Homily for Sunday, 17 May 2015– Seventh Sunday of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 1:15-17, 20a, 20c-26; Psalm 103:1-2, 11-12, 19-20; 1 John 4:11-16; John 17:11b-19

“We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us,” we hear today from the First Letter of John. Is this not one of the great “starting point” statements of our faith? What is the foundation of our Christian faith; of any faith; the reason why we are here; of why any one of us or anything exists? The foundation of all this is God’s love for us.

“We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.” We know and believe as Christians, as one community of faith, that God delights in us. Is it so remarkable for our Scriptures to say that God loves and delights in us precisely because to say this is so problematic?

What do I mean by this? I do not wish to be pessimistic or to discourage us, but I ask: How many of us have experienced divisions and brokenness in our families; our households; our marriages, or knows somebody who has or is experiencing these realities? Many regions of our world know war, extremism, other forms of violence, hunger, and poverty, most often due to the concentration of resources in the hands of a few. But we need not go far to see the greed of a few while large groups of people (sadly still too often set apart by race, in these United States especially) are at a social and economic disadvantage, frequently through little fault of their own. We need not go far, right here in Greater Rochester, to see or hear of violence.

We live in a culture that, on the one hand, is revered for its work ethic and generosity and, on the other hand, is known for increasing division between left and right; between rich and poor; among races. Even in our Church, we see competitiveness over adherence to teachings of the Church, often as we understand them. Those of weaker conscience can find themselves condemned instead of having their conscience strengthened by the support of loved ones and the community of faith, to understand and live by the teachings of our faith more fully. And we know the scandal of division among Christians: Catholics; Protestants; Orthodox.

All these divisions; all this brokenness in our world; among Christians; within our Church even, is because of sin in our world. We know “the love God has for us.” God’s love for us is the reason for our existence; why God has created anything; why God sustains this creation; keeps it and us alive. And we know our freedom to love God and one another as God loves us, or to misuse our freedom and so not to love as God loves us. And yet even when we do not love; even when we sin; even when we have created scandal and division in a world God created to be good, God still loves us. God delights in us and will always delight in us. How can this be? And how does this fact; this foundation of our faith that God loves and delights in us impel us to act as Christians; as Catholics?

“We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.” We know and believe that God delights in us. We know and believe this because, from the very moment of creation, “God saw that [his creation] was good.” God pronounced us “very good.” When we fell away from God in sin; in not loving and delighting in God; in one another; in God’s creation as God delights in us, God sent us God’s only Son to live, to die, to rise, to ascend to plead our cause “at the right hand of the Father” in heaven. And the Son of God, Jesus Christ, promises to return in glory to complete God’s work of our salvation.

Here is our evidence of “the love God has for us”; that God delights in us! And the same Jesus who lived, died, rose, ascended, and will return as one like us in all but sin shows his delight in us most of all by praying with and for us. We hear perhaps the most magnificent prayer of Jesus with and for us in all of Scripture today in our Gospel reading from John. What does Jesus pray in what is often called his “high priestly prayer”; his prayer with and for his disciples; with and for us just before he suffered and died for us?

Two features of Jesus’ prayer in John’s Gospel; two things for which Jesus prays for us stand out for me in particular. What are they? Jesus prays for us: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.” Jesus prays for our unity. And then Jesus prays to our Father in the same prayer, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.”

What would it mean for us to own this prayer of Jesus with and for us for ourselves? How might we “be one” as God the Father, Son, and Spirit are one? What does it mean for us to be consecrated; made holy “in the truth” that is the word of God? Does this not all seem extremely daunting to us: Achieving the ultimate unity that exists among the persons of the Trinity of the one God; being made holy in the truth of God’s word?

This is daunting for us, to be sure. But by God’s grace the unity and love among us that Jesus prays with and for us can be ours. How? Begin with prayer. Pray especially for the people with whom we disagree; the people who irritate us; the people who have even sinned against us. Pray for their good: “Lord God, who is all good and created us all good; who loves us although we are sinners, keep this person well and in your grace. Bring the person for whom I pray to the promise of your salvation for all whom you have created for yourself. Bring all people to deeper experience of the truth that you love and delight in us.” Pray a prayer like this not only once but until we can actively feel God’s love for the person for whom we pray being expressed through our words. Pray until our words become works of kindness; of charity; of opening up opportunities for dialogue with people who are different from us; who struggle in their faith or in living some of its teachings; who are of other faiths or no faith.

Prayer will not bring us to uniformity, so that we all agree on everything. But prayer as a community of faith and individually but for one another is at the root of unity around one central truth of our faith: God loves us; delights in us. And “we have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.” Prayer that becomes action for peace; for forgiveness; for unity; for an end to divisions and violence is our starting point for showing our world God’s love for our world; God’s delight in us and in our world.

“That they may be one just as we are one… Consecrate them in the truth.” This is Jesus’ prayer of utmost love for us; delight in us. Jesus invites us to pray this prayer for one another; to live this prayer for one another. If we live this prayer for one another, the First Letter of John says, God’s “love is brought to perfection in us.” Jesus promises as he prays in John’s Gospel that, if we live this prayer for one another; if we pray for one another; forgive one another as we need to be forgiven; dialogue with one another and avoid the temptations of gossip; hyper-competition, and passive aggression, we will have the same joy in one another as Jesus does in us. We will have this same joy of Jesus Christ if we overcome ideological divisions; divisions among Christians of differing traditions; racial divisions; all greed; all forms of violence. “I speak this in the world,” Jesus says, “so that they may share my joy completely.”

Jesus speaks “this in the world”; prays this with and for us “in the world” because he loves us; because God delights in us. God calls us to love and to delight in what is good in one another; what is of God in one another. God wants to bring his love; joy; delight in us to perfection in, with, and through us. This is the very foundation of our Christian faith; of Christian and human unity; of our joy and of our salvation.