More Than We Can Ask or Imagine
Reflections on John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15
RCL Pentecost B
20 May 2018
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
John 15.26-27; 16.4b-16
15.26[Jesus said to his disciples,] “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
16.4b“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 7Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement: 9about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; 11about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
12“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
(1) When I think about who I am today as a pastor, priest and teacher, I know that I have been influenced by many people, formally and informally. But two people come quickly to mind.
(a) The first is Louis Weil, who was my mentor in seminary and who first set my feet on the path to advanced studies in the history, theology and practice of Christian worship.
(b) From Louis I learned many things, but I remember most his reminder that the disciple of a respected teacher is not meant to become her or his teacher’s clone.
(c) The second was Jim White, may he rest in peace, who became the director of my doctoral thesis after an academic disaster that could have finished my then almost-but-not-yet academic career.
(d) From Jim I learned to look at any development in Christian discipleship with three questions in mind:
(i) How does this development fit into Christian practice over centuries?
(ii) How does this development meet the real needs of real people living in real times and real places?
(iii) How does this development proclaim the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth?
(2) These two men, one now retired and living in the San Francisco Bay area, the other now dead almost fourteen years, came to mind when I read today’s gospel. Within it is one of the sayings of Jesus that has sustained me over the past forty years.
(a) “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” [1]
(b) In these two verses Jesus
(i) unleashes his disciples from any slavish devotion to the past and
(ii) releases them to be agents of God’s transforming love into a world needing the freedom that this love brings to the children of God.
(c) He sends them --- and us --- out as disciples not as clones destined to repeat established habits and customs over and over again in the hopes of different results.
(d) He promises them --- and us --- that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will guide us to ask important questions:
(i) How does our way of being disciples of Jesus fit with the ‘great’ tradition, the tradition we see in Jesus himself?
(ii) How does our way of being disciples of Jesus meet the real needs of real people in this our real time and place?
(iii) How does our way of being disciples of Jesus proclaim the good news of God we have experienced?
(3) This is not something new to this Parish of Saint Faith’s.
(a) Fifteen years after this Parish was established in 1947, a new prayer book embarked us and our whole church on a process of liturgical renewal which continues to this very day.
(b) By the 1960’s this Parish joined others in questioning how the Church ought to honour and recognize the ministry of women, whether in lay or ordained ministry. The ‘Me Too’ movement has shown us that we are still learning.
(c) In 1949 British Columbia permitted aboriginal people to vote in provincial elections, but it was not until 1960 that the suffrage was granted in federal elections. We know that we continue to work for reconciliation and the creation of a truly just society.
(d) During the last twenty years we have taken some risks in order to ‘take care of the neighbourhood’ God has entrusted to us
(i) through our many outreach initiatives;
(ii) through the Pastoral Resource Centre;
(iii) through Saint Hildegard’s Sanctuary.
(e) We have not always known where we might be led nor have we always been certain that what we were doing was ‘right’ --- but we have trusted that God’s Spirit was and is guiding us.
(4) Soon, with the leadership of the Canonical Committee and an interim priest, this Parish will enter a new stage in its on-going journey of faith.
(a) I am convinced that this Parish continues to have a role to play in God’s purposes for this neighbourhood and all the places from whence we come.
(b) We are here to be disciples who dare to go where we have not gone before.
(c) We are here to discern how our future ministry
(i) will add one more chapter to the story of God’s love here among us and around us;
(ii) will respond to the needs of this changing neighbourhood and region, even if our neighbours do not recognize their need for communities of faith such as ours;
(iii) will proclaim the good news we have seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, touched with our hands in our lives and the lives of our friends and families and neighbours.
(d) But let us be of good cheer --- for surely the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will continue to guide us into the truth, God’s truth --- for us, for this neighbourhood, for this world.
Let us pray.
O God,
you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 317]
[Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 317]
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