John 17: 1-11

Jottings on John…Easter 7 (S after the Ascension)… May 28th 2017 

I align myself with those who see the Ascension as the completion of Easter season rather than a separate event or season. Best keep the Easter theme rather than be ‘side-tracked’ up into the sky. (I don’t mean to be unkind to those of you who see this differently!)

JN doesn’t deal with an Ascension. (Only LK/Acts & the so-called ‘longer ending’ of MK do.) What seems important is that we take on board, reproduce, the example Jesus praying shows us here. John features ‘glory’ Big Time. Not least in seeing Jesus’ death on the cross as His being glorified & God being glorified in that event. Now, 6 times in these few verses, Jesus uses forms of the word ‘glory’. Here we are privileged to watch & hear Jesus the Christ praying. In the closest communion with God a human being has ever been, can ever be. Letting us in on the inside to watch & hear Himself praying in a unique level of communion; of at-one-ness. With God, the Source of His being & ours.

Two experiences involving praying come to mind. First, is a lecturer almost causing a riot in a group of theologs by saying, “Your prayers don’t ever go past this ceiling!”. When we eventually realised what he meant, the atmosphere quickly turned from highly-charged to highly amused! Do we see the problem? 

The second relates to a young woman whose marriage was suddenly & without notice broken off by her fiance. She’d come & spoken with me after the bombshell was dropped. I doubt I was any real help in her state! Shortly after, meeting me in the street, & still clearly in a state of shock, she says to me, “Fr. Brian, I’ve been praying to myself again & again about this, & I’m still not getting any answers”. Again, I doubt I was much help! But we do see a problem, don’t we?

Jesus is holding out to us the possibility of becoming so close to God - having, dare I say, an ‘insider’s view’ of God’ - we can hold the kind of close conversation with God that He does. Have the same quality of relationship with God’. Are we, any of us, thinking, if not saying, ‘In your dreams!’? If so, can we know we’re at least on the Way to becoming so close to God we can experience such a relationship & not simply dream of it? No ceiling cutting off our prayers; no talking with oneself! 

John 14: 15-21

Jottings on John…Easter 6…2017 

At a Confirmation I heard the bishop encouraging the candidates, all teen-agers, to be not just ‘joiners’, but ‘stickers’, too! That has stuck with me! Reminding me that the Paraclete, the Spirit Jesus calls to our side, not only joins us on our journey, but sticks with us. ‘Stickability’ doesn’t get onto the normal lists of ‘gifts of the Spirit’. Which is a great pity! For ‘Stickability’ is a great gift! Right up there with those others Paul lists! God expects us to have stickability because God Himself is a Sticker. In the Person of Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, God is always at our side, come what may. ‘Paraclete’ has remained my preferred understanding of Holy Spirit since I heard that bishop put it that way that day. Besides, it doesn’t carry the baggage that seems to come with some other ways of thinking of Holy Spirit.

It’s easy to segue from Jesus spelling out how He is the Way, the Truth, & the Life, to Holy Spirit’s fulfilling that same role among us now. Our Paraclete enables us to walk the Jesus Way, become as True as Jesus is, & Live out that Way & that Truth as He / She sticks by our side in the ups & down & ins & outs of our humanity. Through thick & thin, there by our side is God in the Person of our Paraclete. Making all the positives of God real for us & those among whom we live & serve. Remember, too, how, as + Rowan Williams puts it: ‘…all that God does is done by the whole Trinity equally…’¹ 

We’re living through times when the image of Christianity & our churches is well & truly damaged; on the skids. Breaches of trust like abuse, inability or disinterest in communicating the Gospel meaningfully at ‘ground level’. And, allowing our Churches to become, in so many cases, organisations, instead of living, breathing, serving organisms of the Body of Christ! Are we allowing things like these to distract us from our calling to Walk the Jesus Way, Live the Jesus Life, & be the Jesus Truth? Calling our stickability into question?

Recognising the Paraclete beside us empowers us to walk beside others & stick with them as their ‘small p paraclete' by their side. One more segue from the Jesus that John portrays for us today. 

¹ The Dwelling of the Light, John Garratt, Mulgrave, 2003, p.49

JN 14: 1-14 

Jottings on John…Easter 5…2017 

Some years ago my wife & I land at Dublin airport, pick up a car, & head towards the B & B we’re booked to stay in. We have what appear to be clear directions; down the highway, turn off at such & such a road, then turn left at the pub on the next corner. Do you think we can find that, ‘pub on the next corner’? Not we! Three times we re-drive that stretch with no success. (Is there a Celtic understanding of ‘Trinity’ emerging in real life?) But, God is good! Help is at hand! We spot an elderly gent beside the road, so we pull over, tell him our problem, & ask if he can direct us. He says, “Sure & the pub’s just up there a wee bit, on the corner.” We say, “It may be up there on the corner, but we can’t find it! Our gent simply says, “I’ll come with you & show you the way!” So he hops into the car with us, & off we drive; rather more than ‘a wee bit’! Our passenger suddenly says, “ Turn here”. So we turn where he says, & with a triumphant pointing of his finger, “There it is! Didn’t I tell you, now?” Would you believe we still can’t see this pub on the corner! But sure and it is there. Just completely hidden by a hedge of trees so thick no-one who didn’t know it was there could possibly find it!

We thank our guide profusely. He says, “Goodbye to ye. I don’t suppose we’ll ever meet again in this world, but we’ll meet again one day in Heaven!” and off he goes. To this day we’ve never been sure whether we were shown the way, &, better still, taken there, by an elderly gent or a leprechaun in the service of our guardian angel (whom we’ve come to believe over many years is St. Raphael - but that’s another story!) What still strikes us is that our Irish friend has the very essence of Gospel in his heart. Not the ‘we’ll meet in Heaven’ bit; anyone can say that. It’s the, “I’ll come with you & show you the way” bit that matters; and is at the heart of today’s passage. Can we perhaps recall other personal examples of being shown the way, have someone walk the Way with us, rather than just given directions? Such personal stories resurrect Jesus’ offering Himself as the Way.

Seeing it’s Mothers’ Day, a lot of us will think of our mothers (& fathers!) as those who didn’t just give us directions but walked the Way with us. Let’s be honest; more & more parents are finding that increasingly difficult & frustrating for all parties in today’s rapidly changing world. Rapidly changing in a lot of wrong & complicated directions. Despite that, & because of that, it’s never been more important that all of us, mothers, fathers, & those of us who are neither, walk the JS Way with our JS family, our natural or adoptive family & our wider-world family.

In our passage, Jesus does even better than our Irish friend, be he leprechaun, or archangel’s apprentice! For not only does Jesus come with us & show us the way; Jesus Himself is the Way. A Way that doesn’t beckon us from round corners, nor from hiding behind hedges; not anything like that. Jesus’ Way is an inner Way that leads us to become like Him. John often points to Jesus’ Signs. Jesus Himself is Sign that if His Way is inside us, then His Truth is inside us, too; & His Life! A package deal if ever there was a package deal! He is not only with us in Spirit as we journey; He IS the journey. The further we walk His Way, not just with Him, but in Him, the more we discover His Truth, & live out His Life. That’s a very personal resurrection right here & now!