So That They May Be All One

John proclaims the Divine presence of God in Jesus in his very first Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God… And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And now in (John17:20-26as he announces the end of the physical presence of the incarnation of God in Jesus…he prays for their Oneness with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: 

  Holy Father, I pray not only for them,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,  so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.


Once again John relies on mystical words to “speak” to us in that place the soul reserves for dissecting metaphor and non-verbal images of reality and life itself reside in us. John invites us to close our eyes and picture what being in a relationship with God really feels like. Note, I use the word “picture,” not “understand,” in an effort to prompt our imagination and senses to know the words as a palpable, sensory experience, and know what being in a relationship with God actually feels like, tastes like, and smells like. This is at the essence of our being and what we mean when we say “and the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God fully shared our humanity through Jesus as we through Jesus, fully share in God’s divinity. Anything less than that relationship with God would be reduced to mere acquaintance. 

  It is beautiful to hear Jesus pray for his apostles, not alone in a garden or in the desert but right in their midst. What a great model for prayer he provides us. In John there is no “teach us how to pray,” followed by the Lord’s Prayer, but rather it’s a prayer in which he asks the Father to bless us as we are called to follow him now, as we did while he was on earth, and invest our lives and love in one another as we glorify the Father.

Jesus will no longer be in the world as The Incarnation is coming to an end. Jesus will be ascending to the Father. But we are still in the world and Jesus’ earthly mission is now in our hands. He is counting on us to be his presence to one another in his absence.

What if we imagined that the resurrection of Jesus was just the beginning and not the conclusion of the Gospel and that the promises of the resurrection are, in part, ours to fulfill? This prayer before parting is bitter sweet, after all Jesus is leaving his friends, but in many ways the sorrow of his leaving is replaced by the love he shares with us and we share with one another.

In the Name of the Father from whom we have come and to whom we are going, and to the Son who will show us the way, and to the Holy Spirit, who will give us the ability to follow the way, Amen

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful...

I vividly remember Father Dean Henry’s initial invitation to, at the time was called, the “Wednesday Evening Bible Study,” in our weekly bulletin originally entitled “The ‘Jesus Way’ Bible Study”. I was intrigued by the last sentence in his posting: “No expertise in Bible Study is necessary, not even helpful. So, come and join us,” This last sentence spoke directly to me and gave me the courage to give it a try and see what it was all about. In retrospect, I can’t help but think that Dean, like John, was carefully selecting his words for the way in which they struck us or to use the current vernacular, resonated with us.

We have come to learn over the years that John’s Gospels defy literal translation and ask that we suspend our intellect and allow the words to become flesh in us and take them to our hearts so that we might intuitively feel their presence and know the Spirit. Padovano tells us that Jesus will never be found by those who reduce faith to words or doctrines or who limit religious behavior to moral exercises or spiritual behavior. Perhaps Dean had John in mind when he suggested that prior expertise or literal knowledge of the Bible may not be helpful. So, in our Gospel (John14:23-29) Jesus says: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.”

Have we ever seen the Holy Spirit? This is not a trick question. Let’s think for a moment. The best description we get in the Bible of the Holy Spirit are tongues of flame or a freely blowing breeze. However, in this week's reading we get two helpful hints that offer a pretty good picture of just what the Holy Spirit looks like.

The Holy Spirit looks like an Advocate --the one who stands up for you when you need it; the one who speaks on your behalf; the one who lends you a helping hand, takes your side, and won't leave you while you're down.

The Holy Spirit looks like Jesus. The Spirit is "another advocate" because Jesus is the first. The Spirit, Jesus goes on to say, will abide with us and is sent in Jesus' name to remind us of what he taught. In a very real way, the Spirit affirms Jesus presence in us and through us, and helps to keep his promise that he will not leave us orphaned. You know him, because he abides with you, and lives with us.

An advocate is defined as one who upholds and defends a cause or person, and intercedes on the part of another. Yes, we've seen the Spirit many times in those who share the love of Christ, and stand up for one another. They are advocates. And unfortunately, we have also seen the adversaries to the first Advocate, Jesus, in the Pharisees who as with the proverbial “brood of vipers,” were self-righteous in the preservation of their egoistic demands, quick to judge and condemn and eventually put an end to Jesus, while destroying and dividing his community in order to serve their own purpose, and not God’s.

