John 14:1-14

Easter 5 - Year A

A word that jumps out at me is that of "trust." Eugene Peterson translates it, "The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing."

Some would worry that paying too much attention to this issue of trust could lead to paying more attention to Good Works than to the purity of Scripture. But that is the risk Paul is willing to take as he talks about working out our salvation in "fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). It takes trust to work through the big "F and T."

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/april2002.html

 

 

As John begins to formally close his report of Jesus' life with an extended Minnesota good-bye there are memories that come flooding back from earlier times.

The whole conversation about "the way" hearkens back to Nicodemus in the night. Way? Again? Above? Huh? And we haven't come much farther.

Questions of seeing "Father" reminds us of Photina, the Samaritan woman at the well. Is this "Father" on this mountain or that?

Finally there is the issue of doing greater things. Oh, how Fundamentalists distrust this passage. How can it get any better than it was? Will we best Jesus in tricking Satan? Will we best Jesus in physical comedy (physical miracles) and bring health juice out of wine? Will we best Jesus and find a category of love beyond God, self, neighbor, one another, enemies and will it have to do with bodies as well as spirits? Will we best Jesus as knowing what lies ahead, be able to project the consequences of our behavior? Etc.?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html

 

 

To know a name is to have power over that which is named. This is a well-attested understanding from days of yore. Obviously if you ask it in Jesus' name, then Jesus will do it. This is pretty straight forward cause and effect.

But this Jesus guy can be pretty tricky. Which of the many ways Jesus is identified is going to be the control mechanism. If you go, "Hey, Jesus" and that day he's going by "Word", whatcha gonna do?
Consider this format for your asking.
      • Identify what aspect of GOD you need to be in relation to for a particular purpose and call to that.
      • State your asking in one simple sentence - no dependent clauses, parenthetical statements, or metaphors.
      • Say, "Thank you" and "Amen."

This is almost as simple and difficult as a breath prayer. Try it for a week and see what happens.

- - - - - - -

A second way of using names is that of identification. To know what to ask for and from whom to ask put you in a direct one-to-one relationship. What we have here is Sympathetic Magic. A way of understanding this is that asking in Jesus' name connects Jesus to us and us to Jesus -- we are in him and he is in us. And, Jujitsu, the greater things Jesus said we would do we are doing.

This leads to the question of whether there is anything greater to ask than exemplify the divinity in which we were created and intended. Well. If that is asked for, it is to be lived: in the asking is the doing. This turns out to be our participation in the creation calls that end with the recognition, "It is good."

Ask. Act.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html

 

 

Which is the greater work?

1) "Do not hold this sin against them"
2) "Do not let me be put to shame"

1) "Let your face shine upon me"
2) "Deliver me from my enemies"

1) Jesus' way is the way, truth, life!
2) Jesus is the way, truth life!

There are many dwelling places.

1) Are you preparing a place for others?
2) Is a place being prepared for you?

- - -

god's own person, I
calling from darkness
called from darkness
mercy-less once
mercy-full now

expressing this call
evidencing this mercy
belief becomes life
works become greater
god's own person, you

god's own person, we
facing deliverance
agreeing to ask
agreeing to glorify
agreeing to participate

gazing toward paradise
unbelievable connections are made
forgiveness after forgiveness
even for
god's own I/you/we

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

 

Last night I taped and watched the Compassion Forum sponsored by Faith in Public Life. My hope is that they will have the video available on their website. CNN may also have it available online or rerun it. At this point there are 93 exerpts of the event on You Tube (search for "compassion forum").

This Forum was a helpful step beyond our usual duality oriented, zero-sum-game decision-making. I hope there will be more of this. Even if not all that many people watch, they, at least, will be encourage to make a greater difference in changing the tone of our community conversations.

With that context, presume for the moment that we know where Jesus is going – faithfully living out his sense of being a Beloved of G*D and receiving whatever consequences come from such radical behavior. Now, what is the way to get to that end of faithful living for ourselves?

Compassion might be a key word to describe the "how" of Jesus. If so, that is his modeling of our way to arrive at appropriate expressions of our sense of being Beloveds of G*D.

Compassion becomes way, Compassion becomes truth. Compassion becomes life.

Compassion is preparing a place for those who follow in which they might participate in way/truth/life issues.

Compassion will also inform what it is we ask for in Jesus' name. It will cut out some of our askings, It will challenge us to engage our Belovedness with the world around us without dictating to it.

If you have an opportunity to see the debate and ignore the various spins and reportorial assessments, you may find specific applications of compassion that will call you forth to risk your Belovedness.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

 

 

Another foreground / background opportunity presents itself. It is easy to experience a foreground of Jesus. He speaks, he acts, he touches, he feeds, he probably even smells. It is less easy to get a handle on that which Jesus claims is the background against which we might receive a larger setting in which we are also a foreground of it and capable of being experienced in the same way Jesus was, or even beyond such.

What is the "Father" background that is so spoken of and so invisible to us? At base it is simply the energy source for Jesus to be able to see what is around him and to say, "Here is what you have been taught, the limitations within which you operate," and then to go on to say, "But here is a new teaching that expands your meaning by expanding your background."

We appropriately ask about the background against which we act. In doing so, however, we take our eye off the foreground of Jesus, of one another, of ourself and in losing focus on what is present. With this either/or we lose track of questions about the context of the present - "How did we arrive where we are?" and "what would be better than this and how do we take a step in that direction?"

This same dynamic needs better attention paid to it regarding politicians and stealth candidates that run one way and govern another.

A helpful tool for this is to pay attention to the polarities of life, its yin and yang, its background and foreground, its paradoxes, dilemmas, and tensions.

If you are not familiar with polarities, here is a quick overview. 

