Seventh Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 24, 2009
St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY
The Rev. James C. Bresnahan, Interim Rector
“The Four Words”
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.
You will not find in the Gospel of John the story of how Jesus took bread and then wine and gave each to his disciples in a holy communion - A meal in which he said I will not drink of the cup again until we do so again in the Kingdom of God. No, that’s not to be found in the Gospel of John.
But Jesus’ last and final testament is expressed in the Gospel of John in a farewell discourse and high priestly prayer not found in the other Gospels. In this prayer, Jesus offers to God intercedes for the disciples whom God has entrusted to his care and for all those in the future who will come to know and love God through him.
We might call this prayer a death-bed prayer, a prayer spoken at the end of life when one looks back on one’s life and legacy and what one hopes for others when one is gone.
The lectionary context for the Gospel reading is the week before Pentecost, when Christ is no more to be seen physically but will nevertheless be experienced in the outpouring of his spirit.
We will return to this high priestly prayer later in this sermon.
But first, I want invite you to reflect on what you would say were the end of your life near. What would matter most for you to say? And how would you say it?
That topic is explored in a simple and beautiful book called The Four Things That Matter Most: A Book About Living, by Ira Byock, M.D.
What to say before you die? I’ll take you through the four words Dr. Byock writes about:
The first word: “Forgive me. I forgive you.”
Is there anyone who does not have regrets at the end of life – regrets over things done or left undone, regrets over wasted opportunities and time ill-spent, and over things that should have been said but were not?
And who among the survivors does not carry their regrets too around like a heavy weight the remainder of their lifetime with all the should haves on their mind?
Saying “Forgive me” while we can, saying “I forgive you” before it is to late, is one of the most powerful, liberating, and conscious clearing words we can say. It lifts burdens as nothing else can. It opens the door that shame or guilt had shut. “Forgive me. I forgive you.”
The second word: “Thank you!”
Thank you for … and you fill in the rest. Whatever is in your heart. Whatever has given you joy. Whatever has been blessing.
Whatever was done for you. Anything and everything. “Thank you!”
The third word, “I love you.”
“I love you after five years. I love you after fifty years. I love you. “
“Perfect love,” St. John writes, “casts out all fear.” “God is love.” “Whoever abides in love abides in God.”
Love is the one bridge between two people that hardship, pain, suffering, and death cannot bring down. It is the affirmation that another’s life has supremely mattered and always will to the other, that one leaves this world not forgotten but in another’s heart, just as we are in God’s heart. “I love you.”
Finally, the fourth and last word: “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye” is the spoken recognition that two lives once united will be separated, that one cares about how the other fares, that one wishes and hopes for good for the other, that one accepts letting go, and trusts God to hold on to what is not in our power to keep.
It is the final letting go - letting go with grace and dignity, and with hope for another.
No one of the four words is more important than the others. Each needs and waits to be said. Each needs and waits to be heard.
What if there is no time or occasion to speak them at the end? That will not matter much if all along we have been practicing those words, living by those words, speaking those words to those we care about.
Where and how can we practice saying them? Here in church, of course, as we do each Sunday.
We speak those four words each Sunday at every Eucharist. We learn the depth of the meaning of these four words in every Sunday liturgy.
First, we ask for forgiveness and offer forgiveness. We do that in confession, in prayer, and in the sharing of the peace. In the confession, we ask God to forgive us and we accept forgiveness. In the Lord’s Prayer we say: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We share the peace, a sign of our reconciliation in Christ. “Forgive me. I forgive you.”
Second, here in church, in the Eucharistic prayer, we say “Thank you.” The word Eucharist literally means thanksgiving. Each Sunday we give thanks to the Lord our God, for it is right to give God thanks and praise. We give thanks for creation, we give thanks for Israel’s delivers from bondage, for the revelation through prophets of God’s just will, and especially for Jesus who revealed God’s love for the world and through whose Spirit we are lead into a life worth living. “Thank you!”
Third, “I love you.” The Holy Eucharist is from beginning to end not only about the love of God it is the love of God. It is the love of God that we are brought into a community where we offer gifts in love, where we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. A communitgy where a holy meal is a shared meal, and no one takes what is meant for another but all share equally. I love you.
Finally, “Goodbye.” “Go in peace,” we say at the end of each service. “Go in peace.” Now let your servant go in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation. Go in peace, farewell, carry God’s promise and blessing with you. We end by leaving each other in peace. “Good-bye.”
Here, then, within Christian community, we are learning to live by the four words; we are preparing to die with the four words on our lips and in our hearts.
And now we return to Jesus’ farewell discourse and his prayer to God.
In his high-priestly prayer, Jesus prays on our behalf. He prays that God would guard and protect those whom he has brought into a life and faith and love.
He prays for you. He prays for me.
He prays for us to be fully in the world but that we not live by the values of a dying world but by the example of his self-giving love.
He prays as our advocate now and at the moment of death. He wants to keep us safe from the power of evil by our learning to forgive as we have been forgiven, to live gratefully and thankfully, to love deeply, and in trust to let go, trusting that God will not let go of us.
He prays all that for us, for us to live well and for us to die well.