These past few weeks, the lectionary readings have been from the First Letter of John. At the heart of each reading for the past three weeks and for the next two weeks has been one word…love. In this passage alone within the space of 15 verses, John uses the word “love” 25 times. You can hardly miss his point!
Yet, the word love, as frequently intoned as it is, is not so easy to define. Throughout centuries scholars have spent lifetimes crafting definitions of love that adequately describe the philosophical, ontological and metaphysical reality of this human phenomenon. Recently I received an email with this very question. But this time rather than leave the answers to the scholars of the day, a group decided to ask children ages 4 to 8 the simple question…what is love? Here are a few of their answers.
"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6
"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine-age 5
"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my mommy waving and smiling. She was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy - age 8
"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7
Love is like how my mommy says my name, When someone who loves you they say your name it is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4
The children need no fancy words or theological concepts to understand love…they know it when they see it…or better put, they know it when they feel it. You see, love is not an abstract concept or philosophical state of being, much to the chagrin of countless philosophers and theologians throughout time. No, love is a concrete reality that we as humans are open to experience through our relationships with one another.
Reading back over these statements, it is striking how many children identify love with their mothers. In the very ordinary events of making coffee, saying goodnight and speaking their names, the children recognize love in their mother’s actions.
For many of us our first experience of love does come through a mother’s love…the warm embrace and light kisses on our cheeks and foreheads (kisses that we soon struggle to avoid once we reach adolescence), the cold-compresses and hot bowls of chicken soup when we are sick, the compassionate embraces of forgiveness after we have done the worst, the unconditional support and encouragement no matter how poorly we might play the clarinet, or kick the ball, or swing the bat or dance in the recital.
Being a mother is never biologically determined…mothering transcends kinship ties. For some of us, our own biological mothers provided more harm than healing, more conflict than love and so we had to look elsewhere to find the mothering we needed. For many of us that first experience of love came through mother figures, people, both women and men, who modeled that type of unconditional love through their actions.
For me, I came to know love most fully in the arms of Mama Tana, my adopted Nicaraguan mother. Mama Tana was a beautiful, big round woman, with a smile and a laugh that could crack any frown. Although Mama Tana had her own brood…there were more than 25 people living in her three room house…her love was endless and overflowed to all who knew her. Everyone in town called her Mama, from the adopted daughters she took in to live with her to the street vendors to the children at school. Just as she mothered the town, Mama Tana soon became my mother as well.
I remember vividly one night coming to her house after work. I had had a bad day and felt horrible. I felt as though I was a bad teacher, a horrible person and a faithless Christian. Mama Tana took one look at me and asked me how I was…I tried to answer but found instead of words only sobs came. I could not explain to her how awful I felt, how inadequate, how alone, how alienated. All I could do was cry…and as I did, Mama Tana enveloped me in her in wide arms and held me close, rocking me as if I were an infant. In her embrace I suddenly felt warm all over, the dark depression in which I found myself was shattered by a light of hope and love. Mama Tana loved me no matter what I did. In those few moments, I knew the grace of God in Mama Tana’s arms. Soon after I bought the picture I showed to you, for it became to me a picture of the Divine Mama Tana, the God of love I had experienced in her arms.
It is through experiences like these of human love that we glimpse God’s love for us. John is clear that while we may not be able to see God, at least not in this lifetime, we can come to know God through the love we have for one another: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” If we love one another, God lives in us.
You see John understands that love is the very foundation of God’s being. When all else is said and done, God is love. We know this not through theological speculation or philosophical deduction, but through our concrete relationships with others. It is only through the love we have for one another that we come to know and experience God in our lives.
In a very real way, the love of our mothers’, both biological and chosen, incarnates for us the love of God. God, like a mother, continuously brings forth new life nurtures and cares for creation, wipes away tears, gives comfort and grants us grace beyond measure no matter what we do. While not often as well known as the passages that compare God to a Father, the Bible is indeed full of images of God as mother.
