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"More Eloquent Than Silence"
Easter VII May 24, 2009 John 17:6-19 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Years ago, I read a saying that goes something like this: “Don’t listen at keyholes for you may be vexed.” It took a while for me to figure out what that meant, but basically I came to the conclusion that if you intentionally listen in on a conversation, eavesdrop, you may hear something about yourself that you don’t like. Nowadays we don’t have too many “keyholes” left so I suppose that overhearing a conversation through a keyhole is a rarity. But have you noticed how easy it is to overhear a conversation, and I don’t even mean by intentional eavesdropping. As you leave here today there will be a lot of conversations; people going home or fishing, folks going out for breakfast or lunch, friends heading to the celebration center for coffee and goodies. Sit quietly in a restaurant and just listen to the buzz around you. Why, you can even overhear conversations while grocery shopping; many, many one-way conversations as someone talks on a cell phone to a spouse or someone else, maybe getting a grocery list, maybe planning the weekend, maybe sharing a juicy tidbit of gossip. I used to enjoy participating in those conversations – even though I wasn’t a part of them – but Cindy has managed to put a stop to my vicarious kibitzing. Have coffee in a shopping mall somewhere and just watch, and listen to the conversations; couples, groups, parents with small children, parents with teenagers, teenagers in groups and all the other combinations. Cindy and I were walking through a large mall in northern California a couple years ago when we saw three teenage girls walking abreast of one another. The two on the ends both had cell phones glued to their ears and were busily engaged in a conversation, probably not with each other since they were talking at the same time. The girl in the middle caught my eye and apparently knew what was going through my mind as she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Her silence was eloquent. This morning we are overhearing another conversation, but we won’t be vexed, even though we are among the subjects of that conversation. It’s a conversation that Jesus is having with God the Father. It’s a conversation that we are meant to overhear, that we are meant to have ourselves with our God. It’s an outpouring of Jesus’ heart. And we don’t hear the Father’s response, but his silence is eloquent. Jesus says “I have made your name known to those who you gave me from the world,” continuing “…they have kept your word.” He continues that his disciples know that everything God has given him is from God, that God sent him. He asks that, because his disciples are in the world, that God will protect them in “...your name that you have given me.” And Jesus says he protected his disciples, that none was lost “…except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.” That “one” is sometimes referred to as the “Son of perdition.” Jesus says something about his disciples, then, since then, and now, that we sometimes lost track of in our fast-paced lives. Jesus prays “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” We don’t belong to the world: even though we live in the world, we are not of the world. The values that the world holds dear, that the world even worships, are not the values of those who know the truth, who know that God’s word is truth. Those values of the world that you have heard mentioned in sermons past, power, influence, affluence, materialism, getting ahead, staying ahead. Values of the world that look down on servant and servanthood, values that can be summed up in “me, me, me,” and “mine, mine, mine.” Not just possessions but our own selfish wants and desires, our apparent need to have it our way and make sure that everyone does too! We have been sanctified, made holy, set apart – we are justified by Jesus, that is declared holy, we are sanctified by Jesus, that is made holy. We are in the world but not of the world, not above the tumults of the world, not set apart by God to stand watch, but set apart by God to act, to share. How do we know this? Because Jesus continues “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” We have been sent, we are being sent, Jesus sends us even now into the world. What are we to do? Everything that Jesus gives us came from God and we are to share it. Share it, not hoard it, not keep it locked up tightly in our wallets, locked up tightly in our hearts. So what is it we share? Well, remember a short time ago when I mentioned the “one destined to be lost,” the one sometimes called the “Son of perdition” – the one named Judas? Something else happened after this prayer, after Jesus was betrayed. It happened when he was arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified. It happened that the Son of God became the Son of perdition for our sakes. He who was without sin, who was blameless, as innocent as a lamb was condemned, not because of what he did or didn’t do, but because of what we do and don’t do. He was condemned, not only by the world, but by God on behalf of the world. He was forsaken not for his sake but for our sake. Oh, this is the story you’ve heard before, but hear it again. God so loved the world that he sent his only Son into the world that all who believe in him may not perish. And this is why Jesus sends us into the world! To share the Good News, not only through our actions, but in our conversations, through our lives. Silence can at times be eloquent, but even more eloquent is the story of our redemption, whether told by a toddler, or told by someone who’s heard it and perhaps told it for decades. We were meant to overhear Jesus’ conversation with his Father, and we are meant to tell everyone about it. AMEN. Rev. Bruce Hannem, Associate Pastor
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa, Minnesota |
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