ROME IMPROVEMENT 05/16/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—John 17:2-19

This week the great Farewell Address ends with Jesus praying. We join Jesus as he prays for himself, his disciples, and the world, but we do not hear the end. We have to wait until next year for that, unless you choose to look it up in the Bible yourself.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

Jesus prays, “As you gave him authority over all flesh, in order that all whom you have given him, he may give to them life eternal.

“This now is eternal life, in order that they may know you, the only true God, and whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on the earth having completed the work that you gave me in order that I should make [it]. Now glorify me, Father, with yourself, with the glory that I had before the world ‘is-ing’ [is, was, and will be] with you.

“I made your name visible to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have held fast to your Word [the Word revealed in the person of Jesus]. Now they know that all things you gave me are of you; for the words you have given me, I gave them, and they seized [them] and knew truly that from you I came forth and believed that you sent me. About them, I am asking, I do not ask about the world, but about those whom you have given me for yours they are. And all my things, are yours; and yours, are mine; and I have been glorified in them. No longer am I [and was I and will I be] in the world, yet they themselves are [and were and will be] in the world, and I am [and was and will be] coming to you. Holy Father, hold fast to them, in your name, which you have given me, in order that they may be one as we. When I was [and am and will be] with them, I was [and am and will be] holding fast to them in The Name of you, which you have given me. And I guarded, and not one of them was destroyed, except the son of destruction, in order that the [Hebrew] writing might come to fruition.

“Now, to you, I am coming, and these things I speak in the world in order that they may have my joy coming to fruition within them. I have given them your word, and the world hated them, because they are not [and were not and will not be] of the world, just as I am not [and was not and will not be] of the world. I do not [and did not and will not] ask in order that you should take them out of the world, but in order that you should hold fast to them from the evil. They are not [and were not and will not be] of the world, just as I am not [and were not and will not be] from the world.

“Make them holy in the truth; the Word, of you, is [and was and will be] truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world; and for them I make [and made and will make] myself holy, in order that they also were [and are and will be] being made holy in truth.”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

The beginning of Jesus’ Farewell Address outlined our connections with him—we are part of the Father’s household with many resting places, we are entangled like branches on a vine, producing fruit, we are involved in a relationship of equality with God because we are beloved of Jesus. As a result, we are the recipients of the Advocate/Comforter. Now, we are included in the prayer for Jesus’ disciples, not just of the time but for his disciples throughout all of time—even into eternal life. That relationship in eternity begins and ends in knowing our relationship in God, in Jesus, and in the Advocate/Comforter Jesus sends to us.

In this egalitarian relationship, we are invited into that secure ‘holding fast’ place of God’s promised leading. The invisible God has been made visible in the person of Jesus, and in the relationship where the people have cared for, held fast to Jesus—the Word—joy is known.

Jesus calls God, “Holy Father”. He asks that the people be protected against evil, saying that the only one who is no longer part of the world is the destroyer who has been destroyed. In the background I hear, “What advantage do you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death, but now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is [being made holy]—the end is eternal life.” (Romans 6 NRSV) and “Where, O Death is your sting?...The power of sin is death,” (1 Cor. 15).

We know that the power of death has been put to death. The power of death which once separated us from God no longer has the power to separate us from God, and this knowledge brings joy—a joy Jesus desires to share with us. Again, we hear, “Neither life, nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 8). If there is a joy to be shared, that would be it.

Lastly, Jesus asks that the people be made ‘hagios’. This word is variously translated as: holy, sanctified, hallowed, and more. For the sake of this passage, I have translated it as holy or being made holy. But what does this ‘hagios’ stuff mean?

Two years ago, because I am a member of the Disability Ministries Advisory Team, the ELCA sent me to the annual meeting of Queer Christian Fellowship (QCF). There I attended a couple of lectures on “Queering the Gospels”. In one, a very serious, faithful man talked about this ‘hagios’ word as being put aside for a specific task or made different for a purpose. He explained that this special placement was to call people into a right relationship with God. Then, he said that the LGBTQIA+ community was the community that was ‘hagios’ today.

I had immediate push-back within myself. I think I probably even expressed my discomfort with his definition to him. To think of queer folk as being faithful leaders, as companions in faith, as beloved of God, was one thing; but to think of LGBTQIA+ people as being particularly ‘hagios’, holy? Hmm?

Yet, if, rather than claiming holiness for any particular group of people who are different, we think of this holiness word as being a descriptor of who Jesus is, then maybe difference and holiness have something to do with one another after all. As an identifier, look at the people Jesus hung out with. He mostly hung out with people who were different—the blind, deaf, lame, maimed, widowed, orphaned, foreigners, mentally ill, chronically ill, and the poor, and let us not forget the tax collectors—yes, the ‘different’.

If the ‘different’ were the people Jesus hung with then, then why would he not be hanging with the LGBTQIA+ community today?

What if making oneself holy, sanctified, is intentionally identifying with the ‘different’?

What if we then took some time to rest, or linger, with Jesus’ asking the Holy Father to “make them holy in the truth, sanctify them, in truth, …and for them I make myself holy, sanctify myself, in order that they are also being made holy, sanctified, in truth?”

How then might our understanding of holiness, sanctification, and being made ‘right’ with God change?

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

When I first started thinking and talking about the issue of sanctification this week, Pr. Seth Hecox, Our Savior Lutheran Church, Sun Prairie, said, “It’s sort of like being vaccinated”. I hadn’t really gone there, but as he spoke, I started to catch up to him. We don’t get vaccinated in order to separate ourselves from others. We get vaccinated in order to safely be with others.

In the same way, being made holy, or being sanctified, does not put us in some rarified atmosphere, apart from the world. Rather, sanctification, or being made holy, is the very thing that pushes us into the world to be lovingly engaged in the world with ‘different’ people. We get to identify with the ‘different’ people in a way that shows that we are ‘different’ too.

This difference or holy state may not only say something about us, or Jesus, it may say something about Godself. When we pray, “Our Father in heaven, ‘hallowed’ be your name,” we are using the same root word as that of ‘Holy Father’ and ‘sanctify’ in our text today.

What, if when we say these prayerful words, we understood them as, “Our Father in heaven, may your name always be known to be ‘different’ for the ‘different’—the slaves of the world, those who are taken advantage of, the bullied, the beaten, the disenfranchised. May they always know that they, in their difference, are part of your good creation, that they too live in your image and are set aside for your work of living fully into the community for which you have created us?”

What, if instead of setting us apart from the world to be with God by ourselves, holiness and sanctification is an incarnational identifier that engages us with God, in the world for the sake of the world?

What, if sanctification or holiness, like a vaccination, prepares us for serving our neighbor?

What if LGBTQIA+ people are part of the sanctifying holiness of the world we live in?

How would that change the ask Jesus is making when he says, “Sanctify them (the disciples there and all of us disciples today) in truth?”

HANGING THE TRIM

The ELCA has extended a liberal invitation to many who are different, but, as a church, we oftentimes have been reluctant to hear the voices of change these new voices bring. This week we heard the announcement of Meghan Rohrer (they/their) as the new bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod who happen to be trans. As Matthias (gift of God) was elected (Acts 1:12-26), so now this new bishop has been elected. Let us rejoice and be sanctified.