You Are My Friends

 

How beautiful is it to know that we are all connected to each other through the love of God. As Jesus prepares to leave his earthly realm, he speaks of our being connected with him and each other through his telling of the story of the vine. His juxtaposing himself with us and with the father creates an image of a vine that, by nature, becomes intertwined into itself as it goes on and on. If properly nurtured and cared for, tender growth becomes hardened branches and produces fruit. Throughout this chapter (John 15:9-17) Jesus wants us to know that God is not at the periphery of our being, but at the center of our lives. We are ONE with God and Jesus as he asks us to abide in him, remain with him, and be at home with him.

Jesus reinforces this connectedness by removing any sense of status or hierarchy between himself and his followers: “You are my friends…I know longer call you ‘slaves,’ because a slave does not know what his master is doing, I have called you friends because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. As friends we are equal to each other and have a solemn obligation to love…look out for and care for each other.”
Jesus implores us to look out for each other's good, even to the point of giving our life. The desire is that our friendship bears fruit, a fruit that is permanent and sustainable.

We relive the experience of the vine and our connectedness in the celebration of the Eucharist with the solemn words at the end of the consecration: Through him, with him, and in him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, for ever and ever. 

Through him, because only through Christ does humanity have access to the Father;

With him, because prayer is in union with Christ and and by honoring the Son we honor the Father and Son;

In him, because in praying with the Mystical Body,  the Father is in the Son and the Son is the reflection of the Father, who makes his majesty visible in all things. The dual meanings of through, with, and in clearly express the God and man’s interconnectedness.

The following "linked" prayer is the prayer to Christ by St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942): Prayer Before the Face of God 

Abide in Me and I in You

The imagery of the vine and branches, (John 15:1-8),  depict a beautiful intimate relationship between the Father, Jesus, and us as an intimate dwelling place.

The "you" in the passage is always plural, because the connectedness associated in "lovingly abiding," enjoins us all with the Father and Son in one dynamic relationship that challenges a long-standing interpretation that would prefer to keep God at arms length.

Far from being a “thou shalt not God" of rules or a cosmic judge who exercises power as the preserver of conventional morality, an oxymoronic phrase, John reveals a different role for the Father than the way we may have been originally taught to believe. Instead, He offers us the promise of new life in the present as Jesus' words become flesh in us, and continue to dwell  within and among us. “And his commandment is this: believe in the name of Jesus and love one another as He commanded us.” (John 3:18-21)

In the imagery of the vine, God’s presence is underscored as abiding, nourishing, lasting, and permanent. Just as Jesus is intimately related to the Father, we, the branches, can do nothing unless we abide in relationship with Jesus, the means to the Father. When we relate to Jesus in all that we do, we are connected to the Father. As such, Jesus’ two-fold promise, I AM the vine, you are the branches…is not said as a command or in judgment, but rather as an invitation and a promise. This promise is emphasized as he repeatedly reminds us that without him in our lives, we are powerless and can do nothing.

The promise abiding in…living-in…Jesus is not for its own sake, or an end in itself. Jesus is revealing a dynamic and changing life for us. Vines are pruned and cleansed. Branches that wither and die are removed. We, as the branches in the vine, are a constantly changing community that is called to follow his word by actively living his word. And in keeping with the stewardship of good shepherds, we as branches grow and become vines are nourished and nourish…By this is my Father glorified that you will bear much fruit…

 All those who take refuge in Me, whatever their birth, race, gender, or caste, even those whom society scorns will attain the supreme destination…fill your mind with me; love me; serve me, and worship me always. Seeking me in your heart, you will at last be united with me.

 Chapter 9, Verse 32 – Bhagavad Gita, The Song of God – 

My Sheep Hear My Voice and Follow Me

I grew up in Brooklyn, NY in the 40's and ‘50s. We lived in a two–family house in the Bay Ridge area, It was a carefree time of life, a time in which doors merely marked certain boundaries. For the most part, we were not so afraid of others inappropriately crossing them. In the early years it was not always necessary to lock our doors, and when we finally did, my father kept a key in the Borden's milk box on the porch or left one with our upstairs neighbor. Even as children, we could safely come and go within the confines of our defined limitations. Playing in someone else's backyard or "alleyway" was common as there were no fences between houses on my block, just fences separating the houses on the street  around the corner, which didn't matter anyway since we were not permitted to leave our street without permission and letting our parents know. (I'm reminded of the current international crisis in Israel, Palestine, Iran and of course Ukraine...still looming but off the front page for a while. It's too bad the freedom we enjoyed in our neighborhood as children could not apply. I guess it all changed, even in our old neighborhood when people wanted what the other guy had, even if they weren't entitled because they had yet to earn it.)

