Lenten Daily Reflection 2020-02-28
Lenten Reflection for Friday, February 28
Asa Swain
John 17: 9-19
9I 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. 10All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.11And 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. 12While 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. 13But 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.* 14I 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. 15I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.* 16They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
This reading is from when Jesus is praying in the Garden at Gethsemanee. In his last moments alone before Jesus is to be arrested and crucified, I am struck that he prays to God not for himself, but for his fellow disciples that he is leaving behind. I am particularly struck by the explanation that “the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world”. I don’t think Jesus means that his disciples are divine, like himself, but instead as a reminder that the Christians the followed him were different than the other people who lived in the Roman world.
I think we still struggle with this difference between Christians and non-Christians today. I went to a Listening Session on Sunday where one question was: “how should I be a Christian in this secular world?” It’s especially difficult when it feels like we live in a capitalist society where wealth equals happiness, and where all too often pop culture and mass media attack the behavior espoused by Jesus, loving the stranger, turning the other cheek, helping the needy. Coming to Holy Apostles reminds me that the value system taught by Jesus is not the same as the value system of the rest of the world. And maybe that is what Jesus means when he says “they do not belong in the world”.
But I note that Jesus doesn’t ask God to take his disciples out of the world, to transport them to some heavenly paradise, but instead to protect them from the devil, while they speak the truth. And whether or not you believe in Satan, I think we can agree that there are many influences in the world that tempt us to sin, to be selfish, and to corrupt us with small transgressions. So while Jesus is not with us anymore, I am comforted that God is still watching over us, protecting us. And as Jesus loved us, even in his final days, I hope we can love each other. I am reminded of the quote from the poet Henri-Frédéric Amiel, "Life is short and we have too little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us."