God is described throughout Scripture as a loving mother: God is a woman in labor whose forceful breath is an image of divine power; God is a mother suckling her children; God is a mother who does not forget the child she nurses; God is a mother who comforts her children; God is a mother who births and protects Israel; God is a mother who gave birth to the Israelites. The early scripture writers understood the ways in which the Divine is known to us through our mothers. Through this human love we come to know divine love in God, as we are birthed, fed, nurtured, comforted and cared for. It makes you wonder why we call God “he” when the Bible is full of so much rich mothering imagery for God!
The imagery is indeed rich and multi-layered, giving us glimpses of the diverse and depth of the Divine character. Loving and caring, yes, but also fierce and faithful. God’s love as mother is also portrayed as fierce. In scripture we read of God as a Mother eagle and mother bear, fiercely protecting their young against life-threatening situations. Jesus himself is described as a mother hen who gathers in her brood, to shelter and care for them, to instruct and teach them in the ways of the world.
This fierce love at times becomes swallowed up in our hallmark inspired sentimentality around this special day. We romanticize the love of our mothers as gentle and soft and forget the ways in which mothers reveal to us the tougher ways in which God calls us to love. Love is never easy, even with our mothers!
The original Mother’s Day proclamation was not a sappy rhyming poem inscribed on a greeting card, rather this is how it read”
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender to those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
- from Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870 by Julia Ward Howe
Mother's Day in this country began not as a chance to support Hallmark, but as a cry for peace. “Our husbands will not come reeking with carnage and our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn what we have taught them.” This proclamation is more than tender reverence for mothers; it is a cry of protest amid a violent nation. Mothers everywhere are called to say no to violence and yes to peace, called to reveal God’s fierce love for humanity in a resolute stand against the world’s warring madness.
Having lived through the civil war in this country, Julia Ward Howe was keenly aware of the pain, loss and grief war inflicts on mothers everywhere …no matter which side they fought on. She understood the ties that bind those who mother and sought to use this common bond to seek peace and reconciliation in a time of war.
“We, the women of this country, will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” Mother’s Day originally transcended nuclear family ties and instead of binding one small household in maternal love, stretched the familial ties across nations and around the world. In this proclamation she united mothers everywhere in a love that sought, not just comfort for some, but peace and justice for all.
Julia Ward Howe understood that the Christian call to family transcends our common notions of kinship. Rather than idolize the perfect nuclear family of mother, father, son and daughter, the kinship lines of the Church, of the Body of Christ, transcend these divisions, uniting us all in a common family, with God as our Mother, our heavenly parent. As Christians, we proclaim, “we are family” as a radical form of protest to the ways in which the world seeks to divide us from one another.
The early church knew that the tie that binds was not one of family lineage, nor city state nor nation. No, the family to which we owe our primary allegiance is our Christian family, that transcends common kinship bonds.
Jesus, who longed to gather us as a hen gathers her children, spoke of us as a single family, with one divine parent. He spoke of us as a single living vine, all of us branches of one being. “I am the vine and you are the branches,” said Jesus. We are all intimately connected to one another in this great global family. What happens to one, happens to all.
Peace begins in knowing that our enemies are not "other," but ourselves. The strangers whom we battle are the brothers and sisters whose hearts are bound with ours. Those whom we dehumanize and demonize and belittle and ignore are our own flesh and blood. When we turn away from genocide in Dafur and tolerate sweatshops in Nicaragua, it is our own family that we are abusing. And our divine Mother weeps equally for us all. We want so deeply for God to care a little more about us than our enemies, but she will not. If we can know God’s love through the love of the mother’s in our lives, we can understand the ways in which God loves all her children equally with a fierce and tender love that transcends our limited notions of human kinship. She loves all her children, and neither our pride nor our fear will dissuade her.
Give thanks for the love of our Mother God. Give thanks for our kindred, even the ones with whom we fight. Pray that God will have mercy on us and heal our bitter hearts. Pray that we will honor our unity in God's love. This Mother's Day, pray that we may come to know that we are all children of one Mother, loving and all-powerful, who gives her life for us, that we may have life, and have it abundantly.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Stand Our Ground
"Weeping may linger for the night,"
Today we weep at the news that California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the unjust ballot initiative that stripped the right to marry from thousands of loving couples. We mourn the seeming triumph of prejudice and discrimination and lament the loss of marriage equality for the citizens of California.