Perhaps the only time in those formative years that I was aware of heightened concern for safety was during the polio epidemic. While as children, our need to process the true impact of this "plague" was limited and I suppose that was a good thing; the published photos of children in iron lungs were to this day, indelibly printed in my memory. It’s hard to contrast that time with today’s Covid19. For the most part our only news media were the radio and newspapers. In the early days of television, news broadcasts were relatively short and not very comprehensive. All in all, as long as we stayed in our “sheepfold” we, as children, went about our days without concern.

While gates and doors serve as boundaries to permit entry and exit and security, they also demarcate a safe place, home. In our Gospel (John 10: 11-18) Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is portrayed as a “gate” and a caretaker. Our frame of reference for a shepherd does not likely fit with the image of the shepherd in Jesus' time . Is there any more powerful artistic depiction of compassion in our Christian heritage than the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd ? For me it's the famous painting of Jesus with the lamb draped around his neck and over his shoulder that hung on the wall  of my grade school classroom, and depicted in our church’s stained glass window. Yet, when Jesus lived and John wrote his Gospel, shepherds were among the most disreputable and mistrusted outcasts of society. Shepherds were drifters with no fixed address and because of their occupation, they were perpetually unclean and, by definition, in violation of Jewish law. These outcasts are the very people John’s gospel is talking about. So comparing Jesus to a shepherd and then later calling this very shepherd “good” seems at the very least, a paradox.

When Jesus proclaims that “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” he characterizes his role as a loving protector. There were no actual gate in sheepfolds; rather, the shepherd would stand, sit or lie down at the entrance to the pasture. In this way the shepherd could serve as protector of his sheep. He knew his sheep and they knew him. John purposely contrasted Jesus, the Good Shepherd, with disreputable religious rulers of his time who exploited their congregations.

Jesus clearly spells out his role as the 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.

Word to Word

 

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate that “spiritual development” has less and less to do with religion. And while the Church, the Bible and the liturgy are important to our development, spiritual formation is more about learning to discern the call of God “outside,” in our everyday lives. Spiritual Formation is an ongoing dynamic process in which we develop the tools to be able to see and align ourselves with people, places and things where God is at work. I know this might sound like heresy but in some ways religion or “being locked in the upper room” and not being involved in the world, can become a static process that lulls us to sleep in its repetitive sameness. As such, it can become an obstacle to our call to “bear witness” to God’s Word to those outside the safety of our “upper rooms.”

In a real sense we are preaching to the choir! We in the comfort and security of our Church community, are like the apostles in the upper room after the Crucifixion. When Jesus appeared to the apostles and Thomas, he said “... As the Father has sent me, so I send you." He beckons us as he did his disciples, to leave the upper room and live our lives outside the walls of our Church as we engage in Christian practices that are fundamental to human needs, and may have nothing to do with religion but everything to do with faith. As such, we join with one another, and with Jesus, and with the Communion of Saints across time and space in a way of life that proclaims Christ’s victory over death and our eternal life. (Luke 24:25-38)

Now in bearing witness to the Word, I'm not talking about "life-style evangelism." That term for many of us, may evoke discomfort and have a strange connotation. We bear witness that is, tell someone about, the movies or television programs we've seen and want others to enjoy. We share the accomplishments (or failures) of our sports teams. We share important events in our family or work lives. We share photos of loved ones and acknowledge milestones. We bear witness to the things that matter to us all the time. But do we bear witness to the presence of God, the Love, in all things in the here and now of our lives?

Witnessing is not really all that different when it comes to faith. It does not mean forcing our beliefs on someone or shunning those who do not believe as we do. The ego tries to convince, while love shares. To witness is simply to communicate with others as we know God’s presence…as the Word becomes flesh in us and those we encounter… by Him and with Him and in Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

My Lord and My God

 

In many ways we are just like Thomas; aren’t we? We really don’t want to come by our faith second hand (John20:19-31). Our parents taught us that something worth having was something worth working for? So, we ask; is there really such a thing as “blind faith?” Blind faith does not encourage us to probe; it denies us the opportunity to question, to know what we believe intuitively, in our “core.” Blind faith requires minimal spiritual investment and permits those inclined to cruise through their spiritual journey without the opportunity to really live life’s joy and danger. True faith requires knowing what we believe…beyond any doubt. So, Thomas in refusing to say that he understood what he did not understand, or believe what he did not believe, exhibited an honesty that prompted his need to know. 

Thomas wasn’t the faithless doubter. The so-called faithful disciples remained locked up in the upper room hiding in fear. Fear not doubt gets in the way of our letting the Holy Spirit take charge. Where did Thomas go while others were in hiding? What prompted him to return to his community? Was Thomas “working” at trying to know what he was asked to believe? Thomas wanted the experience of a deeper vision or sight. He was unwilling to blindly accept; it had to be real for him.

True faith is based on trust in God. True faith knows we can deepen our faith by asking critical questions of our traditions and our “inherited” belief propositions. We do this by leaving our comfort zones and living in new ways. Thomas’ encounter with the risen Lord challenges us to know what we believe so for us as, with Thomas, we too can personally acclaim “My Lord and my God.”