Homily by Nancy Greenfield for Pentecost 2006

We are very familiar with the Acts account of the coming of the Spirit. We describe it as the day the church was born. Pentecost is our yearly reminder of who we are as a people and the gift God has given us and continues to give us so that we can complete the work of making us a church.
Sometimes, when I think of the phrase “The Birthday of the Church”, I have this crazy image of a bird (well not just any bird, a dove….) descending upon that upper room with the code of Canon Law in a long, long papyrus, clutched in its mouth. In short, I, too, often think of Pentecost as the establishment of the corporate and juridical structures of the church which are still in effect to this day. Nothing could be further from the truth! The Spirit of God did not descend on an institution; the Spirit of God descended on people –Peter, James. John, Mary, and others.

When the Holy Spirit descended upon those in that house, the tongues of fire were not organizational directives, but a source of strength for the events that lay ahead—gifts of wisdom, understanding, compassion, fortitude, justice, piety.

The mighty roar of wind was the sound of Jesus filling his disciples with the energy of his resurrected new life—giving them hope, courage energy, vision. But not giving them a road map.

The ability to speak in tongues was not a parlor trick bestowed on the apostles so they could assert their superiority over those around them. The fact that each listener heard the apostles speaking in his or her own language was a sign to them and to us that as followers of Christ, we in the church are called to put an end to divisions which separate us, to work together with whatever gifts we have been given for the betterment of all.
We see signs of our need for this Spirit everywhere:
from the fractures in our own beings and communities,
the divide between the haves and the have-nots,
the abuse of the very planet we live on,
and especially, the divisions among the people of God. On serious issues: papal power, sacraments, the Lord’s Supper, contraception, homosexuality, abortion, who are allowed be priests, and more, we disagree with others inside and outside our walls. (Burghardt: To be Just is to Love),
Impossible to overcome, you might say.
But let me propose a start. I go back to an old document from the Second Vatican Council, some 40 years ago which said: ”Christians should also work together in the use of every possible means to relieve the afflictions of our times, such as famine and natural disasters, illiteracy and poverty, lack of housing and the unequal distribution of wealth. Through such cooperation, all believers in Christ are able to learn easily how they can understand each other better and esteem each other more and how the road to Christian Unity may be made smooth”(Decree on Ecumenism) (Burghardt, Ibid)
Wishful thinking, you say? Look at how far the Peninsula Interfaith Action group has come in a few short years.

Pentecost is a birthday celebration not only because we commemorate the occasion of the gift of the spirit, but also because we rejoice in the understanding that the Spirit has been with us and continues to be so. Whatever builds and shapes the community is a sign of the Spirit's presence. So, we see the fruits of the Spirit in wise leaders, courageous prophetic voices, elderly seers, musicians, painters, poets, defenders of the vulnerable, happy children learning about God, gifted preachers and spiritual advisors. We also know the Spirit is at work among those in our community who are examples of prayer, compassion, tenderness and welcome.
The Spirit is present too when the sick are nurtured, healed; the sad comforted and we are in solidarity with the needy.
Jesus is continuously present to us, through his Spirit.
Without the Spirit's animation in our church, this would not be the case and our Christian life would be impossible.
(J BOLL, FI PENTECOST 2004)

But let us not forget that Pentecost is not just about the institutional church—out there, all very nice, and so forth. Pentecost is about us—you and me. I have decided that if Pentecost doesn’t bother us personally, then we have missed the point.
If Pentecost DOES bother us, because we feel the mighty wind and literally get blown away by a new awareness of God’s presence in our everyday lives;
if Pentecost bothers us because we see our old notions of how the world ought to work go up in flames;
if Pentecost bothers us because we begin to cut through the babble of consumerism, rugged individualism, national self-interest, the babble of hatred, violence and self-indulgence and hear the steady voice of God saying to us such things as:
“Feed my lambs, feed my sheep”.
Or: “I have no body now but yours”,
or: “Do you love me?”

Then we have every right to be bothered and afraid—in the words of Elmer Fudd, “vewwy vewwy afraid.”

The Spirit of God, you see, cannot be harnessed, domesticated, owned. She blows where and when she will.
The greater our sense of control over our lives and our personal environment, the more whimsical and illogical seems the miracle of God’s grace.
And once we acknowledge the reality of the Spirit in our lives, we cannot go back to who we were.
Scary.

Then there is the sheer weight of the responsibility that this gift of the Spirit lays on us. When we breathe in God’s love and grace, we must also breathe it out. Just try inhaling without exhaling, and you will se what I mean.
We must not simply receive, we must respond. And that response cannot always be a nice comfortable little set of pius platitudes that offend no one and cost nothing. Look at where the spirit led those in that house on Pentecost.

Be afraid, be very, very afraid.

