JOHN 1: 6-8 (15-18) 19-28

Jottings on John… Adv.3…Revised 2017 

Many see these verses, or some of them, as insertions into, interruptions of, a distraction from the flow of John the Evangelist’s(?) magnificent Hymn to the Word. A reminder to those of us who preach to put neither ourselves, nor JB, so centre-stage as to distract from the One who is coming. The Baptiser is to be respected, revered, even, but not, under any circumstances allowed to become a rival to Jesus (as many of JB’s followers continued to see him for some time). It goes without saying we shouldn’t be, either. 

(If we regard these verses as ’interruptions’ it may be an interesting exercise to extract them & place them, instead, at the end of v.18, after the Hymn.)

Like JB in his day, now it’s our turn to point to Jesus as the Word made flesh & live a Christ-like life in response. A testimony as faithful today as JB’s was in his way in his day. Later, JB clearly has doubts. Many of us & our people have too, about this, that, or the other aspect of belief. There’s nothing wrong with honest doubt; only with not working through them. This in itself could be a useful approach to our preaching. Do we need to ‘straighten out’ our theology, & help people straighten out theirs, so we can all live lives like those JB encourages us to straighten for the Coming One? The One who is Coming, yet always Come! 

Today, we’re the ones facing questions like those JB was asked; ‘Who are you?’ &, ’What do you say about yourself?’ Do we know as well as JB does - at this stage, at least - who we are? Have we grown into our Baptism to become the person God has always known we could become? To play the role God has for us in His plans?

It’s easy in today’s world to feel we’re voices crying in today’s wildernesses of the heart. Living as Christ’s Body today means building on what’s gone before, as JB & JS Himself do, by being faithful to our past without getting bogged down in it. God, I AM, is always our present, too; never someone else’s past. God’s Spirit of Wisdom will help us see the difference, make a difference, be a difference.

We’re long past being able to assume even a basic knowledge of God, Scriptures, all that goes with & adds up to faith. Even many of us who think of ourselves as ‘faithful Christians’ can be more religiously ignorant than can reasonably be excused. In all honesty, though, how many people bother us with serious questions about Faith? Not to mention the growing numbers who dismiss us & what & Whom we stand for, out of hand in favour of home-made remedies for today’s ills. How can we preach, what do we need to preach, to encourage our congregation to get beyond that same trap? 

As well as other gifts of the Spirit we praise JB for, think of his humility, like Jesus’ own. A gift neither widely sought nor practised in our narcissistic & ego-centric world. How do we best turn all this into positive preaching, rather than negative carping? How can we help others discover humility not as a down-side, but an up-side, in life?

JN 7:37-43

Jottings on John…Pentecost…2017 

Does v. 39 seem a bit odd? We know from many passages of Scripture how Holy Spirit in one way or another has been active - under various ‘guises’ - from the very beginning. Does whoever adds v. 39 do so because they’re puzzling over how to protect John’s doctrine that it’s God’s Word who tells creation into being? Go too far, though, in any direction, here, & we may end up ‘confounding the Persons & dividing the Substance’ of the Trinity as Athanasius warns us against doing!

Two Jewish scholars¹ have just published a book on how the ancient Hebrews come over time to believe in YHWH rather than a collection of gods like other nations round about them. Much of their work is over my head, but I’m excited when they begin by saying things like the Bible being a network of contributions in which we can hear conversations between stories & poetry & prophecies & laws & biographies & so on & so forth. So far as Christians are concerned, JS then comes on the scene in His turn & adds His words that as often as not build on those that came before & that He inherits as His Jewish Faith. What Shinan & Zakovitch are saying is surely a participation in this very same continuing ‘conversation’. When we were mulling over this, my wife suggested it’s a bit like electricity. There’s always been electricity, but humans weren’t able to catch it, store it, harness it, & energise with it till it was ‘discovered’.

Try this for starters: Holy Spirit has always existed as One of the Persons of God, but isn’t publicly identified & revealed & made widely available till Pentecost. When we celebrate the giving of the Spirit to the Apostles & the early Church, & now to us, we’re keeping all the above connectivity alive & energising. By continuing that on-going conversation, building on that network of connections as living participants. 

