5th Sunday after Easter
John 14:1-31
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| Durer |
“Let not
your hearts be troubled. Trust in the power that leads you to the Fatherly
Ground of the World and me. In my Father’s house, there are many rooms. If it
were not so, how could I have said to you, ‘I go there to prepare a place for
you?' And when I have gone and prepared
a place for you, I will come again and take you up into the realm of my being
and working, so that where I work, you also may work. And you know the way
where I am going.”
Then Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know
where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I myself am the Way—the Truth— and
the Life. No one finds his way to the Father but through me. If you had known
my Being, you would have recognized my Father as well. From now on, you do know
him and have seen Him.”
Then Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father;
that would satisfy our deepest yearning.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long,
and yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Does your heart’s voice not tell you
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not
just my own. But the Father, who lives eternally in me, continues to do his
works in them. Build your faith on the power of my Being that lets you know: I
in the Father, the Father in me. Or at least learn to trust through looking at
the works themselves that have arisen.
Truly, truly I say to you, whoever trusts in my
Being will also do the works that I do --and greater deeds will he do because I
go to the Father. Whatever you ask for in unity with me, I will do it, so that
the deeds of the Father may be revealed in the working of the Son. When you
turn to me in prayer in the power of my name, I will be the Creating One in all
your works.
If you truly love me, you will share in my spiritual goals. And I
will ask the Father, and He will send to you another Counselor, who will stand
by you forever, even the Spirit of Truth. The earthly world cannot receive this
Counselor, for it cannot perceive his working and does not recognize him. But
you know him, for he will live with you and will work in you.
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| Jan von Kalkar |
I will not leave you desolate—I will come to you.
Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.
Because I live, you will live also. On that day, you will truly know
what it means that I am in the Father, and you in me and I in you.
Whoever bears my spiritual goals within himself,
and brings them to revelation in his working, is one who truly loves me. And
whoever truly loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will
reveal myself to him.”
Then Judas (not the Iscariot) said, “But Lord, how
is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the people who are in the
world?
Jesus
replied, “Whoever truly loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an
eternal dwelling]. Whoever does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the
spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of
the Father who sent me.
These things I have spoken to you while I am still
with you. But the health-bringing Spirit, the Counselor whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you everything and will bring to your
remembrance all that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as
the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled nor let them
be afraid.
You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and yet
I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am
going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I am.
I have told you now
before it happens, so that when it happens, you may find trust. I no longer
have much to say to you, for soon, the ruler of this world is coming. He has no
power over me.
But I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose,
as it was entrusted to me so that the world may know that I love the Father. Do
the same. Arise, let us be on our way.
5th after Easter
May 17, 2020
John 14:1–35
Plant one seed, and in time it will produce hundreds of
seeds, all replicas of itself. In this way, the living entity that produced the
seed maintains itself through cycles of time.
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| Christ the Gardener Tapestry, Coxie or da Cremona |
Out of the Father Ground of all Being, who is existence
itself, there emerged the first seed. That seed was (and continues to be) the
Logos-Word, the I AM. This Logos-Word spoke, and all of creation came into
being. Into all creatures, especially into us, He placed a seed of Himself, an
I AM. This seed germinates as we are born, blossoms when as a small child we
begin to say “I”. This little but all-encompassing “I” continues to blossom and
engender seeds throughout our life. The seeds of myself are my words and my
actions. I am what I say. I am what I do.
In an ordinary plant, form and seeds are fixed by type. We
human I-AM-beings, however, have the capacity to create various types of seeds.
For we have choices in speaking, choices in doing. And these choices can create
seeds of magnificence and nourishing beauty. Or they can create seeds of weeds
and thorns.
Our words and deeds are the seeds from our own Selves. God
will reap what we have sown. And in the afterlife, the quality of the word- and
deed-seeds we have produced will be what we bring to Him for the future.
The poet Rilke speaks to God and says:
We stand in your garden year after
year
We are trees for yielding a sweet
death.*
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| Christ the Gardener and Magdalene, Burne-Jones |
Christ is the gardener who watches over our growth and
progress. He is the Water of Life. He feeds here, prunes a bit there, trains
toward the Light of Himself. He is the Way, and he hopes for a harvest of words
and deeds done in His Spirit, done in love, in truth, and from goodwill. For
He will plant the seeds we produce, the seeds of our Selves, and we will
germinate again with Him in His garden, in another place, in another season. And
so we may pray with Rilke:
God, give us each our own death,
The dying that proceeds
From each of our lives:
The way we loved,
The meanings we made,
Our need.**
*Rilke, The Book of
Hours, translated by Macy and Barrows, pg. 133.
**Rilke, The Book of
Hours, translated by Macy and Barrows, pg. 131.
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