READINGS

John 14:15-21

HOMILY

Today’s Gospel is a direct continuation from last Sunday’s.

We start to get into mysterious territory.

Jesus seems to talk about an advocate who is the Spirit of Truth.

And this is slightly muddled for us by the fact that he refers to another advocate, as though he’d referred to a previous advocate, which as far as I can see, in the Greek version of St John’s Gospel he hasn’t.

In fact, there is a more logical explanation for that, where it says:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate.

That’s probably a Greek mistranslation of a Hebrewism for:

And I will ask the Father and He will give you afterwards an advocate to be with you forever.

Apparently the Hebrew words for ‘another’ and ‘afterwards’ are slightly different.

It’s a very very easy for a scribe mistake to make.

In any case, here’s Jesus before he goes his death, explaining to his disciples what’s going to happen.

He’s just told them, as he’s told them last time, that because he’s going to the Father – meaning: because he’s going up to his death, they will be able to do greater things than he.

So this is part of his unpacking of that: what is that enable them to do greater things than he.

And here again, we’re mislead I think by our moralistic tendency to imagine that Jesus’s use of the words ‘if’ means the moral consequence of “if you love me you will keep my Commandments”.

It’s much more straightforward than that: ‘if’ in the sense of the natural consequence of you loving me is keeping my Commandments.

‘And I will ask the Father, and he will give you afterwards an advocate, a defence counsellor to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth’.

Strangely, the defence counselor is the Spirit of truth.

Because Jesus has gone to his death, because he has occupied the place of death, of shame, of accusation, of lies – the one who is cast out falsely, what he’s going to be able to provide to his disciples, which were enabled to keep his Commandments, and enabled them to love him will be the Spirit of truth, which will appear as a defence counsellor.

In other words, its job will be to ward off the lies.

It will be establishing the truth, meaning that Jesus’s followers will start to be able to live as sons and daughters straightforwardly, becoming themselves in the midst of this very corrupt and violent world.

And let us step back a little to the reading from the Acts of the Apostles with which we started.

In it you get Philip going and preaching to a group of the Samaritans.

And, as a result of his preaching, lots of evil spirits leaving.

In other words, there was something about his words and his presence that already caused those parasites of a fallen world to flee.

But those present had not yet received the Holy Spirit.

When they received the Holy Spirit, they became themselves capable of becoming upstanding parts of the new creation.

It’s a different thing.

I think that that’s one of the things that both Luke and John want to bring out in different ways.

Jesus going to his death is one thing.

Us receiving the Holy Spirit, even if that Holy Spirit was breathed out by Jesus, is another thing.

It’s part of us taking part of being involved on the inside of something, which is exactly what Jesus is preparing his disciples for here.

This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.

And, dear Lord, we’ve seen enough of this recently with a series of political leaders – no names mentioned – who are manifestly incapable of the truth, for whom the truth is only an obstacle and a stumbling block.

And it seems to me that one of the really interesting things that is part of our rediscovery of social life together and Christian life as to what it is to be Church, is going to be the rediscovery of what it means to live truthfully.

The rediscovery of truth as a basic part of Christianity, seems to me, to be absolutely on the agenda now and part of what by being given in this time.

This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.

Yeah, dead right.

You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

He will dwell in you.

In other words, this spirit, this angelic presence is going to be inside us, turning us into Jesus.

That’s what’s being promised.

And this is going to happen in the same way that it transforms us into people who hold his commandments and are loved by him.

Being loved by him, receiving the spirit and becoming people who hold his commandments and therefore become witnesses to him – part of the same project.

I will not leave you orphaned.

Strange, isn’t it?

Because normally it’s parents who are involved whether someone is orphaned or not.

And Jesus has never talked to himself before as a father to us, but here saying: I won’t leave you orphaned, I’m coming to you.

But strangely, the way in which he is going to un-orphan us is not by becoming a father for us, but by turning us into sons of his Father.

This is one of the richest things that’s going on here.

In a little while the world will no longer see me – he’s about to be crucified – but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

In other words, he’s not saying:

You’re gonna be living afterwards and I’ll make some hot appearances;

He’s saying:

No, because I live – I, the Living One; I, the one who is just about to be seen seated at the right hand of the Most High; I who Am – because I live, you also will.

In other words, it’s because I’m going to be in you that you are going to be able to share my life and see that I live.

This is an entirely participatory understanding of God and of how we become God’s daughters and sons.

On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

In other words, this is not a series of moralistic things: if you do this and this and this… no – all this is being given to you.

They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.

The term emphanisō (ἐμφανίσω) – I will reveal myself in them or into them, I will in-reveal myself to them, rather suggesting that this spilling out of the Lord’s affection and love is not only going to be a series of apparitions, which happened after the resurrection, but much more of the way in which he’s going to show himself in us, so that we are able to become the manifestations, the hints of the spilling over of the love of God that makes us not orphans or servants, but friends, sons and daughters, heirs, insiders; those who are working through with the Spirit, the defence of truth that enables creation to open up in the midst of the vanity-stricken and futility-run world.