"but joy comes with the morning. "
- Psalm 30:5a
Today we weep at the news that California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the unjust ballot initiative that stripped the right to marry from thousands of loving couples. We mourn the seeming triumph of prejudice and discrimination and lament the loss of marriage equality for the citizens of California.
"but joy comes with the morning. "
Psalm 30:5b
Yet, we are reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." We have been promised by God a new world order in which peace and justice flow, in which love and compassion trump hatred, bigotry and prejudice. And it is in this coming kin-dom that we place our faith, for already we see glimpses of it breaking through. . .
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Maine
Iowa. . .
and many more to come. . .
Today we weep, but tomorrow we find our joy in action, making real that vision of the kin-dom through inspired commitments, passionate advocacy and unrelenting activism!
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Maine
Iowa. . .
and many more to come. . .
Today we weep, but tomorrow we find our joy in action, making real that vision of the kin-dom through inspired commitments, passionate advocacy and unrelenting activism!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
We 've Only Just Begun
When I was little, I had a children’s bible storybook. It began with some stories from the Hebrew Testament…Moses and the burning bush, David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah. It went on to tell the story of Jesus’ birth and life, focusing on the miracles of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, raising the dead. The final chapter of the book depicted Jesus’ death on a cross and his glorious resurrection. I remember clearly the very last page of the book with Jesus draped in long, white flowing fabric, seemingly floating above the tomb with golden rays beaming from a magnificent halo hovering just above his head.
“And when the disciples went to the tomb, they found it empty, for Jesus had risen from the dead. The End!”
The end? Yes, the end. Most children’s books depict the Christian story centered chronologically around the life of Jesus. Birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection. The end.
Is resurrection really the end of the story? Is that really all there is to our faith? If resurrection is the end of the story, what is the point? Why bother being Christian? Why bother living a life in the image of Christ if all is done and accomplished once and for all??
Yet, resurrection is not the end of the Christian story; it is only just the beginning. While it is true that our faith tradition extends far back, sharing common ancestry with our Jewish and Muslim cousins through our ancestors Abraham and Sarah, it is equally true that our faith tradition extends far forward into the future, decades, centuries after Jesus life, death and resurrection as a living, breathing, dynamic faith.
Jesus knew that his death would not be the end of this radical movement of faith of which he was a part. Jesus knew that after he was gone, the disciples and friends would be called upon to do much greater things than he had ever done. Jesus knew that the story was not ending…it was simply beginning.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus articulates this understanding of post-resurrection life (really, post-death life, since it is highly unlikely even Jesus suspected the divine surprise of resurrection as depicted in scripture…). This evening, we read a portion of Jesus’ prayer on behalf of the disciples and the future church as paraphrased by Walter Wink. The author of John, writing almost a century after the death and resurrection of Jesus uses this prayer to frame both the hopes and challenges of the early church.
The prayer articulates both Jesus’ task while alive and the call of the disciples after his death. I appreciate Wink’s translation in that it highlights Jesus’ purpose not in dying, but in living. Jesus’ task was not to reveal Divine purpose in his torturous death on a cross, but rather to reveal the Gospel embodied, incarnated in his life and ministry.
“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. I have revealed your essence to those who have been responsive to me…Now they know that everything you have given me is from you. They have grasped the fact that everything I have disclosed comes from you, for I have taught them what you have been teaching me.”
This passing on of divine knowledge is not, however, merely a transmission of information or facts. It is not a deposit of holy secrets through rational, logical argumentation. Rather, the way in which Jesus taught the disciples happened in and through relationship. Theologian, William Loader, describes it this way: “The offer is, in that sense, not revelation (information, knowledge-about), but relationship (coming to know a person).” This relationship is an intimate connection not just between Jesus and God, but in, among and between humanity and the Divine.
Jesus prays, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine. They are yours, I am yours, you are ours.”
It is an intimate, mutual relationship that bridges the gap between the divine and human. Indeed, this is what atonement is. At-one-ment…the bringing together of divine and human in one…not just in the person of Jesus, but in all Creation. Through Jesus’ life and ministry the world and the Divine are made one.
