from the world,” he says, adding that “They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word” (v. 6). They have received “the words that you gave to me” and they “know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me” (v. 8). So it seems that it is still all about Jesus’ identity as the Word who was “in the beginning,” “was with God” and “was God” (1:1), but who also “became flesh and lived among us” (1:14).

Jesus’ prayer, announces the coming of his hour of glory. “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you” (Jn. 17:1). Jesus has glorified the Father “on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do” (v. 4), by finishing work that brings “eternal life” (v. 3). He has made the Father’s name and his words known to his disciples, and “they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (vv. 6-8). John Marsh considers questions some may have about the authenticity of this record of Jesus’ prayer. For one who has studied “the synoptic tradition of the ‘passion’,” he says, “the prayer that the Lord offers on the night of his betrayal [Mk. 14:34-36; cf. Mt. 26:39, 42; Lk. 22:42] is recorded, though it is a shorter–much shorter–prayer, and its content and tone are markedly different from the prayer recorded in John” (John Marsh, Saint John, Westminster Pelican Commentaries, 1968, pp. 549-550, on Jn. 17:1-26). Part of Marsh’s argument continues:

As to the manifestly different tone of this prayer from that recorded in Mark 14:36, it can be said that such a prayer of relative detachment would not be as impossible as many critics have supposed, particularly if the reader reminds himself of the person and the stature of the one who is offering the prayer. Nor need the intelligent sensitive reader of the fourth gospel hesitate to think that Jesus asked in the garden that, if it were possible, this cup might pass from him; for in the fourth gospel itself the evangelist tells his readers that Jesus was on three occasions ‘troubled in spirit’, i.e. deeply disturbed, and on each occasion it was in consequence of his facing the fact of the ineluctable laying down of his life which was ahead of him(11:33; 12:27; 13:21). (Marsh, p. 551)

Jesus prays for his disciples, “those whom you gave me” (Jn. 17:9). They belong to the Father (vv. 9-10) and Jesus has “been glorified in them” (v. 10). Now that Jesus is departing the world to come to the Father, he prays that the Father will “protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (v. 11). Jesus has protected them and guarded them, losing only “the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled,” that is, Judas (v. 12). Jesus has “given them your word,” which separates them from the world: “the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world” (v. 14). The protection of his disciples for which Jesus prays (v. 11) is further defined as joy, “my joy made complete in themselves” (v. 13), and protection from the evil one (v. 15). Jesus prays for their sanctification (vv. 17, 19). As the Father has sent the Son into the world, now the Son sends his disciples into the world (v. 18), good reason for the prayers for their protection. The emphasis upon unity among Christian believers in tomorrow’s reading (vv. 21-23) is anticipated here: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (v. 11b), but the emphasis today is on the group of disciples that Jesus has gathered, whereas the emphasis tomorrow includes “those who will believe in me through their word” (v. 20). Although today’s concluding petition is focused on the mission of the first group of disciples, by implication, as noted in the similar terminology, prayer that “may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me,” later disciples–even we–are included when Jesus prays:

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. (John 17:17-19, NRSV)

In the third section of Jesus’ prayer he turns to us: those who through the ministry of the apostles and their successors, have been drawn to faith in Christ. “I ask,” he prays, “not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one (vv. 20-21a). The community of Christian fellowship is to include the Father, the Son (Jesus), his first disciples, and those who respond to the gospel message through their witness. The prayer, and “the glory that you have given me” have a purpose, “so that they may be one, as we are one” (v. 22), further defined as “I [the Son] in them and you [the Father] 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” (v. 23). Jesus is describing a comprehensive spiritual unity that extends beyond any human institutions. Raymond E. Brown, a leading Roman Catholic biblical scholar, discusses various views on the implications of Jesus’ prayer for unity among his followers, and comments as follows:

Any approach that places the essence of unity in the solidarity of human endeavor is not really faithful to John’s insistence that unity has its origins in divine action. The very fact that Jesus prays to the father for this unity indicates that the key to it lies within God’s power. . . . None of this need imply passivity on the part of the believers in the question of unity, but their action is not the primary source of unity. (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a, p. 776 on Jn. 17:20-23).

Brown continues:

The Johannine statements about unity imply both a horizontal and a vertical dimension. The unity involves the relation of the believers to the Father and the Son (vertical) and the relation of the believers among themselves (horizontal). The latter dimension is found in all the statements stressing love of one another that we have heard in the Last Discourse (xiii 34-35, xv 12, 17); see also the theme of fellowship with one another in I John I 7. Thus unity for John is not reducible to a mystical relationship with God. On the other hand, the vertical dimension, apparent in the frequent statements about immanence in the Last Discourse (especially vs. 21: ‘that they also may be [one] in us’; vs. 23: ‘I in them and you in me’), means that unity is not simply human fellowship or the harmonious interaction of Christians. (Ibid.)

Brown has more to say about unity. It involves “community” (p. 778), and there is a “desired effect that this unity is to have on the world”:

the Christian believers will offer to the world the same type of challenge that Jesus offered–a challenge to recognize God in Jesus . . . Those whom God has given to Jesus will come to believe and know; for the rest of men, that is, those who constitute the world, this challenge will be the occasion of self-condemnation, for they will turn away. How does Christian unity present such a challenge? Jesus presented a challenge because he claimed to be one with the Father; now the Christians are part of this unity (‘that they may be [one] in us’) and so present the same challenge. Jesus presented a challenge because he claimed to be the revelation of God’s glory; now Jesus has given this glory to the Christians (22) and so the challenge comes through them.

The question for us is, Are we presenting that challenge to the world around us?

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

deanworden@comcast.net