Part of my job is being a psychiatric jailer. There is a thing called a mental health act or mad act in every country — it may not be called that, but it exists either in judicial practice or in law because every society has to find a way to protect the mad and those who because of intellectual difficulties or age no longer can think and act as adults. Since I work in a ward, one of the things I have to do is invoke this act. It is never something done lightly: the principle in NZ law is that you must use as little restriction as possible.

But it does mean a bunch of people in town hate me, and hate what I have done to them. If you invoke the act you remove that person’s liberty, and generally you will not be liked. I know that in general people are grateful in the long-term, but the fact you are acting coercively will cause a reaction.

Why am I thinking of work far too early in the morning? Because the text today is the high priestly prayer Jesus said before his crucifixion. And the implication is that the world will hate us.

John 17:1-26

¹After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

⁶“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. ¹²While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. ¹⁴I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

²⁵“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

There are many deep truths in this passage. Things that I am not qualified to speak to: things that have vexed theologians for many centuries. The church has never been perfect. The church has been full of factions, and there have been pleas of unity, from the very beginning — indeed Paul spent a fair amount of a letter to the Corinthians arguing that there should not be a church for those who follow him, and another for those who follow Apollos. However, there is a functional unity among those who are serious believers — seen most recently, as both Prots and Caths comfort a sister in grief.

This passage, this prayer, shows that Christ knows his church. The church is Christs, and he is the one who is praying that we become one, remain one. This is not some worldly work of bishops and other politicians, (ecclesiastical or not).

And that church will be opposed by the powers of this world. For this world have never known God. They know religion, but that is set up as a shield: to assuage our conscience and comfort us with lies. Because behind the ritual and the veil lies a living and active God. He is powerful, he does not cause joy in inner growth in his presence, but instead bowel-loosening fear.

He makes us small.

We can no longer be infants, believing (like cats) that the world exists to amuse and feed us. We have to realize instead, that our best work is flawed, we are weak, powerless and poor. It is only through Christ that we can attempt to approach God. That leaves us with a binary choice: to be of Christ, and against this world, or of this world, and against Christ.

So we should not be surprised when we are hated. At work, I know it is inevitable. The comforting thoughts of Christendom — that there was a Godly age in the past — are nor that real: those of Christ have always been despised in this world.

And in this time, when the world encourages us to develop ourselves without producing any fruits in our lives (be it children, lives influenced, or good done) and when the only acceptable religion is a narcissistic love of oneself. we will stand out. By being faithful wives and husbands. By having children. By doing good.

And by doing this, we will be hated. Ignore it. Haters be Haters, and the road to perdition is broad. Do not be on that road.