Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Gospel text for Sunday 5 may 2013


John 14. 23-31     Jesus said to Judas (not Iscariot), "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. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, `I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe."
Reflection     “...the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” Don’t you just love that promise? God’s Spirit will teach us everything.  Doesn’t it just make your heart sing? It sure does mine. It puts everything in a new and transformed perspective. It is almost like putting on corrective glasses for the first time and discovering those large brown sticks with green blobs on top are actually finely textured trees with millions of individual leaves.  I believe there is no better description of this new perspective than the one given by St. John in his Revelation.
John wrote, “In the spirit the angel carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. (Rev 21.10, 22) John’s new glasses, his new perspective is the spiritual perspective, which is to say, Wisdom, experienced and known from within.  
Spirit revealed Wisdom to John from the inside out. Wisdom is this. Our understanding of God has come down from heaven. God is not remote and inaccessible. Neither is God confined to the geography of the temple of the holy city Jerusalem. We are the city, the dwelling place of God. “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Rev 21.23) Wisdom is not gleaned by shining our flashlights around us in the dark. Yes, we can weigh and measure, describe and construct all manner of things tangible and conceptual, but that is not Wisdom. Wisdom comes from the inside out. Wisdom is a new state of being. Along with St. John we experience Wisdom as the glory of God inflaming our hearts and illumining our minds, annointing our words and compelling our will. We experience Wisdom from the inside out. This is how the Spirit teaches us. It transforms our state of being. Still, we have a part to play in this.
“...the Advocate, the Holy Spirit... will teach (us) everything...” when we assert an unequivocal “no” to fear. But how, how in the midst of this unstable, iniquitous, brutal and fragil world are we not to be afraid? Remember Jesus’ words? In his final discourse with his disciples Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”(In other words, I do not give you things you cannot depend on such as facts that may be disproven or situations that constantly change and erupt.) “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. “ Jesus leaves his peace with us, peace intended to replace our fear of the dark and murky places, our fear of what we do not know and cannot control.  When we say  “yes” to Jesus’ peace Wisdom swells from the inside out and transforms the state of our being illumining our minds and compelling our will.