John 17:1-17
May 17, 2026
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Oakland, CA.
Today’s Scriptures is a part of what is referred to as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse where we hear Jesus praying to the Father while the disciples fade into the background. We hear this intimate conversation between Jesus and God.
Before Jesus faces the grueling ordeal of the Passion, he turns his attention toward heaven to signal that the hour has come but that he has accomplished his purpose. This passage is divided into three sections. In verses 1-5, Jesus declares to the Father that his work is complete and requests to return to his place alongside the Father. In the second section, verses 6-8, Jesus offers the disciples’ response as proof that he indeed has completed the task given to him. In the third section, verses 9-17, Jesus asks God to protect those whom he leaves behind.
Jesus’ conversation with the Father reminds me of the stories that we all have heard about. For instance, a young mother dying of cancer in a hospital who finds purpose and energy from the opportunity to make a videotaped message for her preschool daughters, so that when they are older, they can listen to what she hopes will guide their lives. It is very important to her to make sure her daughters receive her motherly care and love, even though she will not be alive to speak to them in person. While this mother can only hope that the videotape will keep her memory accessible to her children, Jesus speaks knowing that the Holy Spirit who abides in us is able to keep his message alive in our hearts.
Glory
How do we today in this place, at this time, with one another keep God’s message of love alive in our hearts?
Jesus said, “Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”
Jesus used the word, glory. What is “glory?”
When a candidate running for office wins the election and is beaming on the stage, is that glory? When I was recognized in Cleveland last month as a “National Treasure,” is that glory?
The meaning of glory in the Hebrew (kabod) or in the Greek (doxa) can mean weight, repute, fame—and fame can shine. So, glory can be seen. A candidate for office is seen winning an election. I was photographed and was seen by many of you to be a “national treasure.”
The glory, about which Jesus prays include a transactional, expansive and participatory nature of glory. Jesus prays: “Glory your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.” “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.” Notice the transactional movements. Jesus prays, “On behalf of the disciples,” he turns away from the dynamic of glory from himself to others; away from his glory for our sake. Jesus said, “I am asking on behalf of those whom you gave me.”
There is no vainglory, false pride, and empty vanity that are all vices of bearing fame. Jesus rejects the vanity and the relativity of glory and directs the disciples and our attention to the coming of the Holy Spirit who will continue to Advocate for us. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth of divine love, encompassing the world and like the Father and the Son, transcending the world.
So, what is glory when it’s not winning an election or being a “national treasure?” Glory must be understood as something more than ourselves. Glory in Jesus’ understanding is “God is love.”
God is Love
We all know John 3:16 in our hearts, say it with me, “For God so love the world that God gave his only begotten Son; so, whosoever believes in him, will not perish but have everlasting life.” (In the King James’ Version!) In verses 2-3 here, “Since you (God) have given him (Jesus) authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
When we know God through Jesus, we know love. To know and love the Father and the Son is also to know and love the truth, which is the truth of God as loving. Love sees love lovingly. God loves Jesus, Jesus loves us, we are to love others. This love is not an abstract idea but loving action. This is what Jesus meant when he prays to God to protect the disciples in his name which is loving action.
God’s love in Christ through us in loving action does not discriminate. If God loves us, how can we ever withhold loving others who God loves. To know God’s glory in love is to love those whom we may not like or love. The despised, diseased, ugly, godforsaken, exiled, imprisoned, the guilty—along with the idiotic, psychotic, homicidal, bully, tyrant, rapist, pedophile, and even those who hold governmental offices with whom we disagreed.
Contrary to what you and I might like to not love, according to God is love, there are no exceptions to God’s grace and love. Who is not held in the beauty of divine glory? The moment we answer that question, by naming someone or some category of persons—whom Jesus refrains from naming—are we then reverting back to the world’s definition of glory?
This is the call by Jesus to his disciples and it is still a call to us thousands of years later to today. Loving God means that we discontinue our ordinary way of knowing which is defined by the world’s definition of glory. To continue God’s love the way Jesus taught his disciples and to us is to love all people and when we do, we will also receive divine glory.
Glory in One Another
Jesus said, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.” He goes on to say, “so that they may be one, as we are one.”
On this last Sunday of the Easter season, Jesus is praying for unity—that God’s people are “one, as we are one.” Remember how this Gospel starts in John 1? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From the very first verse, John is expressing the mystery of God is three persons—the Word is Christ but also distinct from the Creator God. That’s what God looks like.
When Jesus prays that his followers may be one as he and the Father are one, he is praying for all of us to be one as well. Not just that we should each become one with God, or one with Christ, but that we should become one with each other in the way Jesus and the Father are one.
The first part of knowing and loving God is the easy part. We all have our ways to grow in our oneness with God. We may come to 10:00 worship regularly. We may take The Secret Place and read the Scriptures and readings daily. We may dedicate ourselves to one of our many ministries actively like the Hunger Task Force or Vacation Bible Camp. We might join the Voices of Lakeshore choir to sing in one accord. We might walk the Camino. No matter which path we follow toward the oneness with God, the Holy Spirit can act in our lives to draw us closer, and to reveal to us the presence of God that is already nearer to us than our own heartbeats. We have only to open our eyes and ears, our hearts and remain willing to receive and respond.
