You will ask nothing.

A Sermon for Rogation Sunday

May 25, 2025 at Holy Communion

John 16:23–24

Jesus said, “In that day you will ask nothing of me” (John 16:23). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.

I’ve been glad over the past few weeks to see gardens popping up all around our neighbourhood. Even though I have almost never gardened in my life, even I have got a indoor herb garden going this season in one of our windows. I wasn’t going to risk my first gardening experiment on the the generosity of the local deer. Today is “Rogation Sunday,” a traditional time for blessing gardens and farms with prayer—and so for discussing prayer as the theme of the Sunday readings.

And the opening words alone of today’s Gospel give us plenty to chew on. Jesus says, “In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23–24).

There are several puzzles here. What is “that day”; when is Jesus referring to? When that day comes, why won’t the disciples ask Jesus for anything? Why does Jesus say that the disciples have never asked the Father for anything in Jesus’ name? And then there’s the classic problem: how can Jesus promise that when we ask the Father anything, he will give it, when that is manifestly not true in our experience?

If we work through these questions in order, that last thorny puzzle about why God apparently doesn’t answer prayers will be easier to navigate. True prayer, we’ll discover, is about uniting your will to the will of Christ.

When Jesus says that “In that day you will ask nothing of me” (v 23), the “day” he’s referring to is the one he spoke about in the readings from the same chapter of John which we’ve heard over the past two weeks. It is the day when our sorrow at Jesus’ departure is turned into joy (v 20). It is the day when the Spirit of truth comes to reveal Jesus to his disciples in his bodily absence (v 13–15).

Earlier in John, as part of the same discussion of the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said that the “Spirit of truth … dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:17), and that this is how Jesus, although having departed from them, will nonetheless come to them (v 18). In short, the Spirit of God communicates the presence of Jesus. The Son of God is the person upon whom the Spirit of God rests (Matthew 3:16), and the image of the Father (Colossians 1:15) because the Spirit of the Father lives in him. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption, the Spirit of Sonship (Romans 8:15).

So Jesus says that in the day that the Spirit comes upon the disciples, they won’t ask anything of the God the Son. Why? Because they have become the Son; the Son is in them and with them. The disciples are adopted as the Son of God. Born again by the Spirit of God in the water of baptism, the church becomes God’s child, and prays to the Father in the Son’s own voice. The church’s prayer is directed—according to an ancient formula—”to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.” As we live in the Spirit of God, we address ourselves to the Father as and through his beloved Son.

So here’s the first takeaway lesson about prayer: Christians don’t pray to Jesus as a dispenser of heavenly favours. We do not present our desires to him to be approved or rejected based on how generous he feels and how well we ask. Instead, we address ourselves to the Father as we breathe in the Spirit of Jesus. We don’t ask anything of Jesus; we take his place before the Father, clothe ourselves in the robe his Father put on him (Luke 15:22)—that is, his Spirit—and speak as his Spirit gives us utterance. We pray only what Jesus prayed to his Father: “thy will, not mine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

To pray for anything that is not the will of God is utterly fruitless. And yet that doesn’t mean that prayer is fruitless; quite the contrary. The Father’s will, his desire for the world, is displayed and enacted in the Son’s prayer. The Son prays, and the Son’s will is unfailing accomplished because it is the will of the Father from whom all things come. The will of God in Christ is to save the world (John 6:38–40). So for Christians, prayer is participation in Jesus’ desire to save the world, which we present to the Father who hears and responds.

In today’s reading, Jesus tells his disciples that they have never asked anything in his name. This is not just a historical point, that the disciples had never yet used the formula “In Jesus’ name, amen.” They have could used that formula with every prayer, as we do, and still be no closer to praying “in the Name of Jesus.” The “Name of the Lord,” as it always was in the Old Testament when (for example) the “Name” of the Lord dwelt in the Temple, is the Spirit of the Lord. The disciples had never yet presented themselves before God as bearers of Jesus’ Spirit. Although they may have prayed as servants of the heavenly king, they had never prayed as sons of the heavenly Father. God does not always grant the desires of his servants; but he always grants the desire of his beloved Son, because his Son’s desires are his own.

And so we come to the issue of Jesus’ promise that “whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23). The Father grants whatever we ask in Jesus name because it is impossible to ask “in Jesus Name” anything that is not the will of the Father. Asking something contrary to the will of the Father is the proof that we do not ask it in the Name of Jesus. A separation between our will and the will of God is the proof that we have not yet fully come into divine sonship.

We may ask for a thousand things, all of them good for us according to our own understanding. And we should ask for these things also, while we are still learning to pray. It is better to pray boldly and wrongly than not at all. But if we have not sought union with the will of Jesus, we have asked nothing in his Name.

Two weeks ago Katy attended a talk given by the abbot of the local Orthodox monastery. He spoke about prayer, and told the women who were gathered that prayer has more to do with listening than with speaking. Prayer is about seeking the “heart place,” the centre of yourself which anxieties and distractions do not touch and where thoughts don’t buzz about, the place of tenderness. He encouraged people to make part of their prayer practice whatever gives them access to that place: music, poetry, ritual.

Bringing your heart before God, you realize how little you have to say. You discover that all the things you thought you had to say to God really just concerned the outer layer, the layer of anxieties which were just trying to keep you out of your heart. In your heart, you can hear the voice of God speak—and it also has little to say, but what it says is “mercy” and “peace” and “love.” Perhaps there is something in your heart that you need to say, but it will only be what you hear: you will also pray for mercy, peace, and love, for yourself and for all. The Father will hear, and give whatever you ask, because you have asked in Jesus’ Name.