Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons - 21 May 2023

May 20th, 2023

Gabriel Loire window. Wiki Image

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Today's gospel is the first part of the long farewell prayer of Jesus. Here as he prepares his leave taking, Jesus opens up in prayer to the Father, not as we too often do in a prayer of distance, somebody out there to be addressed formally, but as he taught us to do, draw ourselves into an intimate conversation with the All Holy One. Jesus' God, OUR God, is not absent nor unknowable, but can be found in a reciprocal movement of our hearts and lives in open trust with the reaching out towards us of the Living One. This is not fanciful, just reflect on how the Lord's Prayer is structured and works for us , how in it the cadences suggest petition and response , blessing, linking heaven and earth, forgiveness and help needed, all done not in fear and trembling but in the childlike simplicity of calling God , Abba, the direct way!

In this farewell prayer, several themes appear, building blocks given us by Jesus. all this is his farewell gift, so that we can model our future prayer and life with God on his example. This prayer has been described as a window into Jesus' deepest relationship with the father, his Abba. They reflect his deepest yearnings for the disciples but also for all humanity, all life and in this way they allow us into his heart and the heart of the Abba, into the heart of God! It is worthwhile looking at the whole prayer (included in our lectio) for Jesus puts four desires before the Abba: he asks God to glorify the Son, to keep the disciples safe, to make holy the disciples, and expresses his wish to have these disciples for his own.

How can we enter this prayer? Firstly we acknowledge that the time is now, not to come, salvation is here, the glory of the risen and ascended Christ permeates our world if we would be see it better and help others to understand its presence. This glory of Christ is revealed to us, our task is to learn how tto find it better.

Secondly in an age of deceit, malfeasance, where public figures just cannot be trusted, the Christian is called to truth and to be holy, and one of our truths is the promise of eternal life, and as Jesus prays-this is not in some fine doctrinal debate, but about life IN HIM: 'Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ'.(Jn 17:3)

Hold fast to that, keep it as your hope and do not let anybody take that away from you, eternal life might be a place in some way but it is also the accomplishment of Jesus in bringing us all together in love, always a place where holiness is the fulfilment of everything we are and will be.

Thirdly relationship with Jesus is crucial, but it can never be separated from theTriune God, he consecrates us to this relationship and work but implies it is not done only by ourselves: "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. (Jn 17:20,21)The us is important here and though it is the loving dialogue of Jesus and the Father, the Spirit is implicit in all of this prayer, for we become one in Christ and one with God through the operation and gift of the unseen penetrative Spirit. To be kept safe and to be God's own is part of this wish Jesus has for us.

As we move towards that great feast of Pentecost, may we try to realise two things, as I wrote in a reflection of the Ascension, let us learn to love not only the young, or middle ages, but the wisdom of our elders who have so much wisdom to give, because bit by bit they are surrendering all they are and have to God. The farewell discourse will become each one of us as we move towards that great au revoir, which will be the beginning of knowing of all things. Let us challenge this worlds' negative forces and the subtleties of evil in the lies and falsehood spread out so easily, let js love creation, for it is here that God has placed us, and it is about our here and now that we shall give an account of our stewardship, but above all let us love with a sincere heart, knowing we are part of the heart of God. Amen.

Lectio

The prayer of Jesus - John 17:1-26

The Prayer of Jesus.

When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you.

Just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

"I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

"I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am* they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them."

Prayer for the Spirit

Count me in as one of the Lord's People,

Spirit who has come upon me

but whom I ask to grant me strength

to try better

to be more open

to pray unceasingly,

even without knowing,

because You will fill my whole life

with the gift of Love,

the Hope of reconciliation and redemption,

the Faith to hold the hand of Christ