4/19/64

Scripture: John 17: 1-10.

Those of us who learned, perhaps in our youth, to repeat from memory the Apostles’ Creed, are familiar with the phrase near the end of the creed: “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” We may have repeated it numerous times until a big question crossed our minds: “Why do I say that? I am not a member of the Catholic church. I believe in Protestant principles. I am not trained in Catholic worship and there are significant ways in which I think that I do not believe in the Catholic Church. Why, then, do I repeat this line of the Apostles’ Creed as though I were a Catholic?”

Those who have raised the question, and have been so fortunate as to be talking with an understanding person, have soon learned an accepted interpretation. The word “catholic” means, essentially, “universal.” It is too great and good a word to be abandoned to the exclusive use of the Roman, or any other branch, of the Christian church. There are those who feel that this distinction is not worth the effort. And they avoid the difficulty by simply changing a word in the phrase, so that they say, “I believe in the Holy Christian Church.”

But I am among those who believe that the word “Catholic” is so great, so universal, so inclusive, that it is worth our effort to maintain a claim upon it. So, technically speaking, I feel that I can honestly say that I am a Congregational, United Church of Christ, Catholic Christian.

In its ecumenical sense, the church is part of a universal entity. It may bear an individual local name and a denominational label, but it is part of the Holy Christian Church. Not only is it Christian, thus bearing the name of its Lord. But it is the Holy Church. The holiness of the church’s purpose and being is suggested in the prayer of Our Lord as recorded in the 17th chapter of John.

Now the book of John is unique. It is somehow set apart from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is not difficult, for instance, to devise a “harmony” of the first three gospels. But the gospel of John does not fit into that pattern. I know people for whom the book of John is a prime favorite over all other books of the Bible, because of its beauty of expression and the depth of its spiritual perception. Here in the 17th chapter we have recorded a prayer of Jesus. This collected, sustained prayer, offered by our Lord in the Upper Room in the presence of all his disciples has become one of the most treasured chapters in all Scripture.

They had been talking of significant matters there in that upper room. And, before they were to leave their quiet place to face what was now dreadfully near, Jesus lifted up his heart in prayer to God. Our prayers are often gloomy and sod-colored. We beg; we complain; we even reproach God, as surely doing less than the best for us --- or why is there not more to show? But desperate though our mood may become in some of our prayers, this note has no place in this prayer of the Christ. His prayer is filled with adoration and praise, with thanksgiving and even a kind of exultation. Eight times, the words “glorify” or “glorified” or “glory” occurs in the prayer, and runs through the fabric of it like a golden thread.

Before the night settles over the earth at the end of a summer day, birds often pour out their being in a passion of song. As Jesus faced the blackness of the night ahead of him, he put his whole soul into adoration and thanksgiving before the Father for allowing him the service and sacrifice and suffering here in this world and for the people in it. As he once said: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself.” [John 10: 17-18]. This is the atmosphere of the whole prayer. He does not speak like some unwilling victim about to be dragged off to his suffering; but rather he speaks like one who offers himself freely, holding back nothing, making no conditions.

In the opening verse of the prayer, he calls God “Father.” He does the same three more times. And he had bidden us to call God “Father.” And that name gives an atmosphere to the whole prayer. It makes prayer simple and natural, to be able to approach God as “Father,” sure of His loving kindness and of His interest in us. We may approach Him with troubled conscience. We may ask, even plead for, that which if granted would prove harmful to us rather than a benefit. And yet we can know ourselves in the presence of a Father who is understanding, sympathetic, kindly, slow to anger, eager to help and guide and give and do. We may approach the Father with utter frankness, with absolute sincerity and honesty, confident that He understands. We need not weigh our words, because there is nothing to be kept back. Blessed is such understanding between us, His children, and God whom Christ teaches us to call “Father.”

