Please Keep Us Weird

 John 17:6-19

May 16, 2021

 

Sometimes I read John’s gospel and I just want to say,
“What?” And this is one of those times.

Jesus speaks a lot plainer in the other gospels.

In John’s gospel it sounds more like poetry than stories,

a little like a freshman in college

who is excited about their first philosophy class.

John can make you a little dizzy.

 

But if you take it slow, diagram the sentences,

it does make sense eventually.

 

This is at the end of Jesus last long discourse

to his disciples. At the last supper.

The very next moment he is arrested and taken away.

This part is a prayer, an open conversation

between Jesus and God.

He is praying for the disciples before he leaves them.

 

He asks God to protect the disciples.

To keep them united.

To make them one like God and Jesus are one.

Jesus knows that the world will be dangerous for

his followers because as he says,

“They are in the world, but they do not belong to the world”.

 

They are in the world, but they are not of the world.

We hear this phrase a lot as Christians,

but it can still kind of be a vague statement.

 

Some people take it to mean that we should

separate ourselves from the world completely.

That we should isolate ourselves and only be involved with people

who share our religious beliefs and views.

 

Others believe that we shouldn’t get involved in current

events or politics, shouldn’t run for office, shouldn’t vote.

That we should leave those things to other “less holy” people

and keep ourselves clean.

 

I don’t think either of those things are what Jesus meant.

Jesus says in this prayer that he has sent his believers into the world,

just like Jesus was sent into the world.

Not to be separated from the world, but to be in it.

Jesus even says to God that he is not asking God to

take us out of the world at all.

 

What I think Jesus does mean is that his people were in the world,

engaged in the world, but they were a little different than normal.

They might have actually looked like everyone else at first glance,

but after a while, people noticed that followers of Jesus were a little different.

 

Jesus is saying that his followers were a little off normal.

In other words, Jesus is saying that his followers were weird.

 

Not just any kind of weird though.

We had this guy come out to our

house in Texas who poured a concrete slab for us.

And he never wore any shoes.

He did everything barefoot. 

He bent a nail in a board for us with the sole of his right foot. 

That was weird.

But it’s not the same kind of weird that I’m talking about.

 

And I’m not talking about dyed hair and beards weird,

or dipping your pizza in ranch dressing weird

or walking around in a Darth Vader costume weird

or climbing mount Everest weird.

I can certainly appreciate that weirdness.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about divine weirdness.

A weirdness that separates us from the systems of this world.

A weirdness that puts us outside so we could look

objectively at what was really going on.

 

So the first Christians were still a part of the world,

still part of the politics and the money.

They followed the laws, they did everything that other people did.

But they were weird.

 

I told you last week about the way relationships

outside of family were in Jesus time.

People would have relationships with other people

based on exchange. What that person could offer.

 

A rich person would befriend a poor person

they could get honor and accolades from them.

A poor person would then lower themselves

and honor the rich person because they

would give them things - money, shelter, food.

Relationships outside of family were based on

what people could get from each other.

 

But the followers of Jesus stood out from the rest of the world.

They had real friendships with each other

across lines of status, class, gender and race.

People of a higher class were friends with people

who were of a lower class, and they didn’t shame them

didn’t demand accolades or honors.
Didn’t demand to sit in the best seats.

 

They respected each other just because

they were brothers and sisters in Christ.

They were weird.

And this weirdness disrupted the whole system.

 

They visited people in prison, they took food to hungry people,

they gathered together in each others homes

for no specific monetary reason, just to worship God.

They let women lead their communities.

 

They sang songs together. They forgave each other.

They didn’t participate in the power structure that oppressed others

and developed their own power structure that built people up.

They were weird.  Divinely weird.

 

Now somewhere during these last 2000 years,

Christians have lost a little bit of their weirdness.

We started to become normal.

to become adjusted to the world and not only

comfortable with it, but to love it.

 

We actually started to become the world instead

of the weird ones in it.

Christians and Christianity actually became the power structure,

a structure reflected the world more

than the teachings and life of Christ.

We lost a lot of our weirdness.

 

Christians started to be the ones that oppressed instead of set free.

We defended Crusades, Inquisitions, slavery, McCarthyism, segregation.

We defined being Christian as being absolutely normal,

as being completely totally conformed

to this world and it’s laws and rules,

instead of being uncomfortable with them.

Christianity basically rejected weirdness.

So for the past two thousand or so years,

you really couldn’t tell a Christian apart from anyone else.

 

But now, thankfully,

we have started to bring weird back.

We have again become mal-adjusted to the conforms of society.

We have become mal-adjusted to the sight of war and poverty.

We have become un-comfortable with the world that says

that there is no place for forgiveness and vulnerability

that the only way to deal with others is stubbornness and inflexibility.

 

We have become un-comfortable with the world that says

financially stable people are the only ones valuable to society.

We have become uncomfortable with the rules

which tell us that it’s all about us and our money

and our house and our family.

 

With the nudging of the Holy Spirit,

we have become a little weird again.

In the world, but not of the world.

I ate lunch at Panera and I was wearing my collar

and the worker who picked up our plates asked where I was pastor.

I said, Christ Lutheran Church over on William Hilton Parkway.

He thought and then he said, "Is that the church that gives away all the food."

and I said, yes! 

That is weird for a church, that's the kind of weird we're talking about. 

Welcoming the homeless and the stranger.

The immigrant and the refugee.

The lost and the lonely.

Offering forgiveness instead of judgment.

Not doing what will give us power or money or recognition

but doing, and advocating, that which helps everyone

in our community including the weak and poor,

not just the rich or elite.

  

When other people look at us through squinted eyes

and say, “You  people are a little weird”

we can say, “Thank you very much!”

Then we will know that we are on the right track.

Then we know we’ve become the voice that this community needs.

In the world, but not of the world.

The divine weirdoes.

 

And that is Jesus prayer in a nutshell.

“God, you gave me these people

and we made them weirdoes.

I love these weirdoes.

Some people are going to have problems

with them because they’re weirdoes.

So please protect them.”

 

And that is the point of this prayer.

Jesus is leaving. Leaving us alone.

And Jesus is concerned like a parent leaving

their child alone for the first time.

He’s taught them all he can,

now the rest is in God’s hands.

 

We are Easter People.

Shaped by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

We should be weird. Divinely Weird.

 

And being divinely weird is a hard job.

But it’s Jesus call to us to, his little flock.

And it is our prayer:

“God we are yours and you are ours,

please protect us in this world and

please keep us weird.”