04/26/2026 - John 17, 1-8, 20-23, Fourth Sunday of Easter

When Jesus gives the disciples the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, he’s sitting with them on the side of a mountain. The sun shines down and the breath of a light breeze stirs as he preaches what’s often considered his first sermon.

In Luke, Jesus had retreated into solitude and quiet to pray. But he wasn’t entirely alone, the disciples still watched from a distance. When he’d rejoined them, the disciples had asked him how to pray as they continued on their way.

But here in John, we don’t see anything like the Lord’s Prayer that Matthew and Luke record. Instead, this is the prayer that Jesus prays right after he washes the disciple’s feet, after Judas is revealed to be his betrayer. They’ve left the upper room where they’d gathered for what would be their last meal all together, and are heading back out on the road. As they walk through the dusty streets out of Jerusalem, Jesus imparts to them his final teachings, summarizing all that he’s taught them so far.

He’s doing this because they’re walking towards the Garden of Gethsemane - and Jesus’s arrest.

And the final thing that Jesus does for his disciples before he’s taken away from them is pray for them.

~

Scripture: John 17:1-8, 20-23

When Jesus finished saying these things, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you.  You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him. This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I shared with you before the world was created.

“I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from this 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 comes from you. This is because I gave them the words that you gave me, and they received them. They truly understood that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.

“I’m not praying only for them but also for those who believe in me because of their word. I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.”

~

This is one of the few prayers in Scripture we get to hear Jesus pray, and it’s one of the only ones he prays while still around other people. Because most of the time, like in Luke, Jesus retreats to somewhere by himself to pray. But not this time. This time, he stays with his disciples to let them overhear his prayer. Because like the Lord’s Prayer, it’s just as much for them as it is about them.

This prayer is often referred to as the “High Priestly Prayer” or just “Priestly Prayer.” While it gets a pretty lofty name, it can be difficult to read or to listen to because of all the repetition and metaphors. Given how much of that there is, some scholars believe the language used in this prayer was insider language for the community that the Gospel of John was initially written for. They would’ve understood what it meant because it was theological buzzwords and language they used everyday. But we struggle to understand it because we’re missing context, and we haven’t learned from or grown up in their community. But there are still some things that translate to us today. Because just like in the Lord’s Prayer, the Priestly Prayer still has Jesus address God as “Father.”

This was very different from the form of address for God that the disciples would’ve been taught to use in their prayers for most of their lives. They would’ve been taught to refer to God most of the time as “Adonai,” or “My Lord.” It was a very formal form of address, one that echoed off of the pillars and ceilings of royal courts as nobles and commoners alike bowed to the king. It emphasized God’s authority and majesty, casting God as the king over heaven and earth. It framed prayer as a petition to a king for favor, offering up praise and worship and sacrifice in the expectation that God would reward them with whatever they were petitioning for.

But even though Jesus will go on to tell his disciples - and us - to pray for God’s kingdom to come, Jesus foregoes this expected, formal address for God.

Instead he uses “Abba,” which is what we translate to as Father.

Now, I think calling our parents “Mother” and “Father” is starting to go out of fashion a bit. At least to me, it just seems too formal, almost too emotionally distant. My brother and I have always used “Mom” and “Dad” for our parents “Father” especially almost seems to have the same connotation as “Adonai” does. Maybe without the royal courts and the kingly crown, but with the same emphasis on authority.

But that is not what “Abba” is. “Abba” is a name developed from the earliest sounds that children make, as they’re just learning to turn sounds into words that others can understand.

It is the first word that babies babbled as they were held in their parents’ arms.

It’s what toddlers would call out when they ran to their fathers, arms outstretched, wanting to be picked up.

And it’s what Jesus uses in the Lord’s Prayer, and in his prayer here, to address God.

It was never meant to be a formal address. Instead it was meant to invoke the kind of close, caring, innocently joyful relationship that a parent and their little children should have.

And I say “should,” because we are all too painfully aware that that’s not always the case when it comes to our relationships with our parents or our children. Those relationships can sometimes not quite take the loving form they’re supposed to, or they can strain and break over the years. And it seems like too many have broken over the past few years. Which is why, for some of us, it can make using language like this for God more uncomfortable and painful than the comforting closeness it’s meant to convey.

