A Homily – The Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year C)

First Reading - Acts 15:1-2,22-29 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 66(67):2-3,5-6,8 ©

Second Reading – Apocalypse 21:10-14,22-23 ©

Alternative Second Reading – Apocalypse 22:12-14,16-17,20 ©

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:23

The Gospel According to John 14:23-29 ©

 

 (NJB)

 

Listen!

Salvation is not earned, it is a gift. It is the fulfillment of God’s intention for you and the whole of creation. Salvation is not linked to our rites and rituals, to the way we mark ourselves as belonging to a group, or not, to whether we are in or outside of the Church. Our ultimate salvation has nothing to do with the things we eat, or with our deeds whether they are good or bad ones.

 Our Salvation comes from God and we are all saved together; until we have arrived at its fullness we are not saved at all.

 Be mindful.

 The psalmist is right to ask God to bless all peoples and all nations; to have pity and to be merciful in the fulfillment of God’s promise.

 Know this:

 God’s work is not confined to a single place and time, neither does God belong to one people.

 God, who created the universe, is the God of everyone; whether they know of God or not. God is still God.

 Ask for God’s blessing, not just four yourself, but ask for the divine spirit to bless everyone, even the exile…even your enemy.

 When we visualize the fulfilment of God’s promise, when we reflect on the heavenly worlds and the paradise to come, let all the talk of heavenly rewards, of precious metals and precious stones, let that fall away; forget the talk of gold and gems.

 Ignore the jingoism, the fetish with Israel and Jerusalem, they are not relevant to these reflections. Every reference we find in scripture to such material things, or the work of human beings, is a distraction from the central message the gospels are meant to convey.

 Know this!

 Where God is there is God who sustains all things within the divine self.

 Within God, who is the parent of all that live, there is no temple, there is no altar, there is no edifice or anything we would recognize as the structure of a Church; there is no cathedral, there is no basilica…where God is there is light, and love and peace.

 The light has no limit, the light shines forever and there is no darkness in it; in God’s embrace all people are welcome, and no one will come to it who has not been prepared for it.

 Remember.

 God prepares us all and makes us ready for the way; where God dwells there are no gates. People will come having passed through every plane of existence, they will come from all directions. 

 Every person will receive what they deserve; as the children of God they will receive God’s love, they will be forgiven just as Jesus prayed when he was dying on the cross. We will all receive mercy through the auspices of the heavenly will we will be cleansed and made well, healed and made happy; we will be whole. The hungry will be fed and the thirsty will drink, the gift is free; it is the promise of God.

 Understand this:

 God is present in all of God’s children and where God is present God is present fully. There is no division in the divine, and with the divine is every is every person who has ever been, who is and who yet shall be; the divine is inclusive of all reality…no-one is excluded. Everyone is present within the divine, as such they are present within each of us, for each of us carries the divine within ourselves.

 Jesus is the son of God, in the same way that each of us is a child of God; a son or daughter, therefore love one another, as God loves you…this is the great commandment, and do not be afraid, for life on Earth is merely a passage to another world; our experience represents the unfolding of a mystery.

 God abandons no-one; God will leave no orphans, no-one will be left stranded in the throws of sin; not one of us shall be lost. Everything, and everyone, returns to the creator, in so doing we come to the understanding that we never apart.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today.

 There are passages, and there are many of them, in which the Gospels provide the reader with only a tangled and confused set of words and concepts that do little to shed light on anything good or meaningful.

 The Gospel for today is one of those passages.

 Of the four Gospel’s, John’s has the least concern for historical accuracy. It was written more than one hundred years after Jesus’ death and it is likely that the event portrayed here never happened, that Jesus never spoke these words in this way.

 What this meandering passage represents is the thoughts and feelings of John’s community at the end of the first century CE. It fully represents the mystical and mysterious way in which Christians had come to see the life of Jesus in relationship to God. It does this in terms that have a connection to some of the prevailing philosophical beliefs regarding the metaphysical structure of reality, but does nothing to explicate the system of beliefs it is specifically engaging…it is poor theology.

