Easter 7

Sermon preached by Olga Fabrikant-Burke

In our Gospel this morning, we are greeted with a dazzling flurry of giving. The language of “giving” permeates this short passage. The Father gives the Son authority to give eternal life, he gives the Son his name, his glory, his words, as well as people out of this world. The Son reciprocates this extravaganza of giving and offers everything he has back to the Father. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” For our part, we are drawn into into this extravagant mutual giving as the Son gives us the eternal life, the words, the name, and the glory which he has been given by the Father.

In this dizzying whirlwind of giving, it is easy to miss a particularly rich seam to mine. The Father gives a group of people out of the whole world as a gift to the Son. Not only does the evangelist here have in mind the disciples, the Twelve, but also, by extension, all those will believe in Christ through the word of the Twelve. In other words, we are given as a gift to the Son. We are the gift that the Father and the Son exchange between themselves. When you feel unworthy, unlovable, and inadequate, hold on to this truth. You are nothing less than a gift the Father shares with his Son.

But there is more. Yes, we are given as a gift to the Son, but we are, in fact, a very specific gift. The Greek verb “to give” here acts as an allusion, as a signpost that points us back to the time when the Israelites were still wandering in the wilderness, about to cross over into the Promised Land. We are transported back to the story of Aaron, the first high priest, and the Levites, his priests. And so we find ourselves in the book of Numbers, with its arcane priestly rituals, bewildering rites and complex genealogies. Listen to this:

“You shall give the Levites to Aaron and his descendants; they are unreservedly given to him from among the Israelites.” Or “I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites.” And again, “It is I who now take your brother Levites from among the Israelites; they are now yours as a gift, dedicated to the Lord.”

The Levites are given to Aaron as a gift. The parallels between the gift of the Levites to Aaron and the giving of the disciples to Christ are striking. Not for nothing did Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, dub John 17 “the high priestly prayer”. Jesus is the High Priest, and in his prayer to the Father, he consecrates us, his disciples, and bestows upon us a priestly identity. As Jesus is the new Aaron, the Aaron of the new covenant, so are we made the new Levites, given to our Aaron as priests—not just those of us who wear the dog collar, but every single one of us. No pressure.

The Old Testament introduces Levi as one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and thus the “father” of one of the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. Unlike other tribes, the Levites were not given any land of their own. Instead, the descendants of Levi were set apart for special priestly purposes, to assist Aaron and to be consecrated to God forever. The Levites were invited to come into God’s own house on earth, a place where God himself dwelt among human beings, first in the rugged tent of meeting in the Sinai desert and then in the resplendent Jerusalem Temple.

In the first chapter of his Gospel, John announces: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Jesus is the new Temple. John’s Gospel was most likely written after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD, and the evangelist is at pains to assure his confused and hurting audience that temple worship would not cease but continue in all its fullness in Christ. We, for our part, serve in this new tabernacle. We, as priests, now have our house in Christ. As priests, we stand on sacred ground, in the warm glow of God’s holy presence, with our High Priest in the Holy of Holies. Indeed insofar as we participate in the divine fellowship and are included in the divine love, we become part of the tabernacle in which the divine glory resides. Joined to Christ out Temple, we become the place where heaven and earth meet. God walks among us and dwells in us. Could there be anything better?

But who among us feels worthy of being this close to God? The accusing cacophony of our guilt and our shame propels us far from God. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that we are holy to the Lord. And yet, in his prayer today, Christ confidently draws us near, to be his holy priests. We are a holy people with rooms in God’s house. As the Levites belonged to Aaron, so we belong to Christ as his kingdom of priests for his own possession. Last week Jesus called us his friends. This week we are called his holy people. We are brought into the inner sanctum of divine presence, to enjoy it forever.

So, when the Father gives us to the Son, we are given a new identity. Who am I, and what am I made for? Our quests for identity and selfhood find their resolution in Christ. Our identity, our origin, and our life are grounded in this mutual giving between the Father and the Son. Our identity is grounded in the divine declaration that echoes in the book of Numbers: “The Levites shall be mine.” This is our identity, our centre, and our self.

“The Levites shall be mine.” This is as much a claim about identity as it is a call to mission. We are called to lead a life of contagious holiness as God’s priests. Set apart for God’s sacred use, we are called to embody and embed the presence of Christ in the world. “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” We become both signs of divine presence and effectual instruments of its action in the midst of our broken world. As priests, we take the light of divine presence to the farthest corners of this world of darkness and despair. In so doing, we become the place where God’s presence is revealed and Jesus is glorified.

It is not ultimately our mission—it is the mission of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—but we are drawn into it. And our High Priest gives us everything we, his priests, need for this mission. He sanctifies us. “Sanctify them in the truth,” Jesus prays. The Levites, you see, had to be made clean in order to be prepared to do the work to which they were called. They had to be washed and cleansed. In the Old Testament, the Levites had to do the cleansing themselves, again and again, every time they began their service in the sanctuary. But now the Lord himself purifies and dresses his priests, and he does so once and for all. He refines us as by fire, scraping off the dross and preparing us for his work here in this world. God makes us holy as He himself is holy.

We celebrated Ascension on Thursday. Christ our High Priest has ascended to the Holy of Holies. And today he invites us to join him in the Holy of Holies as his priests, giving us a new identity and a new mission. He prays for us to be prepared for this priestly service, to be sanctified. And this prayer will be answered. But we must wait. “Sanctify them in the truth.” But what is this truth? Jesus himself is the truth, of course, but Jesus also promises to his disciples that he will send the “Spirit of truth” who “will guide” them into all truth. When the Son asks the Father to sanctify the disciples “in the truth,” he asks that the Holy Spirit come upon the disciples.

In other words, we must wait for a while longer, we must wait for Pentecost and we must wait for the final consummation of all things, when this priestly holiness, which is our identity and our mission, will be ours even more. Meanwhile, as we wait for the fullness of our sanctification, we rejoice in our High Priest and live already as his priests, drawing closer to God, confident in his invitation to the Holy of Holies, and inviting other to draw closer to him. Amen.