But Jesus was also praying that his followers may be one with one another. This is the harder part of Jesus’ prayer for us.
Not only is there disunity in the early church, there’s disunity in the church like ours. We have denominations and our sub-denominations where we find our distinct tribe like the Evergreen Baptist Association to which we are a member. While we have no problems ordaining women called by God, there are others who won’t allow this. We argue over policies and resolutions. We argue about how our churches might engage in public service or how religion interacts with the state. These disunities are nothing new today for us as they were in the past.
Furthermore, we argue over how we interpret Scriptures, who represents the true church, who exhibits true spiritual gifts or who has the acceptable credentials to speak on our behalf. Such suspicion and questioning create fractures in the unity of the church.
And may I be so bold enough to say as your interim pastor at this time of Lakeshore’s history, how are we creating disunity when we may be holding on too tightly to traditions that prevent the Holy Spirit to come in to renew us? How are we maintaining the status quo because it’s familiar and we like to do the same thing year after year? How are we praying for more young families, children and youth, young adults and any visitors to come to Lakeshore when we haven’t walked across the street to introduce ourselves to the families playing in the playground?
Just as Jesus was praying for the disciples, do we hear Jesus praying for us at Lakeshore? Do we trust God to hear our prayers and does God answer them? Do we also trust that God heard Jesus’ prayer that we all might be one?
If we do, then our problems may be with our own assumption of what unity is. “Being one” is not about being the same. Being one is not that we should all agree. Rather, being one is more loving in action.
It’s like as a kid when I played hooky from Chinese language school and one of my father’s friends saw me hanging out at the Boston Common and told my father. When he got home that night, I got a spanking! He told me that when I am out in public, I represent him. Playing hooky is not a good reflection of him. While we were different, my father and I were also together; from one family. He lovingly spanked me and I never played hooky again!
Jesus prayed “that they may be one, as we are one.” The Word was with God, and the Word was God (1:1). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was one but each of them also has a distinctive identity. Some ancient theologians who studied these very verses talked about Jesus’ oneness with the Father in terms that suggest movement. The movement is a kind of interweaving or even a dance among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
What if Jesus’ prayer for unity is not a monolithic sameness, but rather it is about joyful, glorious dancing together? If we tried that idea on for a while, could it affect how we view our own disagreements with our brothers and sisters? Perhaps the vision toward which we strive is not one of total agreement but the ability to join, in our different and often polarizing ways, in the common dance of faith.
It is just possible that this is what Christian unity looks like—a body, as Paul said, with many parts, a dance with many dancers, a song with many voices. For us at Lakeshore, a church membership with many different kinds of members.
There’s a story about a wedding couple who had the finest fiddlers and banjo players to entertain their guests following the ceremony. The music was so captivating that soon everyone, young and old alike, began to dance. The people flung their bodies first one way and then another. The church was filled with joy.
Then two people drove by the church in their new luxury car with the windows rolled up and their loud music blaring from their car radio. They could not hear a single sound from outside of their car. When they looked toward the church and saw people jumping around, they stopped their car, shaking their heads at the sight. They said, “What a bunch of weirdos. See how they fling themselves about. I tell you the folks that go to church are crazy!”
I pray that when people drive by Lakeshore and see that we are passing the peace with each other, shaking hands, giving hugs, singing songs, praying together, drinking coffee together, laughing and joking with each other, that they will see it’s God’s love that has made us crazily loving!
The challenge to us is that all the other people who have yet stepped into our sanctuary or in our family room are also God’s children. In the pain of diversity, there is also the joy of possibility. There is and will always be a struggle, but there is also glory. We need to also invite the people who are driving by in their luxury cars to come inside!
Remember the dying mother leaving a videotape for her daughters so that she might be remembered for her love for them? This mother’s love for her daughters is glory. As Jesus bids farewell to the disciples, he wants them to remember him for how much God loves them. Jesus’ love for his disciples is glory. When we are happily dancing at Lakeshore, flinging our hands crazily with one another; this is glory. And when we daringly and faithfully go out and invite all the people who walk by our church or drive their luxury cars down our street and we go out there to invite them inside, this is glory.
To know God’s glory in love is to love those whom we may not like or love. And when we do, all glory goes to the Father who made heaven and earth and all glory on all of us too.
Let us pray.
Dear God, may the wonderfully diverse gifts and talents that you have blessed this church with be used in sharing love in action in Oakland and beyond to bring about your glory on earth and in our daily lives. Inasmuch as you shine your grace on us, we pray that we will shine your grace and mercy onto others. In Christ, we pray. Amen.
Benediction
The reign of God is being restored among us.
The Holy Spirit is coming to empower us.
God dwells among us and unites us in Christ.
Go now to share that love in the world. Amen.