Jesus
answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love
them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
(John 14:23)
Sunday is Pentecost.
In the Lesson you may hear, John quotes part of Jesus’s farewell talk
with his disciples. They believe they
are saying goodbye – goodbye is a kairos
in any life… it may be difficult, if not shattering.
Jesus says three things. Firstly,
Those who love me will keep my word.
We who associate with Jesus are different by the fact that, however we
stumble, we still choose his way. It does
matter at present to say that, because the word “Christianity” is being royally
hijacked by some who think Jesus taught moral and religious requirements by
which some are accepted and others are excluded… Jesus did not. He was never a pharisee… and neither for that
matter are we 1st century Middle-Eastern Jews. We inhabit a world Jesus could never have
imagined. So we in our day necessarily approach
his truth, his word, with love and respect, but also with open minds, open to the
spirit of it its newness. We find out
how to keep his word where we are, in our circumstances, honestly but freely, authentically
to its spirit rather than slavishly or literally. And that
is the way we live. If we find we have
diverged, then we come back to it. That
is the rhythm after all of meditation. It is what our scriptures mean by
repentance, simply returning, coming home.
Those who love me will keep my word…
Then he says, My
Father will love them. God is never
our enemy or adversary. Neither is God
some tribal deity who takes our side against other people. Our way, inspired by Jesus, is an accepting,
inclusive culture with all the risks that entails. This is what is so desperately wrong with the
rising tide of nationalism around the so-called Christian west, building the
walls higher, excluding the needy, making our own enclosure of people like
us… God’s loving sovereignty includes
all.
Thirdly he says: …and we will come to them and make our home with them. Remember menein,
abide…? Here it is, turned into a noun
-- make our home – “our home” is a
form of the verb to abide. The risen
Jesus comes and abides with those who love him.
But, he says, “we” will come…
It is plural, it is ineffably an abiding of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you have problems with the concept of
Trinity, then think of it as the totality, the plenitude, the fullness of God,
abiding with those who love him. A
little further on[1]
there is this tantalising comment from Jesus:
I still have many things to say to
you, but you cannot bear them now…
Why can’t they? Is it perhaps
that they can’t be expected to cast out all their idols all at once… that it is
a process lasting a lifetime…? He goes
on: When
the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you… And so it is.
In the silence and stillness of meditation we are open to his promise of
abiding.
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