This relationship is the key to understanding post-resurrection life. For this mutual, cooperative relationship between human and Divine sets the stage for what the disciples are called to do. Just as Jesus’ task was to reveal the Gospel through his life and ministry, so also the disciples, now seen as one with the Divine are also called to embody the Gospel for the world.
The post-resurrection call to the disciples is not about discrete knowledge which they are to pass on as a street corner evangelist shouting propositional truths. No, the post-resurrection call on the disciples is to embody a very way of being in the world so that in and through their lives, others can come to know and practice the way of resurrection life, so that the at-one-ment Jesus began can continue in the world in and through their witness.
Wink’s interpretation of this passage makes this point absolutely clear:
“As I have humanized your divinity, so you are divinizing our humanity. The qualitative distinction between you and us dissolves. The divine prerogatives are given to humanity…Your real capacity to incarnate in human beings, God, is evidenced not just by your presence and power in me, but in the capacity of these nobodies to create a movement that will span the globe.”
Clearly, resurrection is not the end of the story, for through this prayer we see that Jesus’ resurrection initiates a radical movement that will span the globe. Divinity does not simply apparate or ascend into heaven after the resurrection….no, this prayer suggests that indeed the Holy dwells even more intimately in and among the world through the concrete lives of the disciples. For in them, not just in Jesus, the Divine has been incarnated.
Here the focus shifts clearly from Jesus to humanity. From Christ to us. Look around. God is incarnate in each of us here today. We are the modern disciples who now bear God’s image for the world in our lives and in our ministries.
This indeed is a gift of grace, but this gift also comes with great responsibility.
We not only share in the same relationship with Jesus and God, intimately, mutually bound, but we also share the same task that we are to embody the Divine for the world. Look around. If the world is to know God, it is only in and through our witness. We are it, for better or for worse.
Easier said than done, right?
And Jesus knew that. This prayer in John that we read this evening depicts Jesus as a compassionate friend who knows well the dangers his friends will face after he is gone. The prayer itself is a plea for strength in the face of the inevitable challenges that come with embodying the Divine for the world.
The community of John knew these dangers first hand. The early Christians were marginalized, excluded and oppressed by both the mainline Jewish community and the secular culture in which they lived. The Domination System, that is the status quo of power, where might makes right, is diametrically opposed to the way of the kin-dom and challenges disciples then and now in their efforts to live the way of Christ. Love, peace, mercy, compassion, non-violence, forgiveness, justice…these are alien to the Domination System. To live lives marked by these qualities those who seek to follow Christ’s way must confront the domination systems in their lives and in the world.
Jesus understood that this constant confrontation with the world around them would be difficult. The temptations of losing hope, of giving up, of walking away from all they had been taught were real for the disciples…for Gospel living in the midst of the Domination System is no easy task! The reference to Judas reminds the listeners, ancient and contemporary, of the dangers of becoming alienated from God in the midst of struggle. For John, the danger here is not in discrete acts of sin (selling Jesus to the authorities for a bribe), but rather in losing touch with both the vision of the coming kin-dom and the intimate relationship between humanity and Divine. Judas gave up the vision of the kin-dom in which peace and justice flow both because he could not believe it to be true and because he did not understand the depth of relationship between himself and the Divine. By alienating himself from God, he cut himself off from deep love, compassion and mercy…so much so that he abandoned both Jesus and himself to death.
Often, these challenges are framed as obstacles only the Divine can overcome and the prayer interpreted as a plea on Jesus’ behalf to help the clueless disciples in their post-resurrection life. God help these poor souls! But this is no prayer to magically protect the disciples from harm. This is no Divine defense charm. Jesus understands that the way of protection is not through the elimination of challenge, sorrow or danger, but in and through the Divine relationship.
Jesus prays, “Enfold them in your very being. You cannot surround them with a perfect providence that prevents their suffering the normal outrages of physical illness or rejection and persecution by the Powers. You certainly haven't done that for me! But in that enfolding you can make them one with you and with me and with each other. You can give them a foretaste of your domination-free order.”
What I so appreciate about Wink’s interpretation is that he continues to highlight and emphasize the significance of the relationship between humanity and the Divine. It is in and through this relationship that the disciples find not just comfort, but power and agency.