In church life it would be helpful to pay attention to those arenas where we are tempted to go with foreground or background rather than saying "yes" to both. From MANAGING POLARITIES IN CONGREGATIONS: Eight Keys for Thriving Faith Communities here are some common stumbling places as emphasis is put on one side or the other, losing sight of both/and:

Jesus’ talk about doing what is asked in his name suggests that background and foreground are being paid attention to. At that point more can happen than might be expected. The qualifier is verse 13, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the “Father” [background of life] may be glorified in the “Son” [foreground of experience].” When these are separated less wholeness is to be expected.

= = = = = = =

The BOTH/AND is critically important. AND, I would like to enlarge the context and place these polarities in a quad (the diagram below works if it is monospace type, which I put it in but who knows what happens along the way). A kind of QUAND-ARY because it clears things up but also creates a more complex and detailed map (integral). Here's part of that map - "aspects of experience - yours mine and ours:"


            individual
i                                        e 
n            I    |    IT              x 
t                  |                      t
e   _______|________     e
r                 |                      r
i                  |                      i
o        WE   |   ITS             o
r                                        r 
            communal 


So, to take some of the polarities: "spiritual health" pertains to both individuals and communities (the entire upper and lower), but tends to be an "interior" thing (left side). The difference is that individual spiritual health is upper left and community health is lower left. "Institutional health" pertains to systems and environments (lower right, "ITS' which is the awkward plural of "IT"). Management tends to be be individual exterior - behaviors and actions, or upper right, whereas "leadership" is an individual-interior thing (upper left). Inreach is the entire left side and outreach is the entire right side. And so on.

The curse is this: when you focus on only one or two aspects of experience, you are ignoring the other two. And the deal is, when something arises in one of the four quadrants, or aspects of experience, it always, simultaneously arises in the other three, because these are not four separate things, they are four aspects of ONE thing. It is not possible to separate or compartmentalize these four aspects of experience without tearing the fabric of existence (much like the temple curtain was rent and the day turned dark and the earth trembled and fear and confusion and conversion struck the hearts of persons and a religious/revolutionary movement was launched, not to mention the explosion of artistic flowering including da Vinci's Last Supper and Handel's Messiah, when Rabbi Jesus was executed and the Christ was crucified).

The blessing is this: when you include the missing quadrants, it gets more complicated (because it is more complete) but the "either/or" cul-de-sac opens up quite nicely. For example, the "easy process/difficult process" of "making disciples" restricts itself to the right side (behaviors/actions and systems/environments) and ignores the left (interiors, the meaning dimension). You can teach process until the crowds go home hungry if you haven't dealt with the interior issues of "I can't/don't want to" or "we can't/don't want to."

The key is congruity in all four aspects of experience. With congruity, the conflict of "apparent" polarity tends to resolve.

T.

= = = = = = =

T. -

Thanks for the expansion of polarities into quadrants. For those interested in seeing a larger picture they can click here. One of these days I expect there will be a quantum leap of some sort in my understanding and I'll move from my standard background / foreground dance to a more nuanced set of polarities set at right angles to one another that expand analysis of a setting further along a plane of understanding and perhaps move into a third-dimension sometime after that.

I really like the ability to have more space in which to play. It takes the pressure off any I, WE, IT, ITS initial manifestation to bear the weight of continued accountability for its arena of responsibility and authority.

I am curious about how your model would interact with a model traditionally known as WAY, TRUTH, LIFE. What distinction is to be made between two aspects of ONE thing, three aspects, four, or more? I'm presuming there might be a qualitative preference of one over the other for particular settings, but am open to hearing that one is simply preferable.

Wesley

= = = = = = =

The four quadrants have historically often been collapsed into three, with the individual IT and plural ITS being collapsed into simply "IT" (i.e., the entire right side as one), so we have "I" "WE" and "IT."

            individual
i                                 e 
n        I            /          x 
t                     /            t
e   _______ /   IT       e
r                   \             r
i                     \            i
o       WE         \          o
r                                  r 
           communal 


Or, the Beautiful (upper left, aesthetics in the "I" of the beholder) the Good (lower left, morals, or how ought WE to live together) and the True (right side, objective/empirical truth).

Or, the Life (upper left), the Way (lower left communal WE) and the Truth (right side individual and communal).

Or, Art (upper left aesthetic experience), Religion (lower left shared morals/values) and Science (right side, whether empirical study of individual atoms or communities of persons).

Any way you spell it, whenever we see the Big Three -or- the Big Four as separate things instead of aspects or dimensions of ONE thing we are in Big Trouble.

Tom

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-141-14.html

 

 

Formulations aside, we might distill this passage into the following outline:

1) Troubled? Locate your arena of trust.

2) A future is open beyond our current understanding. You are engaged with that future as well as with your past and present. If you can trust your past really is your past, you can trust your future even as it incrementally becomes part of your past.

3) The way into this future is through a way of anticipation and/or experience. Jesus way is both anticipatory and experiential, “My way of engaging the present, incarnating the future today, is a universal way advocated long before me." This way, truth, and life are fancy ways of talking about the mundane processes known to all prophets and cannot be reduced to the particulars of one technical way, revelational truth, or eternal life.

4) We are forever speaking more wisdom than we know and acting more effectively than we expect. Attending to this by listening in and observing the effect of our presence gives evidence that we are already in the presence of whatever form of G*D that holds meaning for us.

[Note: the last two verses (13-14) need so much conditionality that they do more harm than they are worth. It is best to leave it with verse 12 — Trust tomorrow enough to do what needs doing today. In so doing we will follow forward in a long train of generations that emulate Mama Today bearing much fruit with Father Tomorrow.]

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/05/john-141-14.html