No one knew this better than Jesus. He said to the disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”
There always seems to be something in my own life that offers resistance to The Spirit: fear of the unknown, a certain measure of placid self-contentment, inertia, whatever. What I sometimes forget is that the Spirit of God, if we let her into our hearts, GRADUALLY shapes and transforms us—GRADUALLY aligns us to God’s will.
What I sometimes forget, is that the Spirit of God is kind and gentle, understanding and, yes, quick to give me a second chance. Or a third. Or more.

There is a Latin hymn we used to sing and occasionally still do, “Veni Sancte Spiritus.” In the hymn we pray, “Come Holy Spirit,” in other words, we are aware of some absence or incomplete presence of the Spirit in ourselves or in our church community. We know God is always with us, yet the hymn-prayer acknowledges our lacking and our need for the Spirit to bring completion.

Come, Exuberant Spirit of God
Flame
Wind
Speech.
Burn, breathe, speak in us.
Give us life, form us into your community and renew the face of the earth.

Happy birthday to us

The Ascension of the Lord, May 12, 2024

We are called to carry on Jesus’ mission; He is with us

Mark 16:15–20

He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

Music Meditations

• “Be Not Afraid” (sung by John Michael Talbot) [YouTube]
• “Christ Has No Body Now But Yours” (written by David Ogden, sung by Exultate singers) [YouTube]
• “Christ in Me Arise” (composed by Trevor Thomson) [YouTube]
• “Untitled Hymn” (“Come to Jesus”) (Chris Rice) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

O Lord, you are the way. The goodness I find in life comes from you. Help me to be grateful and joyous because of the gifts you have bestowed on me. Teach me to be generous in sharing your love and your gifts to those I meet along the way.

Companions for the Journey

Adapted from Jude Siciliano, in First Impressions 2021, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:

During the years I preached in West Virginia I remember small towns, “up the hollows”, where there were churches whose ministers and members of the congregation, as a test of their faith, would plunge their hands into a box of rattlesnakes, pull one out and hold it before the congregation. Others would drink strychnine poison. Why not, isn’t that what Jesus is saying, in today’s gospel, believers will be able to do as we go about proclaiming the gospel? The rural communities that performed those tests of faith saw their ability to do these feats as a sign that the living Christ was in their midst fulfilling his promises to them. Some of the faithful were able to handle snakes and drink poison and survive. Their community supported them and celebrated their faith. Others suffered snake bites and the effects of drinking deadly poisons...some even died. But even then, their communities took the failure on themselves as a congregation, they didn’t fault the individual preacher or believer’s faith. They saw the failure as a sign that the whole community needed to turn more fully to the Lord.

I belong to a church community that interprets these signs of belief in another way. I hear in today’s gospel a promise that signs will accompany believers. In Jesus’ time there were large cracks between the human world, what we can could see, measure and explain, and God’s. Illnesses and negative human conditions that were beyond their ability to explain or heal, were credited to evil spirits and demons. So, for example, a person suffering from mental disease was said to be “possessed.” Since the afflicted weren’t their usual selves, the community reasoned, it must be the fault of an outside and malevolent spirit possessing the person. Nowadays, science, modern medicine and drugs have filled in a lot of the cracks between what was once unknown, mysterious and frightening and what was in the realm of the measurable and explainable. We have narrowed the void, answered a lot of “mysteries.” So, then, where is God in all this and what about Jesus’ mission and the signs he promises we will perform as a testimony to our faith?

Jesus tells us we will be able to “drive out demons.” New medical drugs can now alleviate schizophrenia and bi-polar disorders. But there are more powerful demons medication can’t deal with, that concerned Jesus and continue to require believers to confront and drive out. For example, the demon poverty: even in a wealthy country it grows and continues to victimize the young and elderly. The demon of ignorance: it holds people captive and locked in darkness, superstition and prejudice. The demon of war: it seduces the powerful into thinking that problems can be solved quickly by force. The demon of racism: a sometimes subtle demon, but these days it has raised its divisive head in ugly manifestations. Even the so-called enlightened discover racism is still a part of their lives. The demons of homophobia, sexism and ageism and all the other “isms” that permeate our institutions and churches. These are demons that might not be driven out with a prayer of exorcism. But they may be driven out by a prayer for conversion, a prayer to have our own hearts and attitudes changed; a prayer for wisdom, to know where and how we must get involved to do something; a prayer for strength, to keep us in the struggle against these demons over the long haul; a prayer for courage, as we face opposition; a prayer for hope, as we deal with discouragement and lack of quick progress.

Jesus says we will lay on hands to cure the sick. We do this in our prayers and sacramental anointing of the sick. But we also show the sick and very old, who are often on the periphery of our communities, that we want to stay in contact with them through visits and gentle touch—“laying on of hands”. Some years ago Vernon Jordan, a presidential aide, was shot in the back. While acknowledging the expertise of the doctors who worked on him, he said what really saved his life, was the doctor who sat with him and held his hands—day after day. We lay hands on the sick in many ways. We stay by the side of someone struggling with illness, despair, loneliness, addiction, divorce and death. Someone said to me once, “I don’t always know what I am to do—I just show up.” That’s a way of “laying hands on the sick,” just show up. That’s also one way to face the powerful forces that surround us and need to be driven out: we “show up.” The risen Christ acts through his disciples who show up, giving them: wisdom when serious problems and issues arise; power over the evil forces of unjust systems, policies and governments; a healing touch, when someone just needs a faithful presence standing with them in the valley of the shadow of death.

