When I was a kid, I had a great aunt who worked for NASA and lived on the north end of Cocoa Beach, not on the beach but a block away. Their little block house had a flat roof, and we would often go to her house and climb up on her roof to watch the Apollo launches. The whole world shook.

She was my grandfather’s sister, on my dad’s side. Their parents, my great-grandparents, lived with her and her husband in their last years. I remember my great-grandfather in his recliner with a jar of some kind of peppers, offering to give me a quarter if I would eat one. (I knew better!)

After my great-grandparents died, things took a lousy turn. When my great aunt moved them in with her, she essentially took all of their stuff. They were not at all wealthy, it was just stuff, but she refused to even talk about it. That caused a permanent rift between her and her two sisters as well as my grandfather. I don’t think the three of them ever spoke to her again.

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This past week we had a wonderful Vacation Bible School, created and led by Christopher and Tiana Maslanka. The kids followed an undersea exploration that also probed the depths of The Lord’s Prayer, verse by verse. I loved it. Our oceans are so important and they are under a lot of stress. It was great to see the kids learn about that, and the Lord’s Prayer is central to our faith so it was great to see them learn more about that.

It reminded me of another undersea voyager.

A little over 8 years ago, the British National Oceanography Centre launched a new, state of the art, unmanned submarine designed to gather vital data from the deepest polar waters. It was and is very high tech and cost about $270 million, which was a lot of money 8 years ago.

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John devotes 5 chapters to all Jesus said and did at the Last Supper, from washing his disciples’ feet to lots of teaching and instruction, closing with what we call his “High Priestly Prayer.” Today’s Gospel is the very end of that prayer. After this Jesus will cross the Kidron Valley to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he will be arrested.

He closes by praying fervently that his disciples would be One. He says it three times, not to drive the point home with God, but to drive it home to them. He frames this desire in the most profound terms, that they should be One as he and the Father are One. And he says he is praying this not just for those gathered with him that night, but also on behalf of those who will believe in him through their testimony.

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