In this translation, Jesus is not begging for the silly, foolish, lost disciples, but rather voicing their agency and power as the ones who will continue the task of being the Gospel for the World. In Wink’s interpretation, these are no helpless disciples. These are agents and bearers of great power.
“While I was with them, I protected them… I guarded them. I sent them out as sheep among wolves, but they were not, for all that, defenseless. Your very being was at their core, and that itself is a miraculously disarming power….Until now they have been limited in what they can do, because they have projected all their own divine powers on me and on you. But now that I am to be killed, they will no longer have me to carry their projections. They will discover powers unimaginable within themselves--your divine power within them, Abba. And they will do greater works than even I did, because I am getting out of their way. And we are getting into them in a new way.”
Far too often we imagine ourselves as powerless in the face of the challenges of the world. Far too often we project all of our own power onto the god-head, seeking help from above, when we already possess the power to change the world.
Jesus understands this, praying, “They do not yet understand that my leaving them will complete their joy. Right now they are content with theophanies, disclosures of divine love and power, signs and wonders. But the thing they lack is completion in themselves.”
Of course, this notion of powerlessness in the face of the Divine has been reinforced through our Christian traditions time and time again. The “infinite gap between human and Divine” emphasized to the exclusion of seeing in ourselves the image of the Divine. Now, don’t get me wrong, this passage does not say we are invincible. It does not deny that we will face challenges or even that we will sometimes fail. What it does do, is help us to see the Divinity that lies within us, so that not only do we have the power to face the challenges of the world, but we also have the assurance that God dwells in and through us no matter what happens.
Listen again to these words… “Like a catalyst I have opened them to their utmost possibilities, but they have persisted in identifying them with me. In my absence they will be thrown on your power within them. When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.”
“I have opened them to their utmost possibilities… When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.” Our post-resurrection task is to discover and unleash that power we have been given in and through our relationship with the Divine. When we take these words of Jesus seriously, we begin to see ourselves as the very soul of the Divine making real for the world God’s love in our concrete everyday actions.
We are no hapless disciples, abandoned in the world without any help. No, we have been empowered, not just to proclaim the Gospel, but to be the Gospel.
The end? No, not ever. Resurrection is not the end of the story. It is just the beginning, for resurrection is Divine power for transformation poured out into human form….not just Jesus’, but ours. Look around. Christ is present!
Resurrection did not end with Jesus 200 years ago, but continues to transform and shape the world in dynamic ways to the extent to which we live out its practices in the world. When we begin to take seriously the at-one-ment with the Divine we witness through Jesus’ life and ministry, when we begin to understand the depths of our relationship in and to the Divine, when we look in the mirror and recognize the Holy incarnate in ourselves, we become empowered to take on the task and challenge of living out resurrection life each and every day.
Resurrection is not the end….it is our beginning!
“And when the disciples went to the tomb, they found it empty, for Jesus had risen from the dead. The End!”
The end? Yes, the end. Most children’s books depict the Christian story centered chronologically around the life of Jesus. Birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection. The end.
Is resurrection really the end of the story? Is that really all there is to our faith? If resurrection is the end of the story, what is the point? Why bother being Christian? Why bother living a life in the image of Christ if all is done and accomplished once and for all??
Yet, resurrection is not the end of the Christian story; it is only just the beginning. While it is true that our faith tradition extends far back, sharing common ancestry with our Jewish and Muslim cousins through our ancestors Abraham and Sarah, it is equally true that our faith tradition extends far forward into the future, decades, centuries after Jesus life, death and resurrection as a living, breathing, dynamic faith.
Jesus knew that his death would not be the end of this radical movement of faith of which he was a part. Jesus knew that after he was gone, the disciples and friends would be called upon to do much greater things than he had ever done. Jesus knew that the story was not ending…it was simply beginning.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus articulates this understanding of post-resurrection life (really, post-death life, since it is highly unlikely even Jesus suspected the divine surprise of resurrection as depicted in scripture…). This evening, we read a portion of Jesus’ prayer on behalf of the disciples and the future church as paraphrased by Walter Wink. The author of John, writing almost a century after the death and resurrection of Jesus uses this prayer to frame both the hopes and challenges of the early church.