What are we doing at each Eucharist? Are we holding a memorial service for someone long gone, who once inspired the world? Lamenting his absence saying, “If only Jesus were here, he would know what to do.” No. We are celebrating the signs of his presence we have experienced in and through his community, the Word and the sacred bread and wine we eat at this meal.

The Acts of the Apostles starts with an injunction by the risen Christ to wait. I wonder if the activists in that early community weren’t frustrated by his directive. You can see that they were ready to get on with things—and they would have gotten it all wrong. It’s their question that reveals their mis-direction, “Lord are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” Of course, they mean a purely external, politically and militarily dominant kingdom of Israel. No, they will have to wait for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, then they will know how and where to be Jesus’ witnesses. He wants them to break free of their limited view, their biases and tendency to misinterpret the meaning of his life. What he also wants is that they witness to him far beyond the boundaries of Israel. They will, he says, have to be, “my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” For all this they will need help, so they must acknowledge their dependence on God and wait for God’s pleasure to pour that help out on them.

We are not good at waiting. We tire out if we do not get quick results. Waiting on lines, for lights, for our children to come home from the dance, with our aging parents at the doctor’s office, for the strife to end in Myanmar, and Yemen to come finally to peace. Waiting is not what we do well. Why is waiting so frustrating? Because it means someone else, or some other power is in charge, not us. And being out of control and subject to other forces reminds us of our finiteness, and vulnerability.

Jesus tells the disciples to “wait for the promise of the Father.” They cannot go off spreading the news of his resurrection on their own. They are a small, fearful community that has no power on its own. As the Gospels showed, they have a tendency to get Jesus’ message all wrong. What’s more, they flee when things get tough. On their own they will be misguided, perhaps engage in ways that are not of Jesus. Haven’t we made some pretty big mistakes in our history about his message and in his name? Our history has tales of promoting our religion by forced baptisms and by trampling over the dignity and cultures of whole civilizations. And like the original disciples, we have been cowardly when courage and resistance to force was required.

So the disciples and we must “hold our horses,” restrain ourselves and wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled. What’s more, the fulfillment will come at God’s timing, not our own. We are action-oriented aren’t we? We have our projects and plans; we want to get on with things. Even when our plans and intentions are noble and serve a good purpose, how does God figure into them? Do we know? Have we asked? Do we wait for an answer, some direction? Maybe we have to “hurry up and wait.” “Don’t just do something, stand there!” Waiting on the Spirit is a reversal of our usual mode of operating.

Thomas Troeger, the Presbyterian preacher and homiletician, in a sermon preached on Ascension Day, recalls the frustration of the disciples and the early church in their waiting and longing for the fulfillment of the reign of God. He says we too know that frustration. After having given our lives over to Jesus Christ, we experience not triumph, but a mixture of triumph and defeat. Has anything really changed? What difference does our faith make? “When will things come together in some whole and enduring pattern?” he wonders. And then Troeger quotes Yeats’ lines to describe our world:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
the best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.

—from “The Second Coming”

We are wearied by our waiting. With Yeats we voice our longing, “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.” It’s a lament, a prayer of need and dependence. We need help that we cannot provide for ourselves. Troeger invites us to hear again what the early church heard in its anguish and yearning, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by [God’s] own authority.” How difficult it is for us to hear these words surrounded, as we are, by the kind of events we see and hear on the evening news—pictures and sounds of human distress. What we have, Troeger reminds us, is the belief that Christ reigns and will send the Holy Spirit to help us live as we must. We cannot force the hand of this Spirit, it is a gift constantly coming upon us. And one that still requires waiting.

(Thomas Troeger’s sermon was preached in 1982 and is reprinted in Seasons of Preaching, pages 158-9.)

Further reflection:

