John 14:15-21

Easter 6 - Year A

"The dense theological language in this passage is hard to absorb. It helps me to understand passages like this if I read one sentence at a time, and repeat that sentence (out loud) several times. This is especially true of the second half of verse 19. I wonder if this is where my friend Julian of Norwich got her sense that our essential selves - our souls if you like - are of the same "substance" as God. And our human journey is to be "oned" (reunited) with God. Without that reunion, we are not complete nor (this is the hard part) is God complete."

[from RUMORS is free. It comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. There are instructions at the end of each issue telling you how to get off the list if you no longer want to receive it. Here's all you do. Send an e-mail to rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com . Don't put anything else in that e-mail.]

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

I will not leave you orphaned...at that moment you will know absolutely that G*D and Jesus and you and I are one.

Others will know that G*D and Jesus and they and we are one when there is evidence of our loving one another. This external validation of faith is important. How do we come to share love in a visible way?

One avenue is that of recognizing we have not been left bereft. Our existential loneliness, while still real, ceases to be the deciding factor about our dealings with one another. The over-riding reality we begin to live from is this business of not being orphaned.

Today we celebrated a wedding that almost didn't happen because of a stroke 6 months ago. This is wedding was a joy. No wonder we image Jesus and the Church as a married couple - we've all had a stroke and are still in the process of relearning life, but we are not orphaned - we are embraced into a new oneness.

Pray for all who feel their orphanedness, be present with them whether they are as near as your family or caught in present pain in Bethlehem or anticipated pain in Iraq. Pray for leaders who forget their orphanedness and that of others and cause more.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

We are not left orphaned. We find ourselves between Easter and Pentecost. Here we anticipate a new family just as Mary and a disciple were joined in a new family. This family will come as we recognize those who speak a different language, have a different gift, who have injured and been forgiven as new parts of a new creation that turns our usual images of earth and heaven (separated) on their respective heads and we find ourselves unified with ourselves, our G*D, and one another. 

We are not left orphaned.
I am not left orphaned.

As we repeat these lines, mantra-like, we find that peace that passes our understanding and, untroubled, move ahead differently than ever before.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html

One of great divides we experience is that of truth. Some get it and some don't. Some get it and don't seem to be able to live it. Some don't get it and yet come through like the unexpected youngster rises to the top.

Playing with truth is very dangerous business. We can not only avoid living out its consequences but we can claim more for it than truth claims for itself. In both of these circumstances we fall back into the trap of hypocrisy. 

Living truth is dangerous both to those who heed it but can't grow with it, using yesterday's truth to confine today's, and to those who don't heed it but claim it as their own, causing untold damage to generations down the way.

Blessings upon us as we grow with a Spirit of truth -- hearkening to that which abides from the past, that which comes clear in the moment, and that which we honor with the mystery of possibility yet to come.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html

"Now, who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?" (1 Peter 3:13)

It's probably that old unknown God Paul stumbled upon and defined in one way. Unfortunately, unknowns are multivalent. They can roughly slouch in many directions, not just Bethlehem or Empty Tombs (to mention one set of parentheses).

It may even be that Advocate of a Spirit of truth, not receivable by the world.

In these instances we find harm set in opposition to good, very Greek. Our Hebrew Psalter brings another perspective that harm is not from something other than "our" God, but is directly related to G*D. We are tested and tried, burdened, trampled, overcome, and, yet, brought to a spacious place beyond such duality. [Yes, there is a duality here of ourself and G*D that needs to be furthered looked at on another day.]

How do you understand your own state of being these days? Particularly if you are finding it confused or adversarial?

- - -

praying without iniquity
a heartfelt desire
trips me up every time
for steadfast love continues
too rooted for one
with a head full of clouds

making up offering after offering
I plot an acceptable sacrifice
of property or guilt
attributing it to this god or that
searching for someone to receive
that which I don't understand

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

What are commandments after the commander has left? They are the commander's orphans.

Has the commander built the necessary trust with you for you to follow where the commander leads? If so, you are to care for the commander's orphans (commands).

Now imagine that the commandments are not simply words, but creation. Imagine further that they are condensed into yourself. You become the commander's orphan. A promise is that you will not remain orphaned, but fulfilled, matured, loved.

Eventually the commander is no longer on active duty. The commander's orphans, commands and followers, echo on.

Here is the revelation – the commander is resurrected in the orphan just like G*D is born in a manger. How lowly and how exalted is an orphan.

Here is the application – be bold to trust your orphans to bring to fruition your best intention.

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

So what are Jesus’ “commands”?

Here are the basics and they all relate to love (G*D’s nature and name - according to Charles Wesley).

Love G*D!
Love Neighbor!
Love Self!
Love Enemies!
Love One Another!

Look at the interpenetration of these. On the day you know them, you will know you’re in the swirl of love beyond definition - I’m in G*D, I’m in you, G*D and you are in me. Those I love will be loved by others; the others I love will be loved by you.

These loves are what abide. Bless them by opening your abode to be their abiding place.

= = = = = = =

And do NOT put up with Bullsh*t Money Changers, demons or any other form of intolerance!

Tom

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-1415-21.html

just because

If you love me . . . .

Such conditional statements lead us down crooked paths.

How much different would be our judgment of one another if we were hear this as: “I love you and invite you to practice these ways of loving one another.”

And I will ask the Father . . . .

The condition is continued as though an “Advocate” would be withheld on the basis of the limits of my “love”.

Far clearer is 14:18 — I will not leave you orphaned; I am with you already.

Sorrow enters every life, bidden and unbidden. We lose track of our grounding presence of basic joy that everything is connected to everything; stardust shows up in even our least attractive feature. Even on a day of sorrow we will, again and again, catch a glimpse of background joy—you in me, and I in you.

This is enough, particularly when we return to a conditionality of keeping practices of life as though they were law.

Don’t go around too many bushes without stopping to smell the flowers at verse 18.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/05/john-1415-21.html