The prayer articulates both Jesus’ task while alive and the call of the disciples after his death. I appreciate Wink’s translation in that it highlights Jesus’ purpose not in dying, but in living. Jesus’ task was not to reveal Divine purpose in his torturous death on a cross, but rather to reveal the Gospel embodied, incarnated in his life and ministry.
“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. I have revealed your essence to those who have been responsive to me…Now they know that everything you have given me is from you. They have grasped the fact that everything I have disclosed comes from you, for I have taught them what you have been teaching me.”
This passing on of divine knowledge is not, however, merely a transmission of information or facts. It is not a deposit of holy secrets through rational, logical argumentation. Rather, the way in which Jesus taught the disciples happened in and through relationship. Theologian, William Loader, describes it this way: “The offer is, in that sense, not revelation (information, knowledge-about), but relationship (coming to know a person).” This relationship is an intimate connection not just between Jesus and God, but in, among and between humanity and the Divine.
Jesus prays, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine. They are yours, I am yours, you are ours.”
It is an intimate, mutual relationship that bridges the gap between the divine and human. Indeed, this is what atonement is. At-one-ment…the bringing together of divine and human in one…not just in the person of Jesus, but in all Creation. Through Jesus’ life and ministry the world and the Divine are made one.
This relationship is the key to understanding post-resurrection life. For this mutual, cooperative relationship between human and Divine sets the stage for what the disciples are called to do. Just as Jesus’ task was to reveal the Gospel through his life and ministry, so also the disciples, now seen as one with the Divine are also called to embody the Gospel for the world.
The post-resurrection call to the disciples is not about discrete knowledge which they are to pass on as a street corner evangelist shouting propositional truths. No, the post-resurrection call on the disciples is to embody a very way of being in the world so that in and through their lives, others can come to know and practice the way of resurrection life, so that the at-one-ment Jesus began can continue in the world in and through their witness.
Wink’s interpretation of this passage makes this point absolutely clear:
“As I have humanized your divinity, so you are divinizing our humanity. The qualitative distinction between you and us dissolves. The divine prerogatives are given to humanity…Your real capacity to incarnate in human beings, God, is evidenced not just by your presence and power in me, but in the capacity of these nobodies to create a movement that will span the globe.”
Clearly, resurrection is not the end of the story, for through this prayer we see that Jesus’ resurrection initiates a radical movement that will span the globe. Divinity does not simply apparate or ascend into heaven after the resurrection….no, this prayer suggests that indeed the Holy dwells even more intimately in and among the world through the concrete lives of the disciples. For in them, not just in Jesus, the Divine has been incarnated.
Here the focus shifts clearly from Jesus to humanity. From Christ to us. Look around. God is incarnate in each of us here today. We are the modern disciples who now bear God’s image for the world in our lives and in our ministries.
This indeed is a gift of grace, but this gift also comes with great responsibility.
We not only share in the same relationship with Jesus and God, intimately, mutually bound, but we also share the same task that we are to embody the Divine for the world. Look around. If the world is to know God, it is only in and through our witness. We are it, for better or for worse.
Easier said than done, right?
And Jesus knew that. This prayer in John that we read this evening depicts Jesus as a compassionate friend who knows well the dangers his friends will face after he is gone. The prayer itself is a plea for strength in the face of the inevitable challenges that come with embodying the Divine for the world.
The community of John knew these dangers first hand. The early Christians were marginalized, excluded and oppressed by both the mainline Jewish community and the secular culture in which they lived. The Domination System, that is the status quo of power, where might makes right, is diametrically opposed to the way of the kin-dom and challenges disciples then and now in their efforts to live the way of Christ. Love, peace, mercy, compassion, non-violence, forgiveness, justice…these are alien to the Domination System. To live lives marked by these qualities those who seek to follow Christ’s way must confront the domination systems in their lives and in the world.