• Homily by John Kerrigan for Ascension 2012 >>

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• What signs Jesus’ presence do I recognize of in my world? In my life?
  When have I felt the absence of God in my own life?
  What happened to my relationship with God, the church, and the world because of this felt absence?
• Have I ever had anyone to whom I was very close depart, either through death, physical separation, or a relationship which ended? How did I deal with it?
  Do traces of this person’s presence still continue to be felt?
• What are the personal demons that I to drive out of my life and psyche?
  Have I called on the Spirit of Jesus for help?
• What serpents lurk in my life to threaten me?
  What are some of the poisonous substances and ideas that I drink in every day?
  Is Jesus the antidote for me, or is something else the antidote?
• Do I experience the Gospels as revealing to me how God is working in my own life?
• In what ways does the mission “proclaim the gospel” apply to me?
  Do I feel I have any kind of ministry/mission to the world?
  Have I ever taken any risks in my ministry to the world?
• Do I understand that I am called to “another Christ”, to be a person who make known the love of God and God’s care for the world?
  Do I understand that I many never know how much of this I have actually accomplished?
  Do I understand that it is enough to do what I can?
• Mother Teresa said: “I am not called to be successful; I am called to be faithful”. How does this give me hope in my own efforts?
• Am I sometimes overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of being Christ for others?
  How paralyzing is this fear?
  Do I understand courage is acting in the face of fear?
  What people in my life have been examples of determination to do the right thing, to do the better thing?
• How does prayer and how do the sacraments give me some strength to simply do the best I can?
  Can closeness to the love of Jesus and his forgiving heart help me to forgive myself when I have failed to measure up to the goals I have set for myself to be more Christ-like?
  Can I hit the rewind button and try again?
• Am I a blessing to anyone in my life?
• Adapted from “First Impressions”:
  God has some work to be done that can only be done by one person, with that person’s specific personality, strengths, weaknesses and gifts. What gifts have I been given to use in the service of Jesus’ mission?
  Am I using them now?
• To be disciple one first needs to be in relationship with Jesus. What is my relationship with Him?
• From Father William Gallagher:
  When Jesus asked the disciples to go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature, what do you think he really meant?
  What is God’s desire that is being revealed to us by this simple statement?
  How does your parish do this?
  How do you?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

This section of the gospel after verse 8 very likely was an addendum by a later writer to end Mark’s gospel on a more hopeful note. It has stayed as part of the gospel to this day, and provides a very good picture of the tasks committed to the church by Jesus. In addition, I am commissioned to be Church, to be Jesus’ emissary in my world.

The Church has a preaching task. It has been commissioned to tell the story of God’s good news to all the earth, to all creation. We, too are part of the church and commissioned as well. So I ask myself: what do I consider God’s good news? How proactive am in in sharing this with others, especially those outside my safe circle? Do I understand that I proclaim the gospel by the way I live my life and the way I treat others?

The Church has a healing task. When in the Church’s history has she brought comfort and healing to those so in need of love and care? When has the Church instead brought judgment, exclusion, division? Do I think the Church has some more work to do in this regard? Where does the world need healing the most? Am I, as church, a source of healing or a source of division for those around me?

The Church has the task of conveying the power we all have, in the name of God, over the forces of evil and despair. How has the Church’s power been used in her history? Where has the Church been a real force to counter evil and persecution? Where can the Church do better? I may not be a snake handler, exactly, but where can I do better to demonstrate the power of God in my life?

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

When Jesus left the disciples for the last time, he did not call them to stay in a tight circle, guarding the message, and imparting it only to those in “the club”. He did not tell them to be careful, to protect themselves, to be careful not to bite off more than they could chew. Do I understand the Jesus command to preach to the whole of creation is a challenge for me to be inclusive in my love?
Where is my heart narrow and exclusive?
Where am I open and expansive?
Where do the poor, the homeless, the dirty, the addicted, the mentally ill, the difficult to love, the outcasts of any kind, fit into this mandate?

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

Imagine that you are one of the disciples, returning from that scene on the mountain where Jesus disappeared forever. What do you remember about his final words, and how you felt to see him leave? What questions are in your mind at this point—such issues as “Is it really over?” or “Who will lead us now?”, or “Am I willing to commit to this group to complete what Jesus started?” or “Is it time for me to go back home, to my former life?” What joy do I feel as I move forward with our mission? What gives me that joy? What do I say to my friends? What do I tell our followers? How do those in the temple receive our message?

In my own 21st century life, all I have is the story of Jesus that those before me have told. Do I believe it? If so, how do I live out my call to carry on the work of Jesus and the early disciples? I compose a prayer, asking Jesus to give me the tools I need to spread the joy of the gospel, and to give me the energy I need to change the world, to make a difference.

Poetic Reflection:

How does this poem comfort us with an understanding that Jesus is with us still?

“Ascension”

And if I go,
while you’re still here…
Know that I live on,
vibrating to a different measure
—behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can soar together again,
—both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to its fullest.
And when you need me,
Just whisper my name in your heart,
…I will be there.

—Colleen Hitchcock

Closing Prayer

Lord, you have chosen me to be your ambassador. You trust me to be your good news in the present tense, in the here and now. Help me to see the signs of your presence in my life. Help me to proclaim the good news of your love by the way I live my life.