John’s Gospel is as relevant today as it was when it was written two thousand years ago. There are advocates for the love of God in our midst…and there are adversaries.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love

Love One Another

John proclaims the Divine presence of God in Jesus in his very first Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God… And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And now, in this gospel (John 13:31-35), the long awaited hour of Jesus’ passing from this world to the Father is set into motion. This is the appointed time for the “glorification” of Jesus and his Father. In this reading he uses the word glorification five times in two verses to underscore the deepest meaning of the coming hour during which he too will be glorified and exalted. 

Here Jesus addresses his apostles as “my children,” displaying a tender bond of affection as he prepares them for what’s to come. How could they understand? After telling them that he will be with them only a little while longer, he gives them clear instructions on how to live in his absence…to love one another as I have loved you.

Although Jesus is getting ready to leave his apostles he, in past readings, reminds them and us that he is one with the Father as he is one with us. We experience this “Oneness” when we give ourselves to one another and as in the parable of the vine and branches, the whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love. That’s Jesus’ vision of no separation between human and Divine. (Adapted from Cynthia Bourgeault, “Oneness,” January 16, 2019, Rohr Meditations)

Jesus beautiful parting message evokes in me a similar tender moment in a scene from Rogers and Hammerstein’s The King and I, as Anna lovingly instructs the young lovers to cling very close to each other and love one another.

When I think of you
I think about a night
When the earth smelled of summer
And the sky was streaked with white

There are new lovers now on the same silent hill
Looking on the same blue sea
And I know you and I are a part of them all
And they're all a part of you and me. 

The Father and I are One

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the ‘50s. We lived in a two–family house in Brooklyn. I recall it as a carefree simpler time. While doors demarked boundaries of sorts, we were less fearful of others crossing them as we are today. It was not always necessary to lock our doors. And when we finally did, a key was kept in the milk box on the porch or left one with our upstairs neighbor. We gave little thought to coming and going. Safety was a given. In later years when both my parents worked, I, as the oldest of my siblings, was entrusted with the key. It wasn’t long before concerns for safety appeared to be heightened and more attention was paid to locked doors and security. Times were changing and we became more aware of the news of the day.

While gates and doors provide protection and security, they are the means for going in and out of a home or place. They also serve as boundaries to permit entry and exit. In today’s Gospel (John 10:11-30 ) Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is metaphorically depicted as both the caretaker and the passage way to eternal life. The beautiful renderings in Christian art of Jesus the Good Shepherd are well known to us. For me the famous painting of the lamb draped over Jesus shoulder  that hung on the wall of one of my grade school classrooms, and was also  represented in one of the stained glass windows in our parish church was my favorite.

That bucolic comforting image we hold for a shepherd does not realistically conform to the actual portrayal of shepherds in the time of Jesus. When Jesus lived and John wrote his Gospel, shepherds were among the most disreputable and mistrusted outcasts of society. They were drifters  hired by the owners of the sheep with no fixed address and because of their occupation, were perpetually unclean which by definition, were in violation of Jewish cleanliness code. These outcasts are the very people John’s gospel is talking about.

Needless to say John shocks his audience by comparing Jesus to a shepherd and then later calling this very shepherd “good.” He challenges his listeners to look past their assumptions of where God is located and who God belongs to and who can belong to God. We and the people of John’s time are asked to see God in those who are outsiders, who exist on the fringe of the community, who are despised and even a little feared. The readers of John’s story are told to look for God among the despised.

When Jesus proclaims that “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” he characterizes his role as a loving protector. We are told that there was no actual gate in  a sheep-fold and that the shepherd would stand, sit or lie down at the pasture's entrance. In this way the shepherd could serve as protector for his flock. He knew his sheep and they knew him. Jesus role as protector purposely contrasted Him with disreputable religious rulers of his time who exploited their congregations.

Jesus clearly spells out his role as his Father’s steward when he says I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.