Trinity Sunday

The Gospel according to John
Chapter 16: 12-15

Theme: Our pilgrimage in Christ is never done. We are always being called to further insight and inspiration.

We are still in those hours of reflection that Jesus shared in the upper room. It is as if Jesus saw the shadowed walls of that room dissolve, allowing him to look across time and generations to all those - ourselves among them - who would come to these words and find grace in them.

"I still have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now". What a challenge is here. Our Lord seems to be telling us that Christian experience has no horizon. To say this makes us feel a kind of awe and wonder. Our Lord is promising to call us to further discovery until the end of time. In his own earthly time Jesus himself pushed at the boundaries of his contemporaries, forcing people to think and to imagine beyond the narrow categories of their spirituality. In our time Jesus continues to do this, his holy spirit pushing us towards new ways of responding to the change and turmoil of our own age.

"When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth". Again we are being told that the adventure is only beginning. It was only beginning for those long ago disciples around that table, yet it is also true that it is only beginning for us two millennia later. If God be truly God then there is no end to what can be learned, discovered and lived. I think of this whenever I hear or sing the verse in the hymn "Amazing Grace" that says - "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun; we've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we first begun".

Jesus continues. "All that the Father has is mine". I find that for me this statement of Jesus speaks to something exploding around us in recent decades - the immense variety of ways in which our world today pursues its spiritual questing. For many of us that world of many faceted spirituality is fascinating. Yet as Christians we also need to remind ourselves that, if we search the riches of Christian spirituality down the centuries, we come to realize that it has treasures far beyond our ability to exhaust.

In one of his letters Saint Paul wishes the early Christians to realize that in Christ they possess all things. In this shared moment in the upper room Jesus promises that we can find in him all we need in our search for God.

This is the Good News for this week.

The Day of Pentecost

The Gospel according to John
Chapter 14: 8-14, 25-27

Our Lord speaks to his disciples and to us, pointing out that his life is both our window into God, and our introduction to the Holy Spirit.

All through these weeks after Easter millions of Christians are reading this Gospel according to John. We are going back over all the things Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room just before he was crucified.

Why are we doing this? Why are we going back? I think it is because now that we know he is risen we can hear these things in a new way. There comes a moment when Philip says to Jesus "Lord, show us the Father." Philip wants something that all of us want from time to time, particularly at those times when our faith is strained and we are no longer sure of anything. Philip - and we - want certainty. We long for the specific response from God that leaves us in no doubt.

Jesus says to Philip - "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father". It is important to realize that Jesus does not say that he "is" the Father. He says that he is "in the Father". At this point words almost betray us, because at this moment we are at the heart of the great Christian mystery we call Incarnation, the meeting in Jesus Christ of humanity and divinity. We can ask our "how" questions for ever and we will not unravel this mystery.

Jesus continues. "The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do". All we know is that sometimes when we look at Jesus we are looking through a window into the nature of God. What our Lord says to us is what God wants to say to us. Our Lord's actions are his carrying out of the will of God in the world. If our lives and actions in any way reflect those of our Lord, then we are carrying out the will of God, and in some way - albeit a very inadequate way - we are reflecting the nature of God.

"If you love me" says Jesus, "you will keep my commandments". Once again, not for the first time, we hear Jesus link love to obedience. For our Lord, love is never just a nice feeling - as our culture very often understands it. Love abides where there is obedience.

"He (the Father) will give you another advocate." We are hearing a favourite theme of our Lord. He is saying that the relationship of his disciples with him cannot and will not stop at this point. These short years they have been together is no more than a beginning. The relationship will grow and deepen throughout their lives. In saying this in that long ago upper room, Jesus says this to us. The relationship between a Christian and his or her Lord must be a growing and deepening thing.

This is the Good News for this week.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

The Gospel according to John
Chapter 17: 20-26

In His last ours with His disciples our Lord prays passionately for their unity. He is also praying for the same unity for all Christians.

As we read the Gospel according to John we can find ourselves in very deep waters. More than any other Gospel writer, John recalls the reflections of our Lord, most of them from the last hours Jesus spent with his disciples. There are many levels of meaning and we have to probe deeply for them. Here are one or two simple thoughts I think worth sharing.