Homily by John Kerrigan for Ascension 2012

Did you ever wonder why the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus—albeit three notable events in his life—get so much attention and yet his ascension hardly ever seems to merit honorable mention? After all, this great ecumenical feast of the Church, which occurs 40 days after Easter, appears equally important even if it is far less well understood. It’s important because the Ascension has very little to do with the absence of Christ, and everything to do with his magnification. Pope Benedict tells us that Jesus was “not transported to another cosmic location.” Rather, his Ascension galvanized his disciples; they became witnesses who resembled thunderbolts in terms of the energy they brought to the task of proclaiming the Good News.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Allow me to take a step back, and ask you to picture with me three short vignettes. The first took place 16 years ago this week. It was Friday, May 24th, 1996, three days after our oldest daughter, Lauren, was born and time to leave the hospital and go home. After months of preparation, days spent devouring numerous books and articles—including the classic “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” putting time aside to baby proof our home, and the wonderful support of hospital staff and family, it was now time for Elizabeth and me to take full responsibility for this beautiful little girl. Among the many emotions I experienced that Friday morning was a genuine fear—one might even say panic—that I was utterly unprepared for this challenging task. Elizabeth and I looked at each other and I said, “It’s our baby, baby!” I suspect many parents have had a similar experience.

Vignette two: a few weeks ago, a Stanford student told me about the end of her first day as a freshman here at The Farm. Here are her words: “That first night, as I lay in bed, I thought to myself, I may never live at home again. I am on my own.” Can any of you identify with this thrilling, and at the same time, intimidating feeling?

This third vignette occurs at Stanford every year just about mid-June when thousands of black robed students in mortarboard hats flow past this Memorial Church, with beaming relatives trailing behind them decked out with cameras and bouquets. It’s graduation time, a time of great celebration. The students will be told many wonderful things, about leadership, about staying true to their ideals…. And implicit in all the speeches is this sobering point: now, perhaps for the first time in your life, you are going to be held responsible. After graduation parties have wound down, and academic gowns have been turned in, it may come as a shock for many graduates that from here on out the responsibility of making decisions and putting their lives together, getting jobs, paying off loans, even folding their clothes, rests no longer on parents or teachers, advisors or counselors, but on themselves. Life: “it’s your baby, baby!”

The joys and apprehensions felt by new parents, or a first-year or graduating student, are, I suspect, similar to the emotions experienced by the disciples described in today’s reading from Scripture. For a period of time after Christ’s death and resurrection, the apostles and disciples would encounter the risen Christ in unexpected places—in the upper room, or at the seashore of Lake Tiberius, or on the Road to Emmaus. But gradually these encounters grew less frequent, until finally they stopped altogether and the apostles realized that they were on their own. They couldn’t run to Jesus and ask “What do we do now?” Or “what’s next on the agenda? Where do we go next week to attend the sick or preach the Gospel?” No, now they had to figure that out for themselves.

This is the meaning of the feast of the Ascension: it marks that point in the mystery of Easter when the apostles realized that Jesus was now in the full embrace of God’s love, or as the readings put it, had been taken up into heaven. Neither they nor we are going to see him again until the end of time. This message is also clear: don’t stand there staring at the sky; the ball is in your court now! And whether they know it or not, the disciples are more than ready for the ball to be in their court. For over the past 40 days after Easter, we’ve been hearing about the transformation of Jesus’s followers from tentative, afraid and anxious men and women into persons who resemble thunderbolts in their zeal to proclaim and witness to the Good News.

Well, the ball is in our court too. The Feast of the Ascension reminds us each year that the apprenticeship is over; we’re the witnesses now. Whether you and I feel strong and firm in our faith, or like so many, have as many questions and doubts as answers—you and I are the ones chosen to make God’s love known, not throughout Judea and Samaria, but here in Palo Alto and the Bay Area, or in the daily asceticism of our academic disciplines and professional lives.

And when we do so with the vigor of these early disciples, these thunderbolts, we like Jesus before us will find ourselves more and more in the full embrace of God’s love.

Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2024

What it means to love Jesus

John 15:9–17

As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.

Music Meditations

• “Open My Eyes, Lord” (by Jesse Manibusan) [YouTube]
• “Whatsoever You Do” (sung by Robert Kochis) [YouTube]
• “In Christ Alone”
• “Love (One Another)” (sung by The Maranatha Singers) [YouTube]

Opening Prayer

Your prayer, Lord, is that my joy may be complete. This joy, Lord, is not based on illusion or self-deception, but on knowing in my heart that you, too, faced evil and sorrow and still provided a way for us to keep your joy in our hearts. On our faces too… Help me to present a face of love to those around me, as you wished me to do. Here are those that need to be reminded of your love and friendship this day: [fill in a name or two here].

Help me to love as you do.

Companions for the Journey

Adapted from an online service called “Sermon Writer”:

Note: The term “pericope,” used in this section, refers to any selected section of scripture used for study or for liturgical purposes.

The gospel for today might be divided into two major sections, the first (9–12) focusing on the abiding relationship of love that binds Father, Son and disciples into one, the second (13–17) focusing on the empowering love of the Son by which he laid down his life for his “friends.”

