Make Them One, Lord! June 1, 2014 HSFUMC
Overhearing prayers. Not deliberately eavesdropping, but being close enough that you can hear the words and the prayers coming from someone close by. That’s happened to me. Has it happened to you?
Beyond the new Coppertone sink and cook stove in the new kitchen my dad built in the 1960’s was the small dining room with a simple maple table for four. We didn’t sit at that table much at all; instead we sat at the pink Formica breakfast bar, leaving the nearby table available to my father to place all his bibles and books. He was a carpenter on the weekdays and a preacher on the weekends. And at that table was where he sat to work on his sermons and pray. And more than once I overheard him pray for me. He’d say, “Be with Michael, Lord—grant him favor in the eyes of men,” as if I were some sort of King David in his eyes. But I was far from a King David. He knew that… and knew I needed all the help I could get!
Years later, I eavesdropped on my own children’s prayers. Our practice was to always kneel down at their bedside at an hour much earlier than they would have liked and prayed our litany of prayers.
Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the
Lord my soul to keep. When in the morning
Light I wake. Show me the path of Love to take.
A variation, a re-mix, a re-do, a re-write of a prayer I’d learned in my childhood that had different words that scared me to death each time I prayed them: “I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake; I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Death had come early in my experience… had come by the time I was 3, taking my mother. So each time I prayed that prayer….thinking, “Am I next?” I was terrified. So, when my own children were born, I changed the words. And Nathan prayed them… so did his little sister, Haley. The revised version…”When in the Morning Light I wake, show me the path of Love to take.” The prayers were always followed by a little bedtime prayer song. I had to assure both children that it was a song to be softly sung… not belted out in such a way that it could be heard all across the parsonage! A quiet song. A song (hopefully) that lulled you to sleep: “Into my heart… into my heart.”
I stood there in the hallway outside the children’s room where they had told me they wanted to say prayers alone that night and listened to the “now I lay me” followed by the sweet little song. And then, at the end of the both prayers and song, Nathan’s little boy voice spoke out with parental-like firmness: “Now GET in bed!” He had incorporated his parents’ command into the body of the prayer itself, and it was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing there in the hallway, unnoticed. That’s what I overheard.
Imagine overhearing Jesus praying. In fact, you don’t have to just imagine it; you can hear it as John records it here in the 17th Chapter. This is not Jesus responding to his disciples’ inquiry on how to pray in the Gospel of Matthew which resulted in what we now refer the Lord’s Prayer. This is what appears to be eavesdropping on Jesus praying, listening in on what was in his heart, and it’s quite revealing.
His followers, his disciples are on his mind and in his heart. His own well-being and safety are not on his mind, but the unity of his followers is on his mind. “Make them one, Lord,” he prays. “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.” Unity. That’s what Jesus prays about. Is that your aim as well?
Pope Francis shocks the world and challenges the notion of “that’s not how we do things around here” without even saying a word. Recognizing there are two walls in the Holy Land, he stops to pray at both—the ancient wailing wall, still standing in Jerusalem after thousands of years and the 21st Century Wall of Separation surrounding Bethlehem and much of Palestine, an ugly concrete barrier constructed to keep peoples apart. Make them One, Lord, Jesus prays.
After more than 40 years of wandering in the desert of exclusion, the United Methodists appear on the brink of division and stories about our rift appear as the cover story in major magazines. What divides us, journalists say, is our difference of “opinion” about homosexuality. The differences seem insurmountable, they write, and as we approach yet another General Conference in 2016, a split in the Church seems likely. Make them One, Lord, Jesus prays.
Do you think Jesus really cares whether you prefer traditional worship services over contemporary worship services? Do you think Jesus prefers screens over hymnals and bibles in the pews? If we took long enough to evesdrop on Jesus’ praying, we’d discover what’s on his mind is unity, not division. “That they may be one, Lord, even as we are one,” he prays.
I can understand the cold shoulder twenty-somethings give the Church in America. Perhaps they aren’t the only ones who feel that way, but, clearly, they are the ones who check “none” when asked what their religious preferences are on census forms. They’ve had enough of the Church’s wrangling over “issues” that aren’t issues. And it could very well be that we, the church are part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Our insistence on “majoring in the minors” instead of majoring on the major things—sticking to that which is paramount in Jesus heart—make them One, Lord. Unity. Love. Sacrifice. Honoring God. Honoring each other.
Make them One, Lord. It’s as if somehow Jesus anticipated the division and discord his followers would feel. It’s as if somehow, he knew how easy it would be to simply “choose sides” and march off in different directions. So easy, it seems to draw our circles smaller and smaller and smaller to only include people who look like us, talk like us, vote like us, love like us, dress like us, worship like us, live like us. Lord, have mercy! No wonder we overhear him pray for us saying, Make them one, Lord—because on their own, they don’t have a chance!
Many have been transformed by Jesus’ teachings. Still others have been transformed by Jesus’ miracles and healings. Imagine being transformed by Jesus’ praying… make them one, Lord. Amen. 1150 wrds.