Homily 80 — John 17, verses 1 to 5

“Jesus spoke these words, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, so that your Son also may glorify you.’” [a]

“Whoever has done and taught,” Scripture says, “will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” And with good reason. To show true wisdom in words is easy, but the proof that comes through deeds belongs to someone noble and great. That is why Christ too, when he speaks about enduring evil, puts himself forward and tells us to take our example from him. For this reason also, after this charge, he turns to prayer, teaching us that in our trials we should leave everything and flee to God. He had said, “In the world you will have distress,” and had shaken their souls; so by the prayer he raises them up again. As yet they still paid attention to him as to a man, and for their sake he acts this way, just as he did in the case of Lazarus, where he also gives the reason: “Because of the people standing by I said it, so that they may believe that you sent me” (John 11, verse 42).

Someone will say: “Yes, this happened with good reason in the case of the Jews. But why in the case of the disciples?” With good reason in the case of the disciples too. For those who, after all that had been said and done, said, “Now we know that you know” (John 16, verse 30), needed above all to be made firm.

Besides, the evangelist does not even call the action a prayer. What does he say? “He lifted up his eyes to heaven.” He says, rather, that it was a conversation with the Father. And if elsewhere he speaks of prayer, and at one time shows him kneeling on his knees, at another lifting his eyes to heaven, do not be troubled. By these things we are taught the earnestness that should go with our petitions: that when we stand we should look up, not with the eyes of the flesh only but with the eyes of the mind, and that we should bend our knees, bruising our own hearts. For Christ came not only to make himself known, but also to teach a virtue beyond words. And a teacher must teach not by words only, but also by actions. Let us hear, then, what he says here.

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, so that your Son also may glorify you.”

Again he shows us that he comes to the cross not unwillingly. For how could he be unwilling, when he prayed that it might come about, and called the event “glory” — not only for himself, the one crucified, but also for the Father? And so it was: not the Son only, but the Father too was glorified. Before the crucifixion not even the Jews knew him — “Israel has not known me,” Scripture says (Isaiah 1, verse 3) — but after the crucifixion the whole world ran to him. Then he also speaks of the manner of the glory, and how he will glorify him.

Verse 2: “As you have given him power over all flesh, that nothing which you have given him should perish.”

For always to be doing good is glory to God. But what does “As you have given him power over all flesh” mean? He now shows that the preaching is not confined to the Jews alone but reaches out to the whole world, and he lays down in advance the first invitations to the Gentiles. He had said, “Do not go on the road of the Gentiles” (Matthew 10, verse 5), and after this he is about to say, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28, verse 19); so he shows that the Father also wills this. For this made the Jews stumble badly, and the disciples too. Even after this they could not easily bring themselves to take hold of the Gentiles, until they had received the teaching of the Spirit, because it became no small stumbling block for the Jews. That is why Peter, even after so great a showing of the Spirit, when he came to Jerusalem, could barely escape the charges brought against him by telling of the vision of the sheet.

But what does “You have given him power over all flesh” mean? I will ask the heretics: When did he receive this power? Was it before he formed them, or after? He himself says that it was after he had been crucified and had risen again. At least it was then that he said, “All power has been given to me” (Matthew 28, verse 18), and, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” What then? Did he not have authority over his own works? Did he make them, and then not have authority over them once he had made them? Yet in times long past we see him doing everything: punishing some as sinners (for Scripture says, “Surely I will not hide from my servant Abraham what I am about to do,” Genesis 18, verse 17, in the Greek version), and honoring others as righteous. Did he have the power then, and had he lost it now, and did he receive it again? What demon would say such a thing?

But if his power was the same both then and now — for he says, “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills” (John 5, verse 21) — what do the words mean? He was about to send them to the Gentiles. He had said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15, verse 24); so, in order that they would not think this was an innovation, he shows that it seems good to the Father as well. And if he says this in very lowly terms, it is no wonder. In this way he built up both the people of that time and those who came afterward. And, as I have said before, by the very excess of lowliness he always firmly convinced them that such words were spoken in stooping down to meet them.

