John 17.20-26
Early in the book of Acts, there is a performance review of sorts for the disciples, a comment by a group of religiously serious scholars and authorities. They had witnessed the courage and confidence of two apostles, Peter and John; they had also heard Peter preach. Their evaluation? “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary people, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.”
Recognized…as companions of Jesus. High praise, something we would aspire to have recognized in us. But I’m fairly certain there is something else in that evaluation that is not meant as a compliment: the word ‘ordinary,’ especially since it is paired with ‘uneducated.’ “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary people, they were amazed.”
Many of us, in contrast, build our life, reputation, and career—our ambitions by and large—on being extraordinary. If someone has a medical need and is looking for a specialist, no one insists on seeing a doctor with a reputation of being ordinary. When friends come to town and you want to take them out to eat, restaurants that serve ordinary food aren’t high on your list of places to go. Yet for Christians, the fact is our faith is founded on the work of God in, and through, ordinary people.
St Paul says this very thing in 1st Corinthians. “Consider your call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth…God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak…chose what is low and despised…so that no one might boast.”
Paul is saying that Christian faith isn’t built on the politically powerful, the culturally influential, or the morally perfect. God chose ordinary, flawed, fallible people like Peter—walking on water toward Jesus one minute, then sinking like a stone the next; pledging never to deny Jesus and then doing that very thing three times. In that sense, we are ordinary, too—both faithful and flawed all at the same time, and occasionally foolish. Yet Jesus works through, and is a companion of, ordinary people like Peter and John, ordinary people very much like us.
In today’s gospel, Jesus prays for ordinary disciples. The entire 17th chapter of the Gospel of John is one long prayer by Jesus. He is about to send his followers into the world. And he is entrusting to them the privilege and task of continuing his ministry and mission in the world, “so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.”
That’s worth reflecting on. Jesus prays that the love that God the Father has for the Son will be the same love that comes alive in you. “That the love with which you have loved me may be in them.” For us to be loved by God the Father in the way thar Jesus the Son is loved is to be very loved indeed. That’s Jesus desire for you: to know and experience the deep and abiding love of God coming alive in you. Then out of that love, Jesus makes ordinary followers witnesses to that love so the world might know and recognize God’s glory in Jesus and come to trust that love.
It is an incredible calling, a beautiful calling; it gives shape and purpose to the life of the church and to each of us as Jesus’ followers. It is also a challenging calling because not everyone welcomes the way of life that God desires. Jesus recognizes this when he says in prayer, “The world does not know you.”
The world does not know God. Not everyone in the world welcomes what Mary sings about in the Magnificat, that God casts down the mighty and lifts up the lowly; not everyone welcomes God’s call in the scriptures to care for the orphan, the poor, and for resident aliens among us as though they were fellow citizens. And in a society increasingly turned to our own self-interest, Jesus’ mandate for us to seek the well-being of others and “be merciful, even as your heavenly Father is merciful,” is hard work. It’s made increasingly so because just before our Lord says, “be merciful, even as your heavenly Father is merciful,” he says that God the Father is kind to the ungrateful and selfish.
Now about this, we should talk. I don’t know about you, but if I am to be kind to people who are ungrateful and selfish in order to show them that God is merciful, and so to be recognized as a companion of Jesus, I am going to need the power of Jesus’ praying for me to get that done! We need Jesus praying for us so that, through the church and in each of us as Jesus’ followers, the world will come to know the glory of God—the love that the Father has for the Son—alive in us, and so also come to believe.
Yet as the performance review in Acts makes clear, the disciples’ boldness and courage aren’t the result of their own skill and faithfulness. It doesn’t come from them asking an AI generator to name the ‘Ten Top Discipleship Skills and How to Achieve Them.’ Their boldness and courage don’t come from somewhere; boldness and courage come from someone. When the scholars and authorities saw the boldness of Peter and John “they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.” That is what made all the difference for the disciples. It makes all the difference for us. Companions of Jesus. Jesus had been with them, and they had been with Jesus, and the presence of Jesus transformed them. “The glory you have given me, I have given them.” The extraordinary calling of ordinary people is begun by God and continued in God. Today, Jesus prays for all his followers and for you.
And because Jesus prays for us, we will make it in the incredible, beautiful, and challenging calling he gives us. We will make it. We will make it because we are not alone in the work that God has given us to do.
I know there are times when it is hard to believe and trust that we will make it; that we as Jesus’ followers can witness to his mercy and love; that our ordinary life of faith can make a difference. It is hard to trust because we have seen how the credibility of Christian witness diminishes when people of faith sell out for power rather than mercy; it diminishes in my life and yours when we fail to extend mercy to the ungrateful and selfish in the way that God does. I know my faults and failings in being faithful; you know yours.
But we will make it—our ordinary lives made extraordinary—because Jesus prays that the glory of God that filled his life will fill your life. Our Lord prays today that the same love between him and the Father will fill us and come alive in us so that we can live, in small measure, as he lived in the world: peace-makers; merciful without counting the cost; looking not to our own interests but the interests of others; caring for victims of violence and proposing a way of life where violence can’t take root. Jesus, in his prayer for us, gives direction and purpose to us. We will make it. “God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,” St Paul says in Philippians. Jesus today prays for us in our ordinary lives, faithful and flawed as we are, so that we will have the boldness and courage to witness to God’s extraordinary love and grace.
Living out a life of faith is an incredible calling and beautiful gift. And we are not left to our own resources for the task. Each Sunday in worship we believe and trust that the Risen Jesus comes to us in the breaking of the bread. We are quite literally ‘companions of Jesus,’ ordinary as we are. The word ‘companion’ means, at its root, people who break bread together. This is where Jesus met the disciples after his resurrection, and it is where he meets us still: in the breaking of bread. That is why we do this each week; we need Jesus’ prayer for us and his presence with us. In this Holy Eucharist, God makes ordinary bread and wine the tangible and real presence of Jesus’ extraordinary love and grace. Just as ordinary words carry the power of God’s forgiveness, just as ordinary music joins our voices to the song of angels and archangels, and just as ordinary works become deeds of love in Jesus’ name, we as ordinary followers of Jesus are filled with the extraordinary love of God.
Today, Jesus prays that the love that God the Father has for him as Son will be the same love that comes alive in us, the glory of God as our life’s central reality. And as Jesus prays for us and the Spirit gives gifts to us, we, like the disciples, will be transformed—given courage and boldness—through the love of God that makes us companions of Jesus.
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