John 17:6-19

“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. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 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.

“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. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 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. 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.

“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. 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. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

“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.”

‘Tis the season for goodbyes … and farewells … and “so longs” … graduation season, I mean. Yesterday, I got to offer the Invocation and the Benediction at the commencement ceremony for my alma mater – Capital University, over in Columbus, Ohio. It always brings back all sorts of memories to be on that campus and yesterday, for graduation, was no different – maybe even a little more poignant – to reflect on what all of that meant for me 28 years ago. (I would have bet a million dollars I wouldn’t be the one offering the Invocation or Benediction at a Capital commencement back then. And none of my friends would have taken that bet, either.)

Well, it’s not an Invocation, or a Benediction, or anything like a commencement address, but we call what we hear from Jesus this morning part of his “Farewell Discourse” – his own sort of “goodbye” and “so long,” if you will. Jesus was readying himself for the cross, for his death, for his resurrection, and for his ascension into heaven, too. And all of that gives these prayerful last words some heft, some weight, and some poignancy of their own.

And, even though he knew what was coming for himself – all of that suffering and death, I mean – Jesus’ greatest concern was for his family and friends. He wants to entrust them to God’s care. He wants them to be protected, to be guarded, to be safe. He wants them to know joy; to be “sanctified in the truth” as he puts it. He wants them to go about their lives – in the world, but not of the world – fulfilling their call as children of God. And so he prays these heartfelt, passionate words of love and concern and hope for his people – for his disciples, for these children of God he’s been walking alongside and raising up in the faith until now.

It’s why this prayer from Jesus – as all over the place and stream-of-consciousness as it seems – is perfect for a day like today when I feel like my words have too much ground to cover, in too little time. For one thing Mother’s Day is on the hearts and minds of many of us today. We will also celebrate the confirmation of a handful of our young people as they affirm the promises of their baptism this morning. Plenty of you are getting ready for the end of another school year and for graduations of your own. And many in our community are grief-stricken over the loss of little Sammy Teusch, the 10 year-old 4th grader who took his own life last week over in Greenfield. Like I said, there’s just too much ground to cover and not nearly enough time for all of it.

One of the most meaningful ways I’ve heard motherhood described before, is that the choice to have a child is to decide forever to let your heart go walking around outside of your body. There’s a lot of letting go, relinquishing, and surrender – there’s a lot of faith, then – in the act of living life as a mother. And it seems that’s something like what God did in Jesus – to set the divine free in the world; to put God’s very self at risk; to let the very heart of the almighty leave the safety of heaven’s protection and go walking around in the realm of brokenness that is the world as we know it.

So I think Jesus’ “famous last words” of love, his petitions of hope, his prayers of concern and for the protection for his people, have a lot to say to us still, no matter what it is that brings us here. I think Jesus is so earnest as he prays, because he knows he’s going; that he’s about to leave his friends, his family, his disciples to their own devices – he’s about to let his children … his heart – go walking around in the world without him, and he’s more than a little concerned about what might come of that.

Don’t most of us know something about what he’s feeling? Haven’t we been on one end of this sort of surrendering at some point – whether it was sending your child off to their first day of kindergarten or moving them into their college dorm for the first time? Maybe it was walking your daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.

Maybe it had nothing to do with children at all. Was it kissing a loved-one goodbye before the nurse wheeled them off to surgery? Was it “farewell” to a friend who moved away or “goodbye” to a co-worker or to a career of your own, even? Maybe it was the final goodbye to someone you knew you’d never see again, or even a goodbye that didn’t happen in time, because no one saw it coming.

I imagine Jesus has something like all of that – and more – in mind with his prayer. This loving surrender and letting go with all kinds of hope and faith and some measure of fear, too, for what was to come for those he was leaving behind. Would they remember what he taught them? Would they keep the faith? Did they know how much they were loved? Were they up to the challenges that would come their way? Were they ready for the hard choices, the setbacks, the let-downs, the disappointments, the failures, the risks, the heartbreak they might face?

Because life in the world is risky. For Jesus it led to the cross. For the rest of us, it can mean all sorts of sadness and struggle. There is sickness out here in the real world. There is disease and disaster and dying. There are accidents and addictions. There are broken relationships and unfulfilled dreams. There are bullies and despair and suicide, for crying out loud.

And all of this is what we set our children loose into – not just on the day of their confirmation – or at their graduation – but every morning when we put them on the bus or hand them the keys to the car or send them off to college, to their first job, their first date, to be married, whatever. And all of it is what God sends each of us into, just the same, as people on the planet at some time … in one way or another.

As I watched all of those college graduates marching around at commencement from my perch on the dais yesterday, I thought about all of the moms and dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and more – beaming with so much pride, hope, joy, and some measure of worry and concern too, I imagine – as they watched their hearts go marching around in caps and gowns and on to whatever is next. And I thought about little Sammy Teusch’s mom and dad, too, who’s heart left that one last time, shattered, and won’t ever be the same again.

And that’s why Jesus’ prayer matters for us. It reminds us that his words and his ways are of God – and that ours can be, too. We are reminded that we belong to something bigger than ourselves – something more than we can see on this side of the grave. We are reminded that we are one with the rest of God’s good creation. In spite of the differences and the divisions the world might try to impose upon us – we are one – bound together by the love and grace and mercy of our Creator.

And because of that, with Jesus’ blessing, encouragement, and holy example … we can do this, people. We can go about our lives in this world – afraid and uncertain and sad and overwhelmed more often than we’d like; but hopeful, anyway – as God intends – with faith and love to carry on in spite of the heartbreak; with faith and love to share, because of the heartbreak.

