John 17:6-19

I believe that it’s now more widely accepted that our health depends upon a large number of things and not just the absence of some ‘bug’ or ‘virus’.
   
Our health is influenced by many things: what we eat and rink, what exercise we take or can take, how much stress and what type of stress we have in our lives, our housing conditions, the quality of our relationships with family, friends and neighbours ... to name but a few.
   
To put it more succinctly, our health depends upon the way we live our lives and the world in which we live our lives.

If we look back to the creation story in Genesis we find that it tells us that this present world is not what God intended nor intends it to be.

Through the choices that we have made and that we make we have created a world in which the ground is cursed so that through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Those words are from Genesis chapter 3 and they tell of the broken and disordered world we have created, created from the beautiful and good creation that was God’s.
   
In short, this world, the one we have made is not, in many, many ways, a very healthy place!
   
It’s certainly not the world that God created!

Neither is it the world that will always be...
                     
The strange and mysterious vision of St John promises "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his  people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every  tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."  He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
     
If we take these words at all seriously, they hold before us a wonderful vision of what this world will be when the new earth is revealed.
                      
It’s a world that Jesus in His ministry and through His death, Resurrection and Ascension declared was near – if not yet fully established.

It’s into these understandings of this present world not being a very healthy place and
together with the promise of what will be that Jesus spoke the words of His prayer for His followers that we’ve heard spoken afresh today.

I’d like to focus down on just a few of Jesus’ words from that prayer, the words:
                      
“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. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.”
                     
Twice Jesus said, “They are not of the world” – strange words to say to His followers who were quite clearly sitting before Him in this world! 
 
Strange words to speak afresh to us who are quite clearly sitting in this place, in this world right now!
                      
I’d like to suggest that what Jesus was alluding to was that His disciples then and His disciples now have been freed from the ways of this broken and disordered world to the
freedom of God’s reign -God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven - just as the Hebrew slaves were freed from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.

Jesus’ disciples, His followers, that is all who accept Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, have been freed from slavery to the ways of this unhealthy world to live healthy lives under God’s Reign, following His ways, obeying His commands, letting our wills be His.
                      
So, Christians are not of this world because we acknowledge Jesus as King of all creation rather than any earthly king, Prime Minister, President whatever.
                     
Christians are not of this world because we strive, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to obey His laws rather than any human laws.
                      
Christians are not of this world because we seek, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to mould our wills to God’s will so that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
                      
In that acknowledging, that striving and that seeking we create a healthy world in which we can know, enjoy and celebrate healthy lives.
                      
Every time we meet to worship we declare that we are not of this world, we are of God’s world – a world not yet fully realized in this place but one in which we are called to do our little bit to move it closer to being.
                      
That calling, that working to bring heaven to earth, brings conflict – the world clearly does not want to order itself according to God’s ways – if it did we’d be using this world’s plenty to ensure that all are fed, we’d be turning armament factories into producers of farming equipment, we’d be nurturing this world rather than ravishing it.
                     
We are called to live in conflict with this world and so Jesus prayed and Jesus prays “protect them from the evil one.”
                      
This world, the world we have created, “the evil one”, constantlytries to draw us back to its ways – it entices us with things that sparkle and glitter, it holds out to us things that are quick and easy to grasp, it tempts us with fleeting sweetness – so we need God’s protection.
                      
In this Healing Service we pray for God’s healing of this dis-eased world, that our lives may be healthy, that all creation may be healthy and that we may do our part to bring God’s healing by living lives, under God’s protection,  that are not of this world but of God’s reign.