May 9, 2010
Acts 7: 55-60 + Psalm 97 + Revelation 22:12-14, 16,17,20 + John 17: 20-26
(The Ordo provides the option of using Easter 7 or Easter 6 on this Sunday because The Solemnity of the Ascension is celebrated next Sunday. I have chosen Easter 7 for use here at Saint Mark Parish.)
First, he pours out his blood. Then he pours out his Spirit. Think of that in your prayer as we move toward Pentecost in two weeks. He gives what he has been given: His life, his flesh, his blood, his spirit. The glory of the Father becomes his glory so that we might have glory. While he had every right to lay claim to it, he never claimed any privilege. Never once does this Son of God act as though or even think as though he had a right to or deserved anything. Jesus clings to nothing as though it were his privilege. Everything he has and everything he is he passes on to his friends, putting them on the path to perfection and an ever-deepening unity.
Everything given to Jesus is immediately given away to others. It is this action of self-giving that creates the unity he knows is the will of God. The very essence of Jesus is the sharing of that essence with others. Those who receive it from Jesus give it to others. And so, a living chain across time and across history is established. This receiving and this giving among the friends of Jesus then creates a unity that becomes a message to the world that knows nothing of unity; a world that lives by taking and holding and therein lies the difference and the challenge.
The message of this Gospel, the message Jesus speaks to his disciples around a table is not Take and Hold. The message is Receive and Give What he leaves behind, what he prays for at that final meal is a new way of being human. Instead of being unique, individualistic, separate, and independent, the new humanity Jesus restores is one and united.
This unity is the consequence of giving and the deliberate decision not to HOLD. Those found in unity are never people who take. They are people who receive. At the very first moment we begin to give what we have received, a bond is established that is profound and divine.
When we share the sorrow or the pain of another, we are one with them. When we share the joy and dreams of another, there a bond between us begins. The experience of this unity which is God’s will for the human family
is not just emotional or spiritual. When we share what we have received, there is peace and there is unity. If we share clean water, there is a bond between nations. If we share opportunities, education, health care, the resources of this earth because we do not have some exclusive right to them but because we know we have received them as a gift, unity and peace are not far behind. But if we take and if we hold, trouble comes.
The whole life of Jesus is summed up in his final prayer in John’s Gospel. It is a new way of being human.
Two words sum it up: Receive and Give.
The old way of taking and holding is finished if there is ever to be peace. The fulfillment of the Father’s will: “That they may all be one.” is only possible through this new way of being human
which Jesus passes on to us through his body and blood and by his spirit.