Over and
over during these final days of Eastertide, we have been listening to excerpts
from the Last Supper Discourse, about four chapters long in the second half of
the Gospel of John; today’s Gospel is from the concluding section of the
Discourse. And this morning we eavesdrop on the prayer of Jesus the Beloved Son
to his Father. It’s as if we’ve barged in on Jesus in the midst of a very
intimate conversation. But Jesus draws us into the very heart of his prayer to
the Father. So I listen, but I lose my bearings.
There is surely a beauty to the language but also a circularity. It’s just not a simple, linear narrative. I get confused, and I want to analyze. I want to say to Jesus, “Wait, wait. What do you mean?” But clearly, that’s the wrong question. Asking what it means would be beside the point. It would be like standing at the Grand Canyon and saying, “Wait I don’t get it, what does it mean?” Or like asking a person who is doing an unexpected kindness for you, “What exactly do you mean?” Or like interrupting someone who’s kissing you very tenderly, “Excuse me, what do you mean?”
So it is
that we hear Jesus speak to the Father about us this morning, his deepest
desire for us, “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… that the love with
which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”
We are
embedded in God, as beloved as Jesus is; the relationship is ours. Simple,
astounding. We are invited to let ourselves be swept into the reality of mutual
love that unites Father and Son.1 For, “God is to be enjoyed,” as Augustine says. My brothers and sisters, it’s big,
it’s happening, we’re in it. And first and foremost, we don’t have to do
anything. If we simply let it sink in, then the possibility that we will go and do
likewise is very real. And then the unity that Jesus prays for may happen- that
we may become one with him, with believers all through the ages, a community of
friends. Non-resistance is crucial; it’s like driving on ice, you don’t put on
the brakes, but drive into the skid gently, attentively.
Perhaps
what we hear in today’s Gospel is the reality of divine Eros- God’s
self-forgetful love; the joy and peace and exhilaration and self-realization we
know when we love, please and comfort and console someone. This is who God is
for us. God has lost himself in love for us. God is most truly Godself when He
gives Himself away. This is the glory that Jesus has come to reveal- this glory
of divine love.
And so it
strikes me that if we want to understand this Discourse; we might have to go
backwards in the Gospel, back to the washing of the feet, a scene that directly
precedes the Discourse. We know that foot washing was
something a Gentile slave could be required to do, but never a Jewish slave.
Foot-washing was typically something wives did for their husbands, children for
their parents, and disciples for their teachers. There is undoubtedly a level
of intimacy involved in these last scenarios. And in Jesus' case, there is
an obvious reversal of roles.2 Jesus calls his disciples
his friends. And by washing their feet he overcomes in this act of loving intimacy
the inequality that exists between them. And so he establishes an intimacy with
them that signals their access to everything he had received from his Father,
even the glory that is his as Beloved Son.3 He does what he sees the
Father doing.
Perhaps Jesus was inspired to wash their feet because he had been
so touched by what was done for him at Bethany six days before Passover when Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil and anointed his feet most
tenderly and dried them with her hair. Was this something that inspired his own
most loving action on this night before he died? I like to think so. In
any event, Peter cannot bear the thought of his teacher doing
this. Perhaps it was something his wife had done for him many
times. And doubtless, he like the others is embarrassed by the intimacy of
it, the touch, the loving condescension, and the unaffected tenderness, the
unmanageability of the love that is so available. It’s disorienting. We see now
it is a parable, a parallel to what he would do on the cross the next
afternoon.
And so
with the Twelve this morning, their feet still a bit damp, we hear the Lord
reminding us that the self-forgetful love and intimacy of Father and beloved
Son is where we belong. Jesus begs his Father that we may be swept up into the
reality of God’s own “mutual love and indwelling.”4 There is room for everybody in this divine embrace. As Jesus tells his
Father, his desire is “that the
love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”
This is
after all the reason the Gospel has been written- that all of us who contemplate this Gospel may be brought
into “a union with Jesus which will plunge (us) into the depths of God’s very
life, the life Jesus shares with the Father.”5 It is this mystical union of disciple with God in Christ through the Spirit
that we see happening for Saint Stephen in the first reading. He has spoken
boldly and proclaimed Christ Jesus as crucified Messiah. His Jewish hearers find
his testimony unbearable and drag him away to stone him. He looks up intently and sees the heavens are thrown open and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.
If we too
look with great intent, intention of heart, ardent desire, we may see him with
us, above us, near us, beside us, within us. And if in the Book of Revelation
we hear Jesus say this morning, “Behold, I am coming soon,” it is our desire
that will open our eyes to the presence of “the root and offspring of
David, the bright morning star,” who even now is coming to feed
and comfort us at this Table.
Homily by one of our monks. References: 1. Sacra
Pagina: John, Francis Moloney, p. 479. 2. See Biblegateway.com.
3. Written That You May Believe, Sandra Schneiders, p. 173. 4. Sacra
Pagina: John, Francis Moloney, p. 479. 5. Sandra Schneiders, p. 15.
