Easter 6A

Once again, the gospel reading rings with overtones — overtones that point us back to Holy Week and the Last Supper and overtones that point us forward to the Feast of Pentecost which is now just two weeks away from today. As is always the case with the Gospel according to John, the language is rich, poetic and circles back on itself. A sentence like, ‘I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you,’ is delightful to read out loud because of its rhythm even though it conveys some very complex ideas (in other words, don’t be fooled by all the monosyllabic words!).

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However, the sentence that keeps jumping out at me is the opening one, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’ In any other circumstance, I would almost label it coercion. Whether or not someone has ever said to us, ‘If you love me, you will do such-and-such,’ we certainly know of people who have been abused and fooled by those words: ‘If you love me, you will sleep with me.’ ‘If you love me, you will let me drink in peace.’ ‘If you love me, you will do as I say.’ ‘If you love me, you won’t tell anyone.’ That conditional sentence, set off by that initial word, ‘if,’ raises all sorts of red flags. Just what sort of coercion is going on? Or is not it coercion but a simple statement of fact?
Raymond Brown translates this verse as, ‘If you love me and keep my commandments, then at my request the Father will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever.’ He interprets ‘keep’ as to mean ‘fulfill.’ The sense of fulfilling the Father’s commandments is used elsewhere in this gospel for keeping Jesus’ commandments; in other gospels, it is associated with keeping the Ten Commandments. (1)

Underneath this legalistic-sounding demand to fulfill the commandments, lies what Jesus really is telling the disciples, ‘Love me.’ Jesus’ response to that love, in return, results in his sending the Comforter, the Paraclete, to dwell with us.
The key to getting beyond any sense of coercion lies then in our desire to love God. If we love someone, we will act out of our free will and not because of some demand placed on us. If we love God, we will fulfill this conditional sentence because we want to, not because we have to.

Jean Vanier clarifies this passage that begins with that tricky word, ‘If.’ He says: ‘But the Paraclete, Jesus and the Father will only come if…. This is not a threat but a promise, a promise that if we keep his commandments or words, the Paraclete will be given to us. The “if” is a condition and implies that we are called to struggle against all those forces of egotism that prevent us from keeping God’s commandments.

‘And these commandments, what are they? Essentially, they are commandments of love: to serve each other, to be compassionate, to live in communion with one another, not to judge or condemn but to forgive, to love enemies, to live the beatitudes, to wash each other’s feet. The commandment of Jesus is that we love one another as he loves us. This is his way, the way to God. We are called to leave behind all the selfish attitudes of the world, to no longer put all our energies into the pursuit of power, wealth, honour, and superficial friendships. It implies struggles, moments of grief, purifications. We cannot be moved by the Spirit for the things of God if we are seeking only the things of the world.

‘Our inner “home” has to be emptied, cleansed of all the mess and dirt, freed from all forms of selfishness and certain human needs in order for it to become the dwelling place of God. This takes time — a whole lifetime!

‘In these passages, sometimes Jesus uses the plural “you,” meaning all of you, together, and sometimes the singular, “you,” an individual person. The Holy Spirit will be in the group, will live in the Church, but the Spirit will make her home in each person “if… each one of us keeps God’s word and commandments.’ (2)

This all still seems like an awful lot to absorb and bear, a seemingly impossible task at times.

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Two chapters later, Jesus will say to the disciples, ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.’ Bishop Gene Robinson (who readily admits that the Gospel according to John is not his favourite because in it Jesus seems to know so much), says that this verse jumped out at him recently. He realises that just as the disciples were not able to bear all that Jesus had to tell them, so are we not able to bear all that Jesus has to tell us. We know what we know for the time being and bit by bit, we advance in our quest for God, and bringing God’s kingdom about in our time.

But I think our souls and hearts can bear to hear the main focus of this part of the ‘Last Discourse’ because its overriding message is that God desires intimacy with us. Paul in his speech to the Athenians says of God, ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’ (words that are incorporated into a collect in Morning Prayer). Just as we abide in God, so does God abide in us. And what that abiding means is intimacy with God.

The greatest gift of all is the gift of intimacy with God. Jesus says, ‘I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.’ There is an intimacy of love here that is without correlation in the religious world.… The intimacy Jesus speaks of here is without parallel. He speaks of the love that exists between those who cherish and honor his teachings and how they are loved by God and by himself. Furthermore, he will make himself known to his followers even beyond his death.

Put in more simple terms, Jesus tells his followers and us:

I am in My Father.
You are in me.
I am in you.
You will be loved by God.
You will be loved by me.
I will reveal myself to you. (3)

Despite the seemingly impossible task of obeying God’s commands set ahead of us, we can do it because God abides in Christ and Christ abides in us and we abide in God and Christ with the Holy Spirit, the breath of life, animating us. So, do not be afraid, little ones: God is with us and in us, making all things possible... and it's not coertion.

END NOTES
(1) Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John: XIII-XXI, The Anchor Bible, vol. 29 (NY, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 637-45.

(2) Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004), 262-63.

(3) http://www.lectionarysermons.com/may09=99.html

[photo: flowers in memory of my namesake who died 13 years ago on 2 May]