JOHN 17:13-19 SANCTIFICATION IN PLACE

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”

When we declare that something is special or pure, we usually set it apart physically. This makes sense empirically since pure water is no longer pure once a trace of contaminated water is mixed in, and any school child knows that not cleaning your paint brush between colors makes for a muddy picture. At the level of Christian theology we also speak about the holiness of God and how he would no longer be perfectly holy if he came into contact with our sin. In practice we understand sanctification as a setting apart, dedicating something or person as sacred and we assume that this entails some distance from the everyday corruption of this life. Traditionally we do not treat our places of worship, those who have professed religious vocations or the Bible in a manner typical of their “secular” counterparts. Even within the religious community, when we discern unsound teaching or disobedience to God’s will, our first instinct is to separate and form a new community.

Jesus’ prayer for believers is quite a challenge to our human understanding and practice. He prays for our sanctification and that God not take us out of the world. Rather, he declares that we are to be set apart in the world to do the work of God, which is reconciling the world to himself. Our sanctification is not about place, but about function. We do not have a sacred position, but a holy purpose. We are to be in the world but not of the world. In addition, we are holy not because of where we are but because whose we are. In the Old Testament, things and people were sanctified symbolically by the sprinkling of the blood from the sacrifice. We also have been sanctified through the blood of Jesus, our sacrifice. But as the objects of the Temple were sanctified to be used in the worship of God, we have been sanctified as instruments of reconciliation in the world.

Jesus’ prayer is that we will be able to perform our God-given purpose in this fallen and sinful world under the protection of God himself. We are not the agents of change but the witnesses to the One who can bring about change. It is an uncomfortable and vulnerable position, but it is the very vocation we take up at baptism. Yet it is also the position of greatest joy, because it is where God has promised to be with us and we can experience a delightful dependence on our Father.

Purify me from within, O God, and chase far from me all temptation to separate myself from the community in which you have placed me. May my “separateness” be manifested in my cleaving to you even as I am in the midst of this world. May I rest assured in your promises and the sacrifice of Jesus as I live in obedience to your will. Amen.