A Fresh Perspective

Our Gospel reading today is part of a larger unit that begins in 17:1 as a prayer of Jesus to the Father. Though it’s cast in the form of a prayer, it is intended as instruction to the church. Keep in mind, as in almost all of the discourses in John’s Gospel, these are the words of John as he and his community try to imagine what the living Christ would say to them. This part of Jesus’ prayer casts a vision for oneness that extends beyond the first disciples of Jesus to embrace those who would come to be disciples after them, and eventually to embrace the world. This prayer nurtures a vision of oneness, which is not limited to Jesus’ disciples, and that shouldn’t surprise since “God so loves the world.” Jesus says that he prays for the oneness or unity of his disciples so that the world may know that God had sent him to be a definitive revelation of God’s love, and so that the world would come to know that God loves them just as much as God loves the unique Son who was sent to inc...

  Keep in mind that in John’s Gospel Jesus teaches in the language of the teachers in John’s community/church. This is how they imagined the living Christ speaking to them. Perhaps we should do the same. These are not so much the words of the historical Jesus, as they are the words of the living Christ, the universal Christ speaking to us. Christ says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” I would urge you to take these words personally. This is the universal Christ, the cosmic Christ, the risen Christ speaking to you and to me.  He gives us the gift of his peace. But it’s not automatic. This is a gift that has to be unwrapped, and that takes some trust and effort on our part. The Christ says, “My peace I give you. But I do not give to you as the world gives.” What does that mean? Does it mean that Christ gives more graciously and generously and uncon...

On display in St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin hangs an ancient door with a rough hewn, rectangular opening hacked out in the center to commemorate a significant event. In 1492, two prominent Irish families, the Ormands and Kildares were in the midst of a bitter feud. Besieged by Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, Sir James Butler, Earl of Ormand, and his followers took refuge in the chapter house of St. Patrick’s cathedral, bolting themselves in. As the siege wore on, Fitzgerald, the Earl of Kildare came to the amazing conclusion that the feuding was foolish. Here were two families, worshiping the same God, in the same church, living in the same country, trying to kill each other. So he called out to Sir James and, as the inscription in St. Patrick’s says today, “undertoake on his honour that he should receive no villanie.”  Afraid, as the inscription reads, of “some further treachery,” Ormond did not respond. So Kildare seized his spear, cut a hole in the door, a...

In Corinthians 5:14–21 Paul presents a totally nonviolent God who has acted in Christ to reconcile the world. God acts in Christ to bears the violence of the world without returning the violence. Paul says in verse 19 that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” Jesus, as God’s mediator and agent of reconciliation, bears the hate and animosity of the world, absorbing it—exposing it, yes, but also absorbing it through an act of preemptive forgiveness—refusing to retaliate and return the violence. Our world knows about preemptive military strikes, but very little, if anything at all, about preemptive forgiveness.  In verse 21 Paul declares that God made him “who knew no sin” (who was blameless of any of the charges brought against him by the religious and political powers) “to be sin,” that is, to become and bear the sin of the world—the hate, bigotry, cruelty, vic...