Jesus understood that this constant confrontation with the world around them would be difficult. The temptations of losing hope, of giving up, of walking away from all they had been taught were real for the disciples…for Gospel living in the midst of the Domination System is no easy task! The reference to Judas reminds the listeners, ancient and contemporary, of the dangers of becoming alienated from God in the midst of struggle. For John, the danger here is not in discrete acts of sin (selling Jesus to the authorities for a bribe), but rather in losing touch with both the vision of the coming kin-dom and the intimate relationship between humanity and Divine. Judas gave up the vision of the kin-dom in which peace and justice flow both because he could not believe it to be true and because he did not understand the depth of relationship between himself and the Divine. By alienating himself from God, he cut himself off from deep love, compassion and mercy…so much so that he abandoned both Jesus and himself to death.
Often, these challenges are framed as obstacles only the Divine can overcome and the prayer interpreted as a plea on Jesus’ behalf to help the clueless disciples in their post-resurrection life. God help these poor souls! But this is no prayer to magically protect the disciples from harm. This is no Divine defense charm. Jesus understands that the way of protection is not through the elimination of challenge, sorrow or danger, but in and through the Divine relationship.
Jesus prays, “Enfold them in your very being. You cannot surround them with a perfect providence that prevents their suffering the normal outrages of physical illness or rejection and persecution by the Powers. You certainly haven't done that for me! But in that enfolding you can make them one with you and with me and with each other. You can give them a foretaste of your domination-free order.”
What I so appreciate about Wink’s interpretation is that he continues to highlight and emphasize the significance of the relationship between humanity and the Divine. It is in and through this relationship that the disciples find not just comfort, but power and agency.
In this translation, Jesus is not begging for the silly, foolish, lost disciples, but rather voicing their agency and power as the ones who will continue the task of being the Gospel for the World. In Wink’s interpretation, these are no helpless disciples. These are agents and bearers of great power.
“While I was with them, I protected them… I guarded them. I sent them out as sheep among wolves, but they were not, for all that, defenseless. Your very being was at their core, and that itself is a miraculously disarming power….Until now they have been limited in what they can do, because they have projected all their own divine powers on me and on you. But now that I am to be killed, they will no longer have me to carry their projections. They will discover powers unimaginable within themselves--your divine power within them, Abba. And they will do greater works than even I did, because I am getting out of their way. And we are getting into them in a new way.”
Far too often we imagine ourselves as powerless in the face of the challenges of the world. Far too often we project all of our own power onto the god-head, seeking help from above, when we already possess the power to change the world.
Jesus understands this, praying, “They do not yet understand that my leaving them will complete their joy. Right now they are content with theophanies, disclosures of divine love and power, signs and wonders. But the thing they lack is completion in themselves.”
Of course, this notion of powerlessness in the face of the Divine has been reinforced through our Christian traditions time and time again. The “infinite gap between human and Divine” emphasized to the exclusion of seeing in ourselves the image of the Divine. Now, don’t get me wrong, this passage does not say we are invincible. It does not deny that we will face challenges or even that we will sometimes fail. What it does do, is help us to see the Divinity that lies within us, so that not only do we have the power to face the challenges of the world, but we also have the assurance that God dwells in and through us no matter what happens.
Listen again to these words… “Like a catalyst I have opened them to their utmost possibilities, but they have persisted in identifying them with me. In my absence they will be thrown on your power within them. When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.”
“I have opened them to their utmost possibilities… When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.” Our post-resurrection task is to discover and unleash that power we have been given in and through our relationship with the Divine. When we take these words of Jesus seriously, we begin to see ourselves as the very soul of the Divine making real for the world God’s love in our concrete everyday actions.
We are no hapless disciples, abandoned in the world without any help. No, we have been empowered, not just to proclaim the Gospel, but to be the Gospel.
The end? No, not ever. Resurrection is not the end of the story. It is just the beginning, for resurrection is Divine power for transformation poured out into human form….not just Jesus’, but ours. Look around. Christ is present!
Resurrection did not end with Jesus 200 years ago, but continues to transform and shape the world in dynamic ways to the extent to which we live out its practices in the world. When we begin to take seriously the at-one-ment with the Divine we witness through Jesus’ life and ministry, when we begin to understand the depths of our relationship in and to the Divine, when we look in the mirror and recognize the Holy incarnate in ourselves, we become empowered to take on the task and challenge of living out resurrection life each and every day.
Resurrection is not the end….it is our beginning!
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