A few years ago, I was working with a group of women who wanted to join Daughters of the King. I am going to assume that some of you know what Daughter of the King is (a lay religious order focused on prayer, service and evangelism). DoK has a requirement of discernment and guided study before you can take your vows.
Each meeting we would open with prayer. This was more of a challenge than I could have ever imagined. I would begin by inviting any of the women to lead us in prayer…and the response to my invitation was silence.
So I would dutifully take on the responsibility to open us in prayer. Finally, I asked the women what it was that held them back from taking on this responsibility; they were, afterall, taking on the vow to pray daily! The answers ranged from not feeling confident about serving in that role with a priest in the room to not knowing the words to use. They had anxiety around praying! They were somehow afraid that their words to God weren’t “good enough” or “eloquent enough”. We have somehow gotten it in our minds that there is a “right way” to pray, and as Episcopalians, we think that the BCP has to be involved in every prayer we utter. We’ve lost the confidence to let our hearts speak to God with our deepest longings.
Now, if you go searching through scripture, you’ll find that there are six types of prayer that we are taught: Praise, Thanksgiving, Confession, Intercession, Petition and Listening. In church we offer our prayers through the Opening Collect, the Prayers of the People, and the Eucharist. Jesus also gave us examples of these prayers: healing prayers, the Lord’s Prayer, resurrecting Lazarus from the dead, his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in this Sunday’s reading from John 17—the prayer of intercession for the disciples. In no way did Jesus ever display an uncomfortableness with prayer; he gave to God his deepest longings, his sorrow, his hope and his joy.
In John 17, Jesus prays for three specific things: that God will protect the disciples so they may be one; that God sanctify the disciples in truth; and that God will be with them as they are sent into the world. Jesus’ prayer is intimate, reflecting on his relationship with God, and it is specific. It is a prayer said in love.
The word “protect” comes from the Greek word “tereo” which means “attend to carefully, pay attention to, take care of”. Jesus asks for God to attend to, pay attention to, and take care of his disciples. Not because they were incompetent, but because their task in the world of spreading the Good News would be challenging. Jesus knew there would be bumps, bruises, and hurdles along the way. So he asks God to pay attention to them.
He also asks that they be sanctified in truth. Sanctified is a word we use a lot in the Eucharist. We ask that God sanctify the bread and wine, and then to sanctify us. What does that mean? To be sanctified means to be made holy and set apart for a specific purpose. To be sanctified in truth means to be holy carriers of God’s truth—the Good News of love, forgiveness and redemption.
Sometimes when we hear the word “sanctified” or the idea of “being made holy” it makes us think that the person or object is removed from the world; for me it calls to mind a story of an ancient desert father who sat on a pole for many years in prayer and fasting. Yes, that man was probably very holy. But that’s not the only way to live a holy life. For the disciples, holy living involved not just obeying God’s commandments, but also about sharing the joys of life…sharing meals, healing and teaching, making other disciples. In other words, daily living, caring for others, is sanctified action.
Jesus prays that God will be with the disciples as they are sent into the world. Again, knowing that there will be challenges, knowing that the Good News might not be so “good” for everyone, Jesus prays that God will be with them so that they may be one.
I’d like to think that this prayer is timeless…that Jesus prayed it not only for his 12 friends, but for all of us who are his followers. His prayer serves not only as an example of how to pray, but also as a reminder of what our ministry is, 2000 years after those first disciples. We still need God’s protection. Whether we find ourselves in the mission field, in the hospital holding the hand of a loved one, in the food pantry, or in quiet contemplation, knowing that God loves and protects us is reassuring. Each time we gather together, we are made holy, and while that might call us to spend the day in meditation, it also calls us to action. Being sanctified in truth means working to make our corner of the world a little better…whether it’s in how we spend our money, where we give our time, or voicing the concerns of those who have no voice.
And we do all this with the hope that we all may be one. That we might love one another as Christ loved us.
What this scripture reminds me is that while Jesus prayed for his friends, (and hopefully us), we too can offer our prayers. So I’d like us to practice together a little (someone you love, someone you don’t know, someone that is a pain in the butt, and yourself):
- May you be well
- May you be happy
- May you know peace
- May you know love
Amen.