In the 11th verse of this 17th chapter of John, Jesus calls God “Holy Father.” That name, Holy, is one we do not always remember. We talk much about the love of God. Unless we are stronger than He often finds us, we are apt to interpret His love as little more than affectionate indulgence, too soft to be firm with us, not stern enough to smite us for our own good. But the holiness, the complete goodness of God, saves us from a soft notion of God’s love. God is not cheap and we must not approach him nonchalantly. We do believe that He is a loving Father. But he is our Holy Father. And He can be finally satisfied with nothing less than complete goodness, holiness, in His children; and holiness in His church. What He finds in us is far short of the ideal. But what He expect in us and demands of us can not be less than the ideal.

Leonard Griffith, now minister of City Temple in London, has suggested that the circumstance giving rise to this prayer of Jesus, which we have been discussing, is not unlike that of a general being relieved of his command, and recalled to the home country for high honors. On the eve of his departure, he summons his senior officers, bids them a personal farewell, and instructs them in their strategy for the successful conclusion of battles ahead. Being a deeply religious man, he takes the liberty of asking them to bow their heads while he leads them in a prayer that God will protect them, and give them resources and courage to achieve final victory.

One reveals himself in one’s prayers. If he is spiritually honest, he will disclose to God his inmost hopes and desires with a frankness that he can not display in speaking directly to other people. If we think of Jesus as being like a general, relieved of his command and returning home, even by way of a cross, we may continue the figure of speech by picturing him as entrusting the conduct of his earthly warfare to his senior officers in the spirit, the disciples. Having said all he can say to boost their morale, and to instruct them in their duties, he lifts up his eyes, and their hearts, toward God in a prayer for their courage and resourcefulness.

This prayer of Jesus, as we have already noted, has become one of the most treasured chapters in all of the Bible. Reading it is like stepping into a sacred and especially beautiful chapel, where the atmosphere is holy and hushed, and we feel like lifting our lives in adoration. The Gospel writer begins: “When Jesus had spoken these words” ---- words of encouragement and instruction to his disciples --- “he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father the hour has come.’ ...” And he solemnly dedicated himself to the sacrifice of the cross. He did not ask to be spared the horrors of the next few hours. He prayed only that he might meet those hours in such a way that God might be glorified through him. And, of course, the prayer was abundantly answered. Nothing has so glorified God as the cross of Christ, “towering o’er the wrecks of time.”

A strange thing about this valedictory prayer of Jesus is its optimism about the future of his ministry. He had no sense of failure or defeat as he himself faced the most terrible kind of death. He prayed in the mood of accomplishment and victory, giving thanks to the Father for enabling him to finish the work which God had given him to do. His mission was accomplished. He had selected and trained his disciples. He had created His Church, the separated company of believers. And he had imparted to them the gift of eternal life.

The second part of his purpose, that of bringing eternal life to the world outside of the church, now rested with the people whom he had chosen and trained -- and with their successors through the ages. Like a returning general, Jesus was now being recalled from the arena of struggle, but his disciples, the friends so dear to his heart, the senior officers whom he had encouraged and instructed, these remained to carry on the battles. Jesus therefore quickly moved from personal petitions to a great prayer of intercession for his disciples, and for all those who through their witness would believe in him, and for the whole company of the faithful in every age. He articulates his first desire for the church in the words, “I do not pray that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.” This is a prayer for the church’s holiness. In offering the prayer, Jesus addresses God as “Holy Father.” Holiness, the foremost attribute of God, stands for the “onlyness,” the “apartness” of God -- that which makes Him distinct from man and all that has been created.

God is not just a “comfortable projection” of man’s own father-image. Man has as it were to cover his eyes to shield them from the blinding light of holiness. The young prophet, Isaiah, had sensed this when, in the smoke-filled temple, he had heard a voice saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” [Isaiah 6: 3]. Isaiah had realized that there is a vast difference between God and man; between creator and the created.