We are called, you and I … as baptized children of God … to be the very heart of God walking around in the world, doing justice, loving kindness, sharing grace and mercy and peace and goodness, so that Jesus’ prayers will be answered – for us and for the sake of the world God so loves.

Amen

Psalm 8

O Lord, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouths of babes and infants

you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,

to silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are humans that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet,

all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Tis the season of open houses. I never know what card to get; so I looked up some funny ones and these were my favorite. (Cards shown on the screen)

Maybe you’ve been to a few open houses already or have a couple still to come. On Monday, Katelyn and I went to one for a high school senior. He’s a remarkable young man. He excelled in academics, athletics; spiritually and socially he’s mature beyond his years and I have every confidence that he will excel in all that comes his way, no matter what it is. At his open house, he had a Bible open and invited folks to highlight a verse or two as a note of encouragement for him as he heads to college.

People had already highlighted the traditional, go-to passages: “For I know the plans I have for you,” “I can do all things through Christ”, “Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid”, “Nothing is impossible with God”. I thought about being a smart aleck and picking some obscure, random story; like the attack of the she bears in 2 kings, or Ehud killing King Elgon while on the toilet, but I refrained. In fact, I wasn’t sure which verse or verses to pick.

It made me wonder, What advice do you offer to the over achiever, and to the underachiever, for that matter? What do you say to the highschool graduate entering the workforce, to the one going to college, or to the college graduate? For many, if not most, graduates there is so much to look forward to; a “the world is your oyster” type of moment. Yet at the same time, it’s appropriate to look back and bask in all the accolades and accomplishments. To relish in them, if only for a moment, and to feel proud about all that’s been done.

Yet, in the back, or possibly the front, of most graduates' minds, even if they know exactly what they are doing, are all sorts of questions: How hard is this going to be (whatever ‘this’ is’)? What do I need to do to start the career I think I want? What internship or scholarship or degree must I have for the profession I want or to make the money I want or to have the status I want? How will I measure up in this great big world?

What they don’t tell you at graduation or in your first year of college or in the first year of your job, (or at least what I don’t remember being told), is how easy it is to feel lost in it all, to feel like the world is too big, the challenges too great, your not doing as well in school as you had, or you aren’t producing at work as much you hope or as much is demanded of you. Amid all the change both in and around you, you begin to see the vastness of this world, and you ask yourself, “What am I doing? Who am I?”

The psalmist asks a similar question in Psalm 8. Now David didn’t write the Psalms attributed to him, but we can imagine a young David, a shepherd, keeping watch over his flock by night. And as he lay in the grass, David stares up into the heavens and sees the work of God’s hands, brilliant shining stars, the moon in all its grandeur. And in the vastness of it all, the psalmist wonders like the graduates “what are human beings that you Oh God are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”

In other words, how could I, this single, seemingly insignificant soul, in the midst of this ever expanding universe, on this one planet filled with other people, smarter people, stronger, more productive and effective people, how could I possibly matter? This isn’t a question that only graduates or the psalmist wrestle with, but one that all of us have at one time or another. How is it that God thinks and remembers me? Who am I that God would care for me?

This question is asked in other places in the Bible. Bildad, one of Job’s “friends” gives an answer saying we are nothing but worms and maggots. Later the Psalmist will say we are grass that simply fades away. Neither are verses to highlight for a graduate.

But here, here the psalmist says something completely different. Here the Psalmist says God has made you a little lower than God’s own self and has crowned you with glory and honor.

You are worthy, you are loved, you have dignity, you have power even; not because of what awards you’ve won, what degrees you’ve obtained, or what work you’ve produced, but because God has bestowed them upon you as a child of God, made in the image of God. You are loved and you are enough, just as you are.

It sounds so simple and yet scandalous. It’s not what our culture screams at us, and it might even be a little offensive to some. In our society today, we have been told and bought into the lie that our worth depends on our work. That we are what we achieve. And while it is true that work can give value and dignity, meaning and purpose; It is always secondary to the work and word of God, who created every human being in Their own image, inherently bestowing value and dignity and love and purpose upon each person first and foremost, completely independent of someone’s work or production or success. You are loved and enough just as you are. Full stop.

Perhaps we see this best in the creation story. God worked six days, creating humanity on that sixth day and called it very good, the first and only time God does that. The next day God rested. That in and of itself is remarkable. Rest had not yet been created. Up until now, it was only work, evening and morning, creating around the clock. But on the 7th day, God rested.

What then is the first act of humankind on the seventh day? Rest, not work! God invited them to join in this divine rest, to look around not at all they had done, not their production or work or success. But to see all that God had done, and to bask in it’s goodness. The first gift God gives creation isn’t work or a task, but rest, grace, love. It’s the gift of knowing that apart from what we do or do not do, we are given glory and honor by our Creator.

The word, the advice, the hope, the encouragement I want to share with that graduate who’s open house I went to, with the overachiever, the underachiever, the graduate thrilled about the job they’ve landed, the one scared to death because they’ve landed nothing,

the one with endless awards, and the one who received none, and the word I have for retirees struggling to feel worth apart from their work, or those unhappy with the work they have, or those laid off from work, is simply this: you are loved and you are enough just as you are; you are crowned with glory and honor, because God made you so.

Maybe that will be on a graduation card some day. Amen.

So Long, Farewell, You Got This

What Should be on Graduation Cards