“Just as” Love

Love is to be seen above all in the love of the Father as shown forth in the love of the Son. Our thoughts are intentionally directed back to the announcement of the depth of God’s love for the world as evidenced in the giving of the Son. “God so loved…” (3:16). In the interconnected and unfolding message of John’s gospel, it is as if every word and every passage mutually interpret one another. Using a modern analogy, one might imagine that every word in the gospel were hyperlinked to every other word in the gospel, so that “clicking” on one word necessarily explodes and expands into every other word as its commentary and frame of meaning and understanding. One of those important words in the first section (9–12) is a simple word variously translated as “so,” “as,” or “just as” (Greek kathos). In the original this word essentially frames the whole section. “Just as the Father has loved me…;” “…just as I have loved you” (9, 12). “Just as” is a key motif (31 times in the gospel) in John’s “theology” for what it reveals about the mutual relationship of Father, Son, and disciple community. As the Father has loved, so the Son loves. The Son’s love imitates and mirrors the Father’s love. The Son’s deep love in the giving of his life for his friends is no accident, but stems “just so” from the way the Father has loved the Son. To abide in the Son’s love is to know oneself as abiding in that same love which originates in the relationship of Father and Son.

Abiding in Love

The abiding relationship of vine and branches of last Sunday’s pericope, which culminates in the bearing of much fruit, is now given further delineation in terms of love. If abiding is not for its own sake but has an end or a purpose, we learn that in this passage, that purpose takes shape in love. Love is the fruit of the abiding relationship of Father and the Son, just as it is of the Son and those who follow his words. Those “words” of Jesus are characterized in this lesson as Jesus’ “commands” (5 times as verb or noun). Consistent with John’s “just as” theology, even these commands which Jesus calls upon his disciples to keep are simply an extension of the commands of the Father which Jesus has already kept. Jesus asks nothing of his disciple community that he has not already modeled in the abiding love which he has with the Father. In this way abiding, loving, and keeping commandments are all bound up together in a mutual relationship.

Lest we miss it, the first section concludes with a direct and clear statement of the outcome or fruit of this abiding love. The commandments of Jesus are not general or scattered but focused and specific: “This is my commandment, that you love one another” (12). The repetition of these words again at the conclusion of the second section (17) underscores their importance as a key to understanding the end goal of all this talk of abiding love (Incidentally, this repeated literary structure in 12 and 17 also makes clear that the NRSV’s translation of verse 17 cannot be correct. The text should read “I am giving you this command, that you love one another.”)

No Greater Love

If love for one another is the goal of our abiding in Jesus’ love, then the model for that self-giving love is stated clearly in the memorable beginning words of the second section (10–17). There is no greater love than that shown in the giving of one’s life for one’s friends. Though stated in general terms, the “laying down of one’s life” is a pointed reference to God’s giving of the Son, and in the narrative an only slightly veiled reference to and anticipation of the passion and death of Jesus on the cross. The power of God’s great love in Jesus, confirmed in Easter’s promise of the resurrection, always has its frame of reference and its power in Jesus’ giving of his life on the cross.

Jesus now speaks of the power of that giving of life to transform the disciples’ relationship and calling into a new status. These disciples are no longer to be counted as “servants” but as “friends.” In the cross and Resurrection they have come to know what this “greater love” has power to accomplish in them through their unity in the abiding relationship with Jesus and the Father. Jesus’ words now make it further clear that the power to respond to his command to love one another comes from Jesus’ own prior love and calling: “I have called you…; I have chosen you…; I have appointed you…" (15, 16).

Whatever You Ask

The key guarantor of this abiding relationship that will usher in the fruit of love is the power of prayer. Prayer, too, is grounded in the mutual abiding relationship of Father, Son, and disciple community. “The Father will give you whatever you ask in my name (16). When this promise is linked immediately with the repeated reference to Jesus’ command to “love one another,” it is clear that “whatever we ask” defines and directs Christian prayer toward the fulfilling of the command to love for the other. The promise that such love can be fulfilled resides in the giving that has already preceded in Jesus’ love on the cross. This confidence in the power of prayer (16–17) mirrors a similar promise in last Sunday’s pericope (see 15:7–8). If there prayer is grounded in “abiding in me” and “my words,” here it is grounded in Jesus’ announcement “you did not choose me, but I chose you.” If there we hear that the Father is glorified in the bearing of much fruit, here we now know that such bearing of fruit is to be found in the fulfillment of Jesus’ command to “love one another.”

Mutual Joy

To be called and appointed for such an exercise of love is for the Christian neither mere sentimentality nor drudgery. There can be no simple sentimentality in a love whose depth is to be seen in a life laid down for one’s friends. At the center of this text and at the heart of love stands the cross of Jesus. Nor can there be any painful drudgery in Jesus’ promise that all of this abiding love, this life given for us and for the other, has as its goal “so that your joy may be complete” (11). The abiding relationship in love of the Son with the Father is mirrored and modeled in the Son’s laying down of his life for the world.

Jesus came so that we might experience an overflowing life (John 10:10). Jesus expresses here the longing and the promise that his joy might be in us and that only in such abiding love and joy is the wholeness of life that the Father’s love has in its purview and promise. Just as the power of this love for our lives comes when we draw power from the vine, so our joy comes from knowing that we have been chosen, called, and sent. The abiding power of that love in and through us has power to renew and transform us and the whole of creation.