 This type of thinking has been a burden on the faith over the centuries and millennia; it should be struck from the cannon because it is impossible for us to know what the Gospel writers meant, what the limits of their thinking was, never mind the fact that the philosophies of the ancient world, their metaphysical systems, were false; because they are errant there is little in those thought systems that can help us understand ourselves, the world we live in, or our relationship to God.

 What truth we can glean from today’s passage is this:

 Jesus prayed to God on behalf of his followers, he prayed that they would understand both his mission and the mission he was passing on to them. He prayed for their unity, heHe prayed that they love one another, and that the message they carried forward in his name was one of love.

 This Gospel passage has the appearance of being directed specifically to Christians, and that is unfortunate because the mission of Jesus crosses all boundaries; sectarian, national, ethnic and gender.

 This Gospel passage is overly concerned with the message regarding the identity of Jesus, as such it is dogmatic, it pushes the message of who John’s community believed Jesus was, over and against the mission to preach the love of God. This is not what Jesus himself taught, and in this way the Gospel deviates from the faith.

 Who Jesus was in the world, and what we believe about that is not germane. Such beliefs have no bearing on the way that is meant to be the core teaching leading into the Christian life.

 As followers of the way, rather than concerning ourselves with who we believe Jesus was, we need to concern ourselves with how Jesus was in the world, and with how we may be able to live a loving life according to the standard Jesus set.

First Reading - Acts 15:1-2,22-29 ©

It Has Been Decided by the Spirit and by Ourselves Not to Burden You with Any Burden Beyond these Essentials

Some men came down from Judaea and taught the brothers, ‘Unless you have yourselves circumcised in the tradition of Moses you cannot be saved.’ This led to disagreement, and after Paul and Barnabas had had a long argument with these men it was arranged that Paul and Barnabas and others of the church should go up to Jerusalem and discuss the problem with the apostles and elders.

Then the apostles and elders decided to choose delegates to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; the whole church concurred with this. They chose Judas known as Barsabbas and Silas, both leading men in the brotherhood, and gave them this letter to take with them:

‘The apostles and elders, your brothers, send greetings to the brothers of pagan birth in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. We hear that some of our members have disturbed you with their demands and have unsettled your minds. They acted without any authority from us; and so we have decided unanimously to elect delegates and to send them to you with Barnabas and Paul, men we highly respect who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accordingly we are sending you Judas and Silas, who will confirm by word of mouth what we have written in this letter. It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials: you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols; from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from fornication. Avoid these, and you will do what is right. Farewell.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 66(67):2-3,5-6,8 ©

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.

Alleluia!

O God, be gracious and bless us

  and let your face shed its light upon us.

So will your ways be known upon earth

  and all nations learn your saving help.

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.

Let the nations be glad and exult

  for you rule the world with justice.

With fairness you rule the peoples,

  you guide the nations on earth.

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.

Let the peoples praise you, O God;

  let all the peoples praise you.

May God still give us his blessing

  till the ends of the earth revere him.

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.

Alleluia!

 

Second Reading – Apocalypse 21:10-14,22-23 ©

He Showed Me the Holy City Coming Down Out of Heaven

In the spirit, the angel took me to the top of an enormous high mountain and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven. It had all the radiant glory of God and glittered like some precious jewel of crystal-clear diamond. The walls of it were of a great height, and had twelve gates; at each of the twelve gates there was an angel, and over the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; on the east there were three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. The city walls stood on twelve foundation stones, each one of which bore the name of one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

I saw that there was no temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple, and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:23

Alleluia, alleluia!

Jesus said: ‘If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him.’

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John 14:23-29 ©

A Peace the World Cannot Give is My Gift to You

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.

Those who do not love me do not keep my words.

And my word is not my own: it is the word of the one who sent me.

I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.

Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

You heard me say: I am going away, and shall return.

If you loved me you would have been glad to know that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

I have told you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe.’

 

A Homily – The Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year C)