But what does “of all flesh” mean? For certainly not everyone believed. Yet as far as his part went, all believed; and if people paid no attention to his words, the fault lay not with the teacher but with those who did not receive them. [h]

“That he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.” If here too he speaks in a more human way, do not be surprised. He does so for the reasons I have given, and to avoid saying anything great about himself, since that was a stumbling block to the hearers, because as yet they imagined nothing great about him. John, for example, when he speaks in his own person, does not do this. He leads his language up to greater heights, saying, “All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made”; and that he was “life”; and that he was “light”; and that “he came to his own” (John 1, verses 3, 4, 9 and 11). He does not say that he would not have had power unless he had received it, but that he gave to others as well “power to become sons of God.” And Paul likewise calls him equal with God (Philippians 2, verse 6). But Christ himself makes his request in a more human way, saying, “That he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.”

Verse 3: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

He says “the only true God” to set him apart from those who are not gods, for he was about to send them to the Gentiles. But if they will not accept this, and because of this word “only” reject the Son from being true God, then as they go on in this way they will reject him from being God at all. For he also says, “You do not seek the glory that comes from the only God” (John 5, verse 44). Well then, is the Son not to be God? But if the Son is God, and the Son of the Father who is called the only God, it is clear that he too is true, and the Son of the one who is called the only true God.

Why, when Paul says, “Or only I and Barnabas” (First Corinthians 9, verse 6), does he exclude Barnabas? Not at all; the word “only” is put there to set him apart from others. And if he is not true God, how is he “the Truth”? For truth far surpasses what is merely true. Tell me, what do we call not being a “true” man? Do we not call it not being a man at all? So if the Son is not true God, how is he God? And how does he make us gods and sons, if he is not true? But we have spoken about these matters more fully elsewhere, so let us turn to what follows.

Verse 4: “I have glorified you on the earth.”

He did well to say “on the earth,” for in heaven he had already been glorified: he had his own natural glory and was worshiped by the angels. So Christ is not speaking of the glory that is bound up with his being (that glory he always possesses in full, even if no one glorifies him), but of the glory that comes from the service people offer him. And so the words “Glorify me” are of this kind too. And so that you may understand that he is speaking of this kind of glory, listen to what follows.

“I have finished the work that you gave me to do.” And yet the work was still only beginning, or rather had not yet begun. How then did he say, “I have finished”? Either he means, “I have done all my part”; or he speaks of the future as already having happened; or — and this is the best explanation — that everything had already been accomplished, because the root of the blessings had been laid, and the fruits would certainly and necessarily follow, and because he would be present at and would help in the things that were to happen afterward. That is why he again says, stooping down to meet them, “which you gave me.” For if he had really waited to hear and learn, that would have fallen far short of his glory. That he came to this of his own will is clear from many passages. Paul says, for example, that “he so loved us that he gave himself for us” (Ephesians 5, verse 2); and, “He emptied himself, and took the form of a servant” (Philippians 2, verse 7); and, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (John 15, verse 9).

Verse 5: “And now, Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

Where is that glory? Granted that among people he was, with good reason, left without honor, because of the covering that had been put around him — how does he ask to be glorified with the Father? What, then, does he mean here? The saying refers to the plan of salvation. His nature in the flesh had not yet been glorified, since it had not yet been made incorruptible, nor shared the royal throne. That is why he did not say “on earth,” but “with you.”

This glory we too will enjoy in our own measure, if we stay alert. That is why Paul says, “If indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8, verse 17). So those people deserve ten thousand tears who, through sluggishness and sleep, plot against themselves when such glory is set before them. Even if there were no hell, they would be more wretched than anyone: when it is in their power to reign and to be glorified with the Son of God, they rob themselves of such great blessings. If we had to be cut to pieces, if we had to die ten thousand deaths, if we had to give up ten thousand lives every day and as many bodies, should we not submit to such things for such glory? But as things are, we do not even despise money, which we will leave behind later, whether we want to or not. We do not despise money, which brings ten thousand harms upon us, which stays here, which is not our own. For we are only stewards of what is not ours, even if we received it from our fathers. [k]

