8 May 2005

Sermon: John 17:1-11 (Easter 7A)

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn

^NRSV John 17:1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ² since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴ I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. ⁶ "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. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸ 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. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹ 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.

       I usually don’t spend time talking about the sermons I don’t preach; what the dead ends are I didn’t pursue, or the ideas that just didn’t work out.  But today I just can’t resist.  An e-mail came to me recently from iFindSermons.com which offers weekly sermons that can be “easily downloaded onto your computer and edited to fit your preaching style.”  Individual sermons are $5, or a year’s subscription is $100.  Although I didn’t sign up for the service, I thought you might be interested to hear some of the $5 sermons you’ll be missing: “How to become a model mother,”  “God’s plan for women,”  “An excellent wife,” parts 1 and 2, “How to be a submissive wife,” and “How to become an appealing woman.”  If I didn’t think it would mean even more spam, I would’ve ordered the 3 free sermons they were offering just to see what I’m missing!

       Dr. Lynda Powell, professor of preventative medicine at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center has been leading a panel in reviewing the various studies that have taken place on religious practice and physical health, and whether there is any correlation.  Although not a churchgoer, and initially suspicious of these studies, “After seeing the data,” Dr. Powell told The Wall Street Journal[1], “I think I should go to church.”  Now the panel Dr. Powell led found that those practicing a religion had a more difficult time with illness than those who do not, but those who attend services at least weekly have healthier lifestyles as measured in a number of ways, and a 25% lower mortality rate.  I might add that Amay Fraser, whose 90^th birthday we celebrated last Sunday,  comes to church not only on Sundays but also on Wednesdays!  Dr. Powell and her colleagues were careful to exclude in their review other variables that might account for the difference, and still they found what she calls an “unknown mechanism” contributing to a significant health and mortality benefit for those attending service at least weekly.  She adds that she does not believe that the unknown mechanism is God.

        One of the books making the rounds early this year in the season of New Year’s Resolutions is entitled. Younger Next Year: A Guide to living like 50 until you’re 80 and beyond.  Now of course the season of New Year’s Resolutions means a ton of books on diet that say you can eat anything you want and still lose weight, incessant ads for gym memberships, and increasingly outlandish claims for exercise equipment that will make you buff with next to no effort at all. The reason Younger Next Year caught my attention is the seven “rules” it offers for better health. Beyond three on exercise and one on eating, there were three rules one doesn’t regularly encounter in books on health: “Spend less than you make,” “Care,” and “Connect and commit.”  “Caring . . .” one of the co-authors writes, “being interested enough to get up every day and give it a shot . . .  to do new stuff, do old stuff . . .  To keep on going when you wouldn’t mind sitting down for a while . . .  that is a gift of God.  Or Darwin.” he continues, “Or The Shore Country Day School.” 

       The other co-author, an MD, says it a little differently, that staying emotionally connected is a biological imperative, a critical part of the good life.  He goes on to explain that the part of our brain that distinguishes us as higher mammals from reptiles who are good at fear and aggression by having us the emotions of love, joy, pleasure that allow us to live in groups and connect and trust.  “Our limbic brain,” he writes, “leads us to crave companionship for its own sake.  To want to belong to and matter to those around us.  To love and to be loved in return.”  “Altrusim is a biological need.”  He urges readers to do things that matter, whether or not you like them, to improve your health.  Younger Next Year, by not focusing exclusively on developing rock-hard abs, might just lead us a little closer to Dr. Powell’s “unknown mechanism” connecting weekly church attendance with better health.  Although none of the people I’ve quoted thus far have said it this way, I would say we are literally made for each other.  The review on religion and health studies showed no benefit for people who watch religious services on television instead of physically going.  Caring, connecting and committing, I would say, can be described by Darwin, and are honed by places like Riverdale Country School, and Fieldston, Horace Mann, PS 81, 24 and 141, but ultimately are gifts from God.

        “This is eternal life,” we heard from John’s Gospel, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Now we often hear and think about eternal life at funerals, and these are important words of comfort, but the concept of eternal life goes much deeper.  Eternal life is not an endless succession of days as we know them, but a different type of life, a kind of life transformed by God. The concept of eternal life in John corresponds to the Kingdom of God in the other Gospels.  No matter how much younger you get next year, and the year after that, the physical life we lead will come to an end.  It may be a secondary characteristic that eternal life is everlasting, but its primary characteristic is its transformed character, transformed precisely by knowing.  Now knowing in the Bible isn’t just a matter of the head--there’s a good reason for the expression knowing “in the Biblical sense.” This type of knowing is deep and intimate and ongoing.  This type of knowing doesn’t have to wait for the other side of the grave--connecting, mattering, cultivating enduring life is a gift God gives us that as we accept it, can be powerfully present in the here and now.  As I’ve said, we are literally made for each other, but the other part of the “unknown mechanism, I would suggest, is that we are made for God.  In the words of St. Augustine of Hippo, “Lord, you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”  I doubt I will ever preach a sermon on how to become an appealing woman, but as for preaching a sermon on God’s plan for women . . . I think I just did.  Caring, connecting, committing to God and each other–leading a transformed life of eternal significance starting in the here and now--sounds to me like God’s plan for women . . . and every bit as much for children and men!