It appears to be the will of the Christ that those who believe in him, who follow him and continue his serving and faithful ministry on this earth shall share in the surpassing quality of God’s holiness. Later on, Peter writes, “As he who has called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” [I Peter 1: 15-16].

Insofar as the church become a people different and distinct from the world’s evil, where it lives, called out by Christ to be separate, it does share God’s holiness. Of his own disciples, Jesus says to the Father, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” That may sound like a generous judgment of men who had said and done some rather unholy things --- men who, even on their way to that Upper Room had displayed attitudes and tempers that showed them to be very much “of this world.” Let us frankly admit that, when we start with humanity, most churches today seem rather unholy. In the character of church members, and in our drive for institutional aggrandizement, we seem very much enslaved to the standards of the world. We had better not start with humanity, however. We must start with Christ, and with our relationship to Christ. It is he who gives us the right, and the command to be holy. And we may not cease trying to become, by his help, what he expects us to be.

The church exists in the world to do something in the way of service and mission. But, more basically, it exists here to be something. Christians, who take upon their souls the burden of the world’s sin and suffering, may be heard to say, “What should we be doing about it?”, forgetting that the really great and difficult contribution which we can make to the world is more than what we do; it is what we are. Christians are called to be saints, not in the ecclesiastical or ethical sense which defines the saint as a paragon of virtue, or someone who has been canonized, but in the New Testament sense which defines a saint as one who is consecrated to Christ. Church members are called to live in human society, not by the world’s standards, but by the power of the living Christ. We can not forget that the quality of life that most profoundly affected the ancient world was its uncompromising holiness. It was a quality of separation that made the early Christians “a new people.” The church, in our day or in any day, needs constant renewal in this quality of holiness. If we allow the church to become identified with the world’s way of thinking, enslaved to the world’s standard of values, we put it (and ourselves) in danger of losing that which makes us a church.

For the goal of our call is that the church be a community of Christians who, by their god-like character are separate and distinct from the world in which they yet live and participate. This is a hard battle and a very difficult engagement. The Christian man is called upon to be a “moral man in an immoral society.” Christ has called him to be a part of the redeemed community. He still has to live and work in the world that is so largely unredeemed that it makes his own survival difficult. For he is in constant struggle with values, standards and loyalties that are alien to his redeemed nature. Jesus knew that this is not easy. That is why he was praying for his church -- for his people. Jesus knew that the world would hate his disciples for their holiness, just as it had hated him for his holiness. And there could be no protection for them in this hostile and dangerous world save the love of God.

But Christianity was never meant to withdraw from the world. Medieval monasticism made the mistake of assuming that the world was so evil that Christians could only draw away from the world. We owe those monks a debt of appreciation for what they preserved. But Jesus’ prayer was not that his followers should be withdrawn from the world. Rather he entreated God: “I do not pray that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.”

And that is the essence of the church’s holiness --- that it should be able to live in the world, and yet keep out of the clutches of the evil one --- resisting the evil power that is opposed to the power of God’s goodness. That was the essence of Jesus’ own holiness. He had wrestled mightily with temptation to compromise his powers. It appeared very simple. Just accept what every sensible man accepts -- the inevitable, irresistible, inescapable evil of the world. Quit fighting the world; stop being different from the world --- otherwise he must go to a cross. We know that he did exactly that! And, in praying for the church’s holiness, he pointed the church along the same road. The holiness that Christ desires in his church has to be prayed for. It will not come as a cultivation of human striving but only as a gift of Divine grace. It is promised only to those who will let God have His way with them.

It has been said that the pearls of the House of Austria periodically lost their luster through exposure. Then they had to be returned to their native element. After being sunk in the sea for a while, they recovered their lost beauty. So also the church, through exposure to the world, will lose its luster without continually being immersed in the ocean of God’s redeeming love. Holiness can be recovered and made lustrous only in the sanctuary. Only in the house of prayer can we be kept adequately Christian --- worthy members of the body of Christ --- the Holy Christian Church.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 19, 1964.