As we begin this passage we are listening to Jesus as he nears the end of his long prayer for the disciples. Jesus knows that there is very little time left before he will be taken. Here, around this table, are the hands that will in the future be his hands to do his work in the world, the tongues that will speak for him. Knowing this, Jesus is also only too well aware of the humanity and limitations of our humanity. All this we hear in the intensity of every thought in this prayer. Above all, Jesus prays that the group will remain united amid all that the future will bring.

"I ask...(for) those who will believe in me through their word". Jesus is now praying for the church that will form from the work and witness of those here in the room with him. When we think about that for a moment we realize that Jesus is reaching out across the centuries and praying for us!

"That they may be one, as we are one". All through this prayer Jesus is asking that the relationship among his followers may resemble that between himself and the Father. Everything we know of that relationship is that it was one of the deepest intimacy. Therefore we know that our Lord wishes this intimacy and trust to exist within the life of his church. How very much we have to struggle for this in contemporary church life. Congregations, especially large congregations, find both unity and intimacy elusive at best. In a strongly individualistic culture, unity can be elusive because of the wide spectrum of opinions, attitudes, hopes and expectations across its spectrum.

Some congregations have found that the development of small groups can help some people to discover intimacy and acceptance. I recently came across an estimate - not a statistic - that surprised me. Robert Wuthnow, the Lutheran sociologist now at Harvard, estimated that of every ten people in the United States - and I think we could assume something similar is true in Canada - four or five were in a support group of some kind, whether it be merely for company in what can be a society of much loneliness - let's say, reading and discussing a book together regularly - or one of the many aspects of Twelve Steps - struggling for recovery from various addictions, or people supporting each other in cancer survival, and so on. Then of course there are the many kinds of groups centred around some religious quest - prayer groups, study groups, healing groups.

Even the simple act of exchanging of the peace within worship, though it may still be difficult and seem even intrusive for some, can be a reminder to us that in Jesus Christ we are called to be one. If we have any doubt about this we have only to read our Lord's prayer in entirety.

This is the Good News for this week.

Reflecting on the Gospel for the 6th Sunday of Easter

This is my first venture out into the world of the Web. I thought I would share some reflections on the Gospel passages of the Three Year Revised Common Lectionary in the hope that they might be of use to anyone who has the responsibility of doing a homily on the passage.

The Gospel according to John
Chapter 14: 23-29

Our Lord is reflecting on our relationship with God, and we see how it resembles our human relationships.

Jesus has just been asked a question. Someone says to him "How is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" The rest of this passage is our Lord's reply.

The first great truth in that reply is that our Lord shows himself to the human heart. There are no vast planetary wide manifestations that some Christians tend to long for. Back in his early desert experience Jesus was tempted to such displays and he rejected them. Instead he returned to Galilee, walked the lake shore and began capturing human hearts one by one.

In this upper room he is saying that it will always be this way. In her poem "Immanence" the English poet Evelyn Underhill expresses this perfectly. She writes of God - "I shall achieve my immemorial plan. Pass the low lintel of the human heart."

"Those who love me", says Jesus, “will keep my word". Our Lord shows us love in terms of obedient action. Love is not just a feeling or a sentiment. Where there is love there is obedience.

"We will come to them and make our home with them". If we live a life of intentional obedience to God as we have experienced that God in Jesus, then a relationship is formed. Because we are human this relationship will never be constant or perfect. Our human nature will interfere and put up blocks. Our faith will go through periods of confidence and periods of doubt. But if we strive for an obedient relationship with God we will have moments of natural encounter with our Lord. He is both the object of our obedience as well as being the source of grace that makes our obedience possible.

"The Advocate, the Holy Spirit...will teach you everything". Our relationship with our Lord, like our human relationships, must grow and deepen if it is to be real. My childhood relationship with God, while it affects all my subsequent life, will not itself suffice for my adult life. Very often we fail to recognize this.

"I am going away, and I am coming to you". This is a deliberate paradox whose truth is borne out again and again in our relationships. It’s true between parents and children. If it does not happen the relationship cannot develop. The same is true in our relationship with God. Each stage of it must change. Each stage must "go away" to that the next stage can develop or "come again".

That is the Good News for this week.