And that’s where we have permission to use this as a template and a guide. If there are other names for God, other titles that evoke more of that closeness that Jesus is sharing with the disciples here, then by all means use that title. The point here is not the title itself. Jesus is inviting the disciples into a different kind of relationship with God than they’ve experienced before. They’re used to addressing God as a king. Jesus is instead inviting us to address God as a loved one, like family, whatever that looks like for you.

And because of that, the prayer that Jesus models both in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and here in John are not given to us as prayers shaped as petitions to kings.

We’ll talk more in a few weeks about asking God for our daily needs, because that’s in here too, but it’s just one part of the prayer.

Instead this prayer is given to us as an example of how to approach prayer in many different ways, with different emphases and focuses, but all framed around the idea that it is meant to foster a close relationship, not just be a transactional exchange.

And it’s a relationship that’s not just meant to be us and God. It’s one that’s meant to encompass the entire world. Because Jesus didn’t start the Lord’s Prayer with just “Father.” It’s “Our Father.” From the very beginning Jesus meant for us to be together in community.

And that’s something that he emphasized in John 17 as well. In verses 20-21, Jesus says, “I’m not praying only for them but also for those who believe in me because of their word. I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” Most scholars interpret this as Jesus not only praying for the disciples he has at his side, but praying for the entire Church of the future - including us.

It is the only time in Scripture where Jesus explicitly prays for the future Church. And what he specifically prays for is repeated throughout, especially towards the end - “I pray they will be one.”

That can be really hard to hear now.

We’ve not only heard the podcasts or read the multitude of news articles and opinions on how divided we are as a country, but we’ve lived it in our own families, our neighborhoods, our friend groups, and yes even our churches. And the most tragic part of all of this is these divisions aren’t just being etched in lines along political disagreements. We are divided because of deeply held values, about how we treat people made in the image of God.

And there are some beliefs we just can’t compromise on. When we choose to follow Jesus’s greatest commandment to love God and to love our neighbor, and when we believe that our neighbor is anyone and everyone, we cannot abide the injustice and pain that they face.

But beyond just today, the history of the Church is rife with division, splits, and fractures. Sometimes they were over theology, the nature of God, or exactly who Jesus was. Other times, they’ve been over how to treat people, especially those who look different, sound different, and have different life experiences than our own.

So what happened? Did Jesus’s prayer not get answered? How do we reconcile Jesus’s hope that the Church would be one, while watching people who proclaim the same faith we do say and do things that are antithetical to our beliefs and cause so much harm to others?

I’m sure we all wish to just snap our fingers and bring peace and unity to the world, not just the Church. Unfortunately, life doesn’t really work that way. We wish it did, we wish we could get answers, right wrongs, resolve conflict, and be reconciled as easily as taking a breath.

But a vase shattering after falling off a table happens a lot faster than gluing the pieces back together. And even then, the vase may not ever be the same. But that doesn’t mean we don’t pick up the pieces and work towards that repair and reconciliation.

Because maybe we don’t have to declare Jesus’s prayer for unity as having gone unanswered.

Because maybe it does get answered when two people set aside their beliefs to work together to help tutor kids who’re falling behind in school.

Maybe it gets answered when a group of people come together and advocate for protecting their community’s natural resources, no matter what their reason is for doing so.

Maybe it gets answered when we set aside an ongoing fight to drop a meal off at their doorstep, momentarily setting aside those divisions to make sure someone gets fed that night.

And maybe it gets answered when people are able to find a way to talk about those divisions, figure out why the other person holds those beliefs, and come away with better understanding, if not agreement.

Because we will never agree on everything, and there are many areas we cannot compromise our beliefs on. But I have to believe we will always find something to agree on, no matter how small it is.

We don’t have to have all the answers to the deep divisions, broken relationships, and pain that our world is going through.

We just have to be part of the answer, whatever that looks like for us.

Because even though Jesus prayed to God for us to be one, we are the ones who are the answer to that prayer.

We’re the ones meant to be answers to a lot of prayers.

But it’s going to take all of us, doing the best we can to love all of our neighbors and care for them, whether that’s showing up with a hot meal or protecting them from harm.

Because it’s our feet that are planted in this world, and our hands that are the ones that have been created to show God’s love to the world, just as God has showed God’s love to us.