John 17: 1-11

Jottings on John…Easter 7… Revised 2020 

My class of theologs is shocked to hear a usually deadly dull lecturer say “Your prayers don’t go past this ceiling!”. When we realise what he means, we think, well, all is not quite lost after all! 

The second relates to a young woman whose marriage is suddenly broken off by her fiance. She speaks with me after the bombshell is dropped. Clearly in a state of shock, she says to me, “Fr. Brian, I’ve been praying to myself often about this, but I’m not getting an answer!” Do we see a problem here?

Apart from His teaching us to pray the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ here we have Jesus’ most important teaching on prayer. What seems important is that we take on board the example Jesus Himself  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 Him. 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.

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 conversation with God that Jesus 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 grasp we’re 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! 

Brian

Afterthought: Does our ceiling shut out, or open up to reveal new possibilities? Are we using ours to include or exclude? To exclude what is clearly evil is hard to quibble with, but what about when we are unclear? Who gets the benefit of the doubt? In the Scriptures we often see Jesus giving the benefit of the doubt to a lot of people we might understand as a bit ‘iffy’ & keep on the outside rather than letting them in. If God in Christ & by Holy Spirit is prepared to accept a person as ‘iffy’ as I am, who am I to argue for keeping them out of the Kingdom of the ‘iffy’?  

JOHN 14: 15-21

Jottings on John…Easter 6…Revised 2020

At a Confirmation I hear the bishop encouraging the candidates, all teen-agers, to be not just ‘good joiners’, but ‘good stickers’, too! That still sticks 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’. It’s a great gift, though! Right up there with all those others Paul lists! God expects us to have stick-ability! 

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’, ‘called to the side of’, &, keeping us ‘sticking’ is my preferred understanding of Holy Spirit since I hear that bishop put it that way that day.

Our Paraclete enables us to walk the Jesus Way, be as True as Jesus is, & Live out that Way & that Truth Jesus is as He 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 God real for us & those among whom we live & serve. As       + Rowan Williams puts it: ‘…all that God does is done by the whole Trinity equally’¹ 

Today, Christianity, & God with it, is well & truly on the skids. Breaches of trust like abuse, inability, or disinterest in sharing the Gospel meaningfully at ‘ground level’, are turning our Churches from living, organisms of the Body of Christ into organisat-ions!

To let anybody, or anything distract us from our calling to Walk the Jesus Way, Live the Jesus Life, & be the Jesus Truth calls our personal stickability into question.

Recognising the Paraclete walking beside us, empowers us to walk beside others & stick with them as their ‘small p’  paraclete' by their side.

Brian

Afterthought : Among those who appreciate Celtic input, ‘anamchara’ may resonate-  a soul-friend who walks by our side & sticks with us through thick & thin come what may.  

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

JOHN 14: 1-14

Jottings on John…Easter 5…Revised 2020

Years ago my wife & I land at Dublin airport, pick up a car, & head towards the B & B we’ve booked to stay in. We have 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’? No way! 

Three times we re-drive that stretch with no success. We spot an elderly gent beside the road, so we pull over, & 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 old gent simply says, “I’ll come with you & show you the way!” 

So he hops into the car with us, & off we go; 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 & it is there. 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.

What still strikes us though, is that our new Irish friend has the very essence of Gospel in his heart: “I’ll come with you & show you the way” is at the heart of today’s passage from JN. Can we perhaps recall other personal examples of being shown the way, have someone walk the Way with us, rather than just give us directions? Such personal stories resurrect Jesus’ offering Himself as the Way.

(If  you’re observing Mothers’ Day, you may think of our mothers (& fathers) as those who, hopefully, don’t just give us directions but walk the Way with us.)

Jesus does more than come with us & show us the way; Jesus Himself is the Way. He doesn’t beckon us from around corners, nor hide 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 is Himself a package deal like no other!i

Brian

Afterthought: It was almost as hard to drop the car off at the airport as it was to pick it up! No one seemed too bothered to take it off our hands before we had to board our outbound flight. Do we shake our heads in puzzlement, or give thanks that there are more important things in life than taking possession of things - or people!

John 10:1-10

Jottings on John…Easter 4…Revised 2020

When I was a child, our local paper ran a weekly page for kids. One feature was a riddle column. One riddle it took me a long time to work out was, ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s ajar!’ Victor Golyavkin¹ poses a different kind of door riddle; a poem by him called, ‘The Door’ runs, ‘This door had no hinges. And it had no handle. And it had no keyhole. And it wasn’t entirely a door…..’ That door was in fact serving as a bier for his dead father! 

The Easter stories make much of a locked tomb & locked doors. Perhaps we could see our passage as a riddle: ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s a Good Shepherd!’ Jesus, the Raised Christ, refers to Himself as both Gate & Shepherd. He can only be both because He is resurrected! He is the Gate through whom we enter into the resurrected life of Christ’s flock, & be lovingly cared for in the course of our new raised life in that flock. Are His words also a warning to us that we will exclude ourselves from both if we persist in remaining on the wrong side of a locked door, & shunning the arms of the Good Shepherd? It is Christ’s being raised from the dead that raises us from the dead, too! It’s now & forever. Now or never!

 Whatever the answer, it has to be applicable now. Not in some future. The Essence of God, the Eternal “I AM”, is that God is always the God of Now. We’re to live as God’s people Now, or there’s no tomorrow! So, live in the Raised Christ / Good Shepherd now!

Human sheep stray. Like little Bo Peep’s. When that infamous shepherdess eventually goes looking for her lost sheep, ‘She spied their tails side by side, all hung on a tree to dry’. ‘She tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, to tack each tail back on its lambkin!’ Dare I add a verse that’s not LBP’s? ‘She tried super-glue, & blue-tack too, some wall-paper paste & then Clag, She tried tying & drilling but results were not thrilling, So her sheep still have nothing to wag!’

Christ’s Resurrection makes our own possible! In Him we have a Shepherd raised from death who’s also our door so let’s avail ourselves of the scope He offers! If we have a Door who’s also our shepherd, & the Good Shepherd at that, let’s take full advantage of the nurture He provides. Stray, & we have a lot more than our tails to lose! Stay, & we have a lot more than our tails to wag! 

Brian

Afterthought: Resurrection, Christ’s & through His, Ours, ties all the ends together. Without it religion can quickly become a series of loose ends leading off in all directions! To all sorts of destinations, many of them not helpful at all! Some of them dangerous, & in the end, extremely so!