READINGS

John 14:23-29

HOMILY

One of the things about today's Gospel is that it's our last Sunday before the Ascension, so we're moving toward Jesus is saying goodbye. This is his farewell speech.

It's modelled to some extent on Moses's farewell speech.

There are apparently lots of resonances between this and Moses's farewell speech in Deuteronomy, but here Jesus's farewell speech teaches us some very important things for the future and takes us actually back to the days after Easter when Jesus first appeared to the disciples.

So we're always dwelling in the same reality which is revealing itself in our midst in different times.

It's like a sort of a spiral: we suddenly go back to the same place, and you'll see that in today's Gospel.

Our passage doesn't give us a key element that makes it comprehensible, I'm afraid, which is that, immediately before our passage, the verse before our passage has one of Jesus's disciples, Judas, but not Judas Iscariot, saying to him: Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?

And it's that question that Jesus is answering when he says: 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.

That's rather odd because the question is 'how that you will reveal yourself to us' and not 'to the world'.

And the Greek is to us, but Jesus's answer is not "I will reveal myself to you", but "I will reveal myself in you", effectively you will have become me, you'll know it and you will be living my life, it will be within you.

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.

This can be read in a moralistic way as if you're saying: if you love me then you will do this, and then my father will come, but I really don't think that's the meaning.

The Greek word for 'if' can also mean 'as', and I think that it's in this demonstrative sense that Jesus is saying: this is what's going to happen: in the process of loving me, you will find yourself keeping my word, that's what loving me looks like - keeping my word, and at the same time you'll find that my Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you.

In other words, Jesus will be revealing himself in us as we go through the process of hearing his word, allowing ourselves to be inhabited, indwelt by the relationship between him and the Father.

He's, of course, preparing us for the giving of the Holy Spirit.

And that I think is a very important point.

He's talking about a process of indwelling.

One of the things that has been going on in John's Gospel (as in all the others) is are being taken out of top-down God, being-outside God, and into sideways-and-within God.

And here this is explaining: yup, you will become a dwelling, the Father and I will dwell in you.

It's as your relationship is changed with others around you, you will be loving me, you will be becoming like me in terms of self-giving towards others, and your relationship with others has changed.

And that's the sign that my Father and I are dwelling within you.

Instead of there being a 'they' who is outside you, who is a wicked and frightening they, who's trying to control you, and an I who is a cowering individualist I who is frightened and constantly in a tug of war, on the contrary: the Father who is pure generosity and love will be turning your I, who is Jesus, into a receiver of grace and one capable of giving themselves away.

That's what this is going to look like, and this is a process.

And, in that, Jesus will be revealing himself in us.

He's answering Judas not-the-Iscariot's question in a really quite particular way, which is hugely important for any of us to understand.

This is the shape of what it's going to look like to know Jesus, to be known by Jesus, to find ourselves becoming Christ.

He then says: for the reverse, whoever does not love me, does not keep my words: they won't recognize me, they're not interested in me, they don't look for the sort of person who's giving themselves away as I am.

It's simply: I will not be visible to them, they will not be able to see me, because I will not be in them, they do not want me in them.

He says: but the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

In other words, the act of communication that we are becoming part of is something which is being produced in us by the Father.

We're all being held in something much bigger than ourselves as we learn this process, so we don't need to be frightened of the people who don't want to recognise him, don't pay any attention to him, because someone much much bigger than us, the creator is holding all this in being.

There is a strange and apparently invisible safety in our being held.

I've said these things to you while I'm 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.

Now, why is this important?

The advocate, the Holy Spirit, this is the word which means the defence counsellor, it could be the great angel, the one who goes before you, it's the one that is hinted at in the Hebrew scriptures as the one going before you, the angel going before you, the great angel; it appears in Deuteronomy as the prophet who will come after Moses who will go before you.

So this is that one.

But the language of advocate goes back to the Hebrew 'goel' which was the defender, the redeemer, the one who is in the old Hebrew world, if there was some sort of legal dispute or reeve, it would happen at the gates of the city, and whoever was as it were being tried without a case to plead would plead it in the presence of a defender and an accuser - not very different from ours; we have a defence counsel and we have a prosecuting counsel.

That's where these things come from.

But the defence counsel, those were called 'goel' or redeemer, and the prosecuting counsel was called a 'satan' or an accuser, from which we get satan.

That's why, in the Christian understanding, the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down, it's from the book of Revelation.

No longer the accuser has power, the defence - the Spirit is that of defence.

It loves us whatever we may have done, and is trying to bring us into being to enable us to enter the new creation.