Further reflection:

• Commentary on Sixth Sunday of Easter (year B) from “First Impressions” (2024) >>
• Commentary on Sixth Sunday of Easter (year B) from “First Impressions” (2018) >>

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Remain in my love.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

• What, exactly does the word “love” mean to me?
  Whose love was it that taught me the meaning of word?
  How does the world describe “love”?
  What do we learn about love from our parents, our friends, the media, our intimate relationships?
• What about love is difficult for me?
• Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. Who have I decided to love today?
• If love is not so much affection as connection, how am I responding to the command at the end of today’s text?
• Who are my intimate friends?
  How important to me are those relationships?
  Am I more comfortable doing things together or just being?
  Can I think of ways I have made sacrifices for those who are dear to me?
• How have others invited me to move beyond casual friendship to a more intimate friendship?
• Have there been people who seemed to invite me into intimate friendships where the invitation seemed to be inappropriate?
• Do I experience God inviting me into an intimate friendship?
  Do I experience the invitation more as a “being” with God or “doing” with God?
  Are both aspects present?
  At times, does one aspect become more important at than the other?
• Am I comfortable calling Jesus “friend”?
• What do I need to change in my life to reflect better my friendship with Jesus?
• Do I realize that I do not need to earn God’s love?
• We often see Jesus in the scriptures, but do we see his love for us running through those scriptures?
• Do I consciously “abide” in God’s love?
  What holds me back?
• How are love and prayer linked?
• Do I see loving God and others as a chore or as a source of joy?
• From “Faith Book”, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:
  What prejudice, angry feelings and grudges must I lay down out of love for my sisters and brothers?
  How willing am I to "lay down" my free time when another has need?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Today when we hear Jesus say, “Keep my commandments”, our minds tend to run to the 10 commandments, and we worry that we might have broken some of them. We forget that we had the ten commandments before Jesus even came on the scene. So let us assume that Jesus is speaking of something a little less negative and maybe quite a bit more challenging: Love one another as I have loved you. What might an unpacking of the commandment “love one another” look like in my everyday life? What or whom are my particular challenges? Do I understand that “like one another” is not always required? Do I feel like I can never match the love of Jesus so that I am discouraged before I ever begin? How does that feeling negate Christ’s love and understanding? (After all, his beloved in the world—his disciples—failed again and again…)

What part of my life must I lay down to love another as Jesus loves me—my prejudices, my unwillingness to help, my angry feelings, my envy of another, my list of wrongs I keep against a person, my resentment about where my life is right now, my exalted vision of what I am owed in this world, my need for material goods, my need for approval or need for power, etc.?

Finally, I spend some time thanking Jesus for being the expression of God’s love for us, and making some changes in my own relationship with others that might better reflect the commandment to love one another.

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Read the excerpts from Psalm 98 (today’s psalm selection). Reflect on the ways that God has been revealed in your life.

Take some time to journal about your specific experiences which manifest God’s love for you. Ask yourself if you pray to God to curry God’s favor, to earn God’s good will toward you, or if you pray in order to create a relationship of mutual love and affection with the Lord. Finally rewrite this psalm so that you are talking TO God, not ABOUT God (I sing a new song to you, Lord, etc.)

O sing a new song to the LORD, for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm have brought salvation.
The LORD has made known his salvation, has shown his deliverance to the nations.
He has remembered his merciful love and his truth for the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Shout to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song, and sing out your praise.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

Adapted from At Home with the Word:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is intimate and urgent, repeating himself and using words such as “command”. How many times does he ask his followers to love him and each other, to remain united? “remain in my love, keep my commandments”; “love one another as I love you”; or, “this I command you, love one another”. He is begging those who follow him to accept what he has offered, no less than his life, by becoming and staying in a unified body of love and faith. Read John 17:21 and reflect further on Jesus’ overriding desire for us. Are you living out that desire? In what way do you foster unity in your faith community? Where do you perhaps encourage division? Does your love for “neighbor” go beyond praying for someone outside your circle? Does love for neighbor extend to some concrete action on behalf of the poor, the marginalized? In what ways can you make love not a noun, but a verb?

Whose love was it that taught you the meaning of the word?

Poetic Reflection:

How does this poem by Ed Ingebretzen, S.J. reflect on how to respond to the great and amazing love God has for us, for you?

“You Are Hungry”

Father
you are hungry
and we may be nothing in your hands

but let us at least
taste your fire:
let us be ash,
be dross, be waste
in the heat of your desire.

Let us at least
need, and want, and learn
that it is impossible
to want you too much,
to want you too long.

May the heat of our thirst
for you
dry the rivers
reduce the mountains to dust,
thin the air.

God, you who want us
more than we want you,
be a fan to our flame,
the end to our need,
the ocean we seek to drain.

