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In the time after the Resurrection and before the Ascension our Gospel readings this year focus on Jesus reassuring the disciples: where will they find God without him? how will they know which way to follow? Today, in John 14:15-21, Jesus again explains that God is present there in and among them; that were there is community, dwelling together in love, there God will be also. Paul echoes this in Acts 17:22-31 as he stands in the public square before the statues of every God: “God does not live in shrines made by human hands” for “in him we live and move and have our being.” Paul’s message is universal, we all bear God’s imprint, for “he made all nations” and we are all his offspring. Where we see the works of love offered to all, there we see God.
The work of love has no limits but we do. Jesus calls us not rely on own strength but to be drawn into closer relationship with one another and God, so that the gift of love may be shared among us. As we grow into beloved community, able to both give and receive, we find ourselves resourced for the work God gives us.
This Sunday also marks the beginning of Christian Aid Week. This year the focus is on families who are being helped to grow their own food in a crowded informal settlement outside Nairobi. Supporting Christian Aid is one way in which we can share God's love in practical action to help our neighbours in deprived parts of God's world.
It is all very well Jesus telling us (as he does in John 14:1-10) not to be troubled or afraid but our lives are full of doubt and uncertainty and we all struggle knowing which way to go. So we can sympathise with Philip who longs for certainty, for something concrete, when he begs Jesus to just “show us the father”.
Jesus is exasperated: “have I been with you all this time and still you do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the father.” Do you still not get it? No! we don’t. We look for something outside of ourselves when all the time God is revealing Godself within us and within each other.
God, faith, the meaning of life, all of this can only be found by living it. Jesus goes on: “if you do not believe [because of me] then believe me because of the works themselves”. Are our actions and choices, our communities and relationships, bearing fruit? Where can we see human flourishing? What is leading to justice, peace, healing and love? For wherever we see these things there we will find God.
Jesus asks us not to seek certainty but instead to trust, to trust that God chose us and through us will do “greater works than these”. When our hearts our troubled and our way is not clear, let us look to whatever is true, honourable, just and pure … and the God of peace will be with us.
It’s Good Shepherd Sunday: this year’s gospel, John 10:1-10, focuses, not just on the sheep and the shepherds but on the sheep fold and, in particular, the gate to the fold. We are used to hearing the sheep and shepherd stories: we understand that God promises to care for us as a shepherd cares for her flock and that we are also called to be shepherds of God’s people, caring for others. When Jesus calls himself the sheep gate, though, things get trickier. Gates open both ways: they open and close, they allow for the sheep to go in and go out. The church has often been a closed a gate, keeping out those who might harm the sheep, keeping the sheep safe. But the gate in this morning’s reading seems to be open continually, allowing the sheep in and out. Although we are called to be both sheep and shepherds, I’m not sure that we are called to be the gate; this is God’s job, not ours. God is the one who gets to decide who comes in, not us, as the reading from Acts 2:42-47, reminds us: “everyday the Lord added to their number”. Our job is to embrace all whom God sends whomever they may be.
The life of the risen Christ takes root in us slowly. In our readings today we hear how it impacted those who first heard it. In Acts, 2:14a, 36-41, there is sorrow and regret. Peter explains that what
is required is the desire to change, to repent, to turn around and be prepared to start again. Yet there is something that must come before this: In Luke 24:13-35, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, must first voice their disappointment, their crushed hopes “we had hoped”, they say “that he was the one to redeem Israel”. It only when they can let go of their own hopes that they are ready to receive the altogether larger, all encompassing hope that Jesus offers them, not just for their own people, but for all God’s children.
Jesus has done his job and now the task of living the resurrection is handed over to us. We are not expected to do this on our own: both of today’s readings focus on the gift of the Holy Spirit that the risen Christ sends us. For Peter, Acts 2:14a, 22-32, this is a dramatic and powerful gift: he recalls the prophet Joel promising that the spirit will be poured out on all people: old and young, men and women, slave and free. This gift allows us to dream new dreams and envisage a new future for all god’s people. For the disciples, gathered together in fear after Christ’s death, John 20:19-31, the receipt of this gift is an altogether more gentle affair. Christ breathes the spirit on them. It begins with assuring us that we are forgiven; that the worst we can do does not have to be the last word; that even places of despair and hopelessness can be places of redemption and renewal.