So the Holy Spirit, the advocate whom the Father will send in my name, in my person, in fact - he's saying - that all the things that I have done, the whole dynamic of what I've been doing is going to be made available to you, the whole dynamic of my life, my intelligence, what I have been doing is going to be made available to you so that it will be able to become your dynamic, your intelligence.

You will be able to be me because of this in-between, this love in-between the Father and me that is going to come into your midst.

And it will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.

So this dynamic is actually going to open things up in a way that's even greater than what Jesus said.

And it's one of the things he's told them in his farewell discourse, that because I go to the Father, you will do greater things than I.

This is because Jesus has gone to the Father, has entered the place of death, having conquered if you like, conquered it from within, so as to remove its sting from running us and having demonstrated to us how the voice of the victim is the one that tells the truth, and that we are able to learn from that, and we needn't be frightened of enemies and depression;

So having taught us all that, that dynamic is going to be made alive and kept alive in our midst for always.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Now interesting: here is exactly what he says when he comes back on the morning of Easter.

And the next few verses really are like a run-through of his discussion with the disciples and then with Thomas on that Easter, because he talks about my peace I leave you, so my farewell to you is peace.

My peace I give.

I do not give you as the world gives: the world makes peace by throwing somebody out, but I'm the one who has already been thrown out and I did it, I entered it deliberately for you, so that you don't need to be worried about those things anymore.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.

You heard me say to you: I'm going away and I'm coming to you.

And I suspect that we normally hear that in a chronological sense first: he's going away, and then he's coming to us.

I think that with John it's even more stunning than that.

I think it's simultaneous: my going away is my coming.

I think that, in the resurrection appearance, the fact that he says "the peace with you" at the beginning and then shows himself, shows the scars on his hands and his side, and then says "Peace with you" again, it's indicating that this is both his going and his coming.

As it were God is known in his being expelled.

That's what it looks like in our world to be God, but it's known in a loving occupying of that space.

And then he says, as if answering Thomas: if you loved me, you would rejoice that I'm going to the Father because the Father is greater than I.

In other words, I'm saying goodbye to you, but I'm doing something on your behalf by going to the Father so that the Father can give you all this, and you will be me.

You don't need me to be me, you can be me, and you will have direct access to the Father.

I will have made it possible for you to be sons and daughters of God, in other words: while I'm with you there's still some room for rivalry, when I'm gone there's absolutely no way for a rivalry at all.

I can give you absolutely everything.

So don't be sorry that I've gone.

Rejoice, because everything of mine would in fact already be given you and more besides, because the Father is greater than I, the Father can give this to you by the hundreds and thousands and millions over time, which is what we are living in and celebrating.

"And now I've told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe."

Why am I doing all this? So as to open up the possibility that you can believe; believe that all that I have told you is true, that you don't needn't be scandalised by anything that happens, you can trust being taken into an entirely new creation, the sort of thing that we couldn't understand at the time and we still keep on making discoveries, things that would be too frightening in a sacred world, in a closed-down sacrificial world - all these things can begin to be opened up, and that is where our Gospel leaves us just before next Sunday and the Ascension.

SUMMARY

Sunday before Ascention. Similar to Moses' farewell speech.

How is it that You'll reveal to us, but not to the world?

Jesus: I'll reveal myself IN you. Those who love me, will keep my word, and my Father will love them. And We'll make our home in you.

We have to let Jesus inhabit in us.

This is a process of indwelling.

We are taking out of top-down god, to sideways god.

As your relationship changes with others around you, you will become like Me.

We don't need to be frightened by the people who don't want to recognize Him, because someone much much bigger than us, the creator, is holding all this in being.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

I do not give you as the world gives; the world makes peace by throwing somebody out, but I'm the one who has already been thrown out and I did it, I entered it deliberately for you, so you don't need to worry about these things anymore.

I'll be going away and then I'm coming.

I think it's simultaneous: the going away is the coming.

As it were God is known in his being expelled. That's what it looks like in our world to be God, but it's known in a loving occupying of that space.

While I'm with you, there's still some room for rivalry, but when I'm gone there's absolutely no way for a rivalry at all.

I can give you absolutely everything.

I am doing this so you can believe: believe that all that I have told you is true, that you needn't be scandalised by anything that happens.

You can trust being taken into an entirely new creation, the sort of thing that we couldn't understand at the time and we still keep on making discoveries.

Things that would be too frightening in a sacred world, in a closed-down sacrificial world. All these things can begin to be opened up.