—From Psalms of the Still Country

Poetic Reflection:

This poem by Sister Miriam Therese Winter, MMS, speaks to the need to love those no one cares about but Jesus. How does it speak to the countless women who may not realize that God is their mother?

I saw you in the doorway.
You were black and bruised and broken.
I knew you were someone’s daughter.

You are your mother’s daughter.
If she could, she would sit with you
and say how much she loved you.

I saw you in the shelter.
You looked much older than your years.
Your kids were tired and making a fuss.
I knew you were someone’s daughter.

You are your mother’s daughter.
Imagine her here as a sister, a friend,
saying how much she loves you.

I saw you on the news last night
on a dirt road in Soweto.
They were screaming at you.
You had no shoes.
I know you were someone’s daughter.

You are your mother’s daughter
and she is her mother’s daughter.
She has put up with so much abuse.
That shows how much she loves you.

I saw you in the delivery room
in drug withdrawal, writhing.
They say you have AIDS. You are three hours old.
And I know you are someone’s daughter.

You are your mother’s daughter
and she needs you to forgive her.
She doesn’t know how to love as yet,
but when she does, I promise you,
she will say how much she loves you.

I saw you in an orphanage.
How sad you looked, and lonely.
They say that you are hard to place,
but I know that you are someone’s daughter.

You are your mother’s daughter
and a foster mother’s daughter,
and one of these days she will come for you
and say how much she loves you.

I saw you in a nursing home.
You were slumped in a chair with a vacant stare.
I knew you were somebody’s daughter.

You are your mother’s daughter,
your Mother God’s own daughter.
Soon, very soon, She will come for you
and say how much she loves you.

Closing Prayer

From “Sacred Space”, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

A person blind from birth cannot understand color. A person who has never been loved can find love a baffling word. I feel I have an inkling of love’s meaning, but how? Whose love was it that taught me the meaning of the word? What do I know about the sort of self-giving that is unearned, unquestioning, looking for no return?

Lord, I have so much to learn from you about love.

Commentary on Sixth Sunday of Easter (year B) from “First Impressions” (2024)

Today’s gospel presents us with a vision for the church. Jesus has just told his disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (15:1ff). Now he describes the relationship between his disciples and himself. It is not merely a gathering of friends, or like-minded individuals. Nor is it an institution with fixed offices and officials. Instead, as different as each may be, Jesus and his disciples are bound by sacrificial love. Our love is to be the same as the love he has for us: “This is my commandment; love one another as I have loved you.” We have our treasure and our relationship to Christ and one another; but we also have responsibilities. We are attached to the true vine and we are to share the love and life we are receiving now from Christ with others. The love Jesus showed us was a sacrificial love and so should ours be towards others, “in season and out of season.”

But such loving cost Jesus his life and it asks much of us. It is only possible because Jesus remains with us in his Holy Spirit. Just as he obeyed his Father’s commands, because of his love for God, the disciples will continue to know and enjoy Jesus’ presence by our obedience to his commands of love for one another.

Today’s gospel is part of Jesus’ last discourse. He is telling his disciples of both the privilege and responsibilities we have. He is the true vine we are grafted to. We have the joy of knowing this friendship that will be with us in both good times and bad. We will come to know that Jesus will not leave us and we will continue to know God and Jesus by keeping Jesus’ commandment of love. What kind of love is he speaking of? He says it quite plainly: it is love like his, a willingness to lay down one’s life for one’s “friends.”

We don’t just need a model of ideal behavior upon whom to fashion our lives. We need a savior who, once having lived and died for us, will stay with us to guide and enable us to imitate his own living and dying. Today, as last Sunday, we hear the importance of “remaining” or “abiding” in Jesus. This staying in Jesus will be the way we can live his commandment of love. One thing is very clear in this discourse; we can live Jesus’ life because he graces us to do so. Without our relationship with him, we would be left on our own to do our best to follow his life and live his commands. And the truth is, on our own, we wouldn’t be able to live such a life. Without Jesus’ abiding, grace-giving presence, neither we individuals, nor our church, can live the life he calls us to today: “Love one another as I have loved you.” His love is the kind that lays down his life for another.

Some people think the church has gone soft since Vatican II. Now, they complain, all we hear is talk about love. They would prefer the stricter black and white commands they remember from their childhood. But we are not children. The teaching about love goes back to our Founder; it is not a recent innovation, or a new-age trend. Jesus does lay down a commandment for us today, but he does so, he says, not as a master talking to servants, but as a friend to other friends. Servants follow rules, their lives are dictated by the one who holds authority over them. Jesus’ religion isn’t based on such a model. Instead, love is the foundation of our faith. We are assured we already have God’s love, it is not something we must earn by minute adherence to a code of proper behavior. Jesus is asking us to live out of the realization of that love. We are his friends, he tells us, so now go out and live like friends with one another. “Friends,” in this context, means “beloved ones.” We need to live out of that description for we are the beloved.