Are we conscious of Holy Spirit choosing us, & calling us, as preachers & people to keep this ongoing conversation between the written word & ourselves alive & well? Are we all alive to God, to ourselves, to each other, in continuing the connections through which contributors & contributions go on talking to each other, still? Are we letting God’s Spirit join up all the dots?

¹ Shinan & Zakovitch, From Gods to God, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 2012 p.1

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!

John 10:1-10

Jottings on John…Easter 4…2017

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. Our passage & its continuation pose a double edged riddle: ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s a Shepherd!’ Why does Jesus refer to Himself as both Gate, &, Shepherd? Both metaphors appear to be about being let in to the resurrected life of Christ’s flock, & being lovingly cared for in the course of our new raised life in that flock. They are also a warning that we’re excluding ourselves from both if we persist in a) remaining on the wrong side of a locked door, & b) shunning the caring arms of the Good Shepherd?

 Whatever the answer, it has to be applicable now. Not in some future. That present tense that’s the Essence of God, the Eternal “I AM”, is compelling. God is always the God of Now. We’re to live as God’s people Now, or there’s no tomorrow. Live on the inside, with the Good Shepherd as door/keeper, & safely in His arms, now!

Human sheep stray. More than little Bo Peep’s. When that rather infamous shepherd eventually goes looking for her lost sheep, ‘She spied their tails side by side, all hung on a tree to dry’. Then comes, ‘She tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, to tack each tail back on its lambkin!’ But it didn’t work! Dare I add another verse? ‘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!’

If we have a shepherd who’s also our door why not avail ourselves of the protection He offers? If we have a door who’s also our shepherd - a Good one at that! - why not avail ourselves of the nurture He provides? If, instead, we choose to stray, we have a lot more than our tails to lose! Choose, though, to stay, & we have a lot more than our tails to wag! 

   

¹ In ‘Laugh or cry or yawn’, Cheshire, undated. 

JN 20: 19-31

Jottings on John…Easter 2…Revised 2017…

This was almost certainly the original ending of John’s Gospel. Then, some Christian Community, decides the story should go on a bit further into what we know as Ch.21! Which isn’t a bad theme for preaching this passage. Telling the story on a bit further keeps it up to date; keeps it in circulation; keeps it as alive as we are; as Jesus is!  

The locked door & the fear itself our passage starts with both stand for living on the wrong side of the resurrection. Despite our being told [v.18] that Mary M tells her male counter-parts she’s seen Him! It can be hard & hurtful, too, to convince others of personal religious experiences - even genuine ones! But let’s not give up & settle for, ‘Why bother?’! 

When Our Lord comes among them, He gifts those present with Peace, a Mission, & en-Spirits them to kick-start both Peace & Mission. Both need to be personal, not theories. That Thomas misses out & won’t believe what the others tell him must leave them as frustrated as Mary M must be at being un-believed! Maybe we’ve experienced that too when we’ve tried, with some sense of Mission, to reach out to someone in & with God’s Peace? But good can still come from such an unpromising (& unbelieving) start. Mind you, that door is still locked when Our Lord appears to them again a week later! The Peace the disciples have been gifted with on the first Easter night hasn’t kicked in yet; not enough to embolden them. Neither has any sense of Mission given them some sense of purpose yet, or so it seems. 

Tom, though, is with them this time. We’re not told he takes up Jesus’ challenge to put his finger into the nail holes on His hand; nor of putting his hand into the hole made by the spear. But the bit “Don’t be faithless, but faithful” makes its mark! Tom believes! On the spot! Jesus doesn’t knock Tom for being a doubter, coming to faith a different way; but He does hold up those who ‘believe without seeing’ as ‘blessed’.

What we're dealing with in this upper room is faith, another dimension from proof. To close our minds, or try to shut down someone else’s, is another form of lurking behind locked doors. Confusing Faith with proof can still be a gaoler in the locked rooms of hearts & minds. Jesus doesn’t expect us to dig our own tomb looking for proof that He’s been raised from His! 

Our own extensions of this story of Jesus as God’s Anointed One raised from death will be lived out, rather than written in yet another book. Being en-Spirited to Live God-in-Jesus out, in Peace & with a sense of Mission, is what truly gives us all ‘life in His Name’!