But when there is hell besides, and the worm that does not die, and the fire that is not quenched, and the gnashing of teeth, how, tell me, will we bear these things? How long will we refuse to see clearly, and spend everything we have on daily quarrels and disputes and useless talk — feeding and cultivating earth, fattening the body and neglecting the soul, taking no account of necessary things, but taking great care over what is superfluous and useless? We build splendid tombs, and buy costly houses, and drag herds of servants of every kind around with us. We contrive different stewards, appointing managers of lands, of houses, of money, and managers over those managers. But for our deserted soul we care nothing at all. And where will this end? Is it not one belly we fill? Is it not one body we clothe? What is all this great bustle of business for? Why and for what purpose do we cut up and tear to pieces the one soul that has been assigned to us, in serving such things, and contrive a harsh slavery for ourselves?

For whoever needs many things is the slave of many things, even if he seems to be their master. The master is the slave even of his household servants, and he takes on another and a heavier kind of service. And in another way too he is their slave: he does not dare go to the marketplace, or the bath, or the countryside without them, while they often go about everywhere without him. The one who seems to be the master does not dare to leave home if his slaves are not with him; and if he so much as puts his head out of his house unattended, he thinks people are laughing at him. Perhaps some laugh at us when we say this; but for that very reason they deserve ten thousand tears.

To show that this is slavery, I would gladly ask you: Would you want to need someone to put each bite into your mouth and hold the cup to your lips? Would you not think such service worth weeping over? What if you constantly needed people to hold you up so that you could walk — would you not think yourself pitiable, and in this respect more wretched than anyone? That is how you ought to feel now. For it makes no difference whether one is served in this way by things without reason or by human beings.

Tell me, is this not how the angels differ from us: they do not need as many things as we do? So the less we need, the nearer we come to them; the more we need, the lower we sink into this perishable life. And so that you may learn that this is so, ask those who have grown old which life they think happiest: the time when they were helplessly ruled by these things, or now, when they are masters of them. We have mentioned these people because those who are drunk with youth do not even know how great their slavery is. Or take those in a fever: do they call themselves happy when they are very thirsty, drink a great deal, and need still more — or when they have recovered their health and are free of the craving? Do you see that in every case needing much is pitiable, far removed from true wisdom, and an increase of slavery and craving?

Why then do we willingly add to our own wretchedness? Tell me, if it were possible to live unharmed without a roof or walls, would you not prefer that? Why then do you multiply the signs of your weakness? Is this not why we call Adam happy, that he needed nothing — no house, no clothes? Someone will say: “Yes, but now we do need them.” Then why do we make our need greater? When many people cut back even on many of the things they actually need — servants, I mean, and houses, and money — what excuse can we have if we go beyond our need? The more you put around yourself, the more of a slave you become; for in whatever measure you need more, in that measure you have cut into your freedom. Complete freedom is to need nothing at all; the next is to need little. This is what the angels, and those who imitate them, possess above all. But for human beings to achieve this while living in a mortal body — think how great the praise it deserves! Paul said this too, when he wrote to the Corinthians, “But I spare you,” and, “so that such people may not have trouble in the flesh” (First Corinthians 7, verse 28).

Riches are called “things for use,” so that we may use them rightly, and not hoard them and bury them; for that is not to possess them, but to be possessed by them. If we make it our aim to multiply them, and not to use them rightly, the order is turned upside down: they possess us, not we them. So let us free ourselves from this harsh bondage, and at last become free. Why do we devise ten thousand different chains for ourselves? Is the bond of nature not enough for you, and the necessity of life, and the crowd of ten thousand affairs? Must you also weave other nets for yourself and wrap them around your feet? And when will you take hold of heaven, and be able to stand on that height? For it is a great thing, a great thing, if even after cutting through all these cords you are able to lay hold of the city above. There are so many other hindrances. So that we may overcome them all, let us keep to the middle way: let us put away what is superfluous and keep to what is necessary. In this way we will lay hold of eternal life, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.