Dance like God Dances, You Stressy Bessy! (John 17.20-26)
I’m what’s known sometimes as a
‘stressy bessy.’
When I have a big job to do, or
large event to organise, I tend to feel overwhelmed and I get a bit tetchy and
stressed.
I don’t flap too much, other than
inwardly, and my sentences become shorter and more abrupt as I’m juggling
things in my head. Yes, no, go away.
I had to organise a worship band
recently, As we only had the day of the concert to rehearse together, and as
the rehearsal time went on, I got more and more nervous. Was it going to be
alright? Were we going to play well enough? What happens if? This event was
rapidly heading towards us, and Stressy Bessy reared its ugly head.
I’ve been told since, by my lovely
bandmates that I was actually bearable, just a bit stressed, and I wonder now
who ministered to who?
I was supposed to be the one
leading the rehearsal, making them feel calm and confident, reassuring them.
Unlike Jesus it was my bandmates who were constantly reassuring me that it was
going to be alright, It’s all going to be alright!
That’s what Jesus says to his
disciples over and over again in the speech just before our reading today. Our
reading today comes from John, and it’s the end of a long section in which
Jesus has been consoling the disciples, a farewell speech if you will, it
happens just before they go into the garden and Jesus gets arrested.
I sometimes wonder whether Jesus
was nervous about what the future held, like I was. He certainly wasn’t a
‘Stressy Bessy’. I wonder how he felt about leaving this rag tag band of men
and women behind to carry on the gospel, and to continue His work. A bunch of
tax collectors and fishermen, peasant women and prostitutes don’t really sound
like the obvious founders of a major world religion do they?
Yet here we are, over two thousand
years later, thanks to the communities that they founded. Jesus does not
abandon them, he doesn’t just leave them or us to our own devices, but sends
the Holy Spirit to be our guide and comforter.
In this final dramatic scene of the
speech, Jesus is imploring on the disciples behalf, out of his great care for
them, intercessing in front of them.
I want them to know you Father, he
says, I want them to feel our presence with them, I want them to be one with
us, as I am one with you. Jesus wants them to be bound up in the sacred
mysteries of God’s love.
Now perhaps that sounds a bit
mystical and druidy, so let’s try to unpack this a little.
We believe in a God that is both
imminent, Emmanuel, God with us, incarnated, one of us, in the world through
Jesus.
But also a God that is transcendent,
that is almighty, knows everything and is beyond the universe. We believe in a
God that is consubstantial in trinity. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
all one God, they are of the same substance and essence. Not separate or demi
gods of any sort, but one with each other.
There’s also no easy way to
describe what God is, everything we can possibly say will fall short,
trinitarianism developed over time, it’s such a massive concept that it took
over three hundred years for the Church to figure out a doctrine on it, so
apologies I’m not going to be able to do it justice this morning.
Almost like a divine dance, they
are totally one in relationship and being, one with each other, and like a
lover who’s sat on the plastic chairs at the edge of the dance hall, they
invite us to participate in this wonderful dance, that has always been going
on, since before time began.
To be in the heart and centre of
this dance with them.
“Father I desire that those also,
whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you
have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
Jesus will not abandon his own and
sets out here the relationship the disciples will have with him, and we will
have with him. Our relationship with the heavenly, resurrected Jesus is to be
with him. Joining in with this divine dance of love, caught up forever in the
love of God that She has had for us since before the beginning of the world.
We participate in the mystical love
of God, in the perfect fellowship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
“Righteous father, the world does
not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.”
Know is used here more like
acknowledge or recognise rather than know. The world does not recognise God, it
doesn’t acknowledge God, but Jesus knows God as he is his agent.
The disciples know, acknowledge God
because they acknowledge that Jesus is God’s agent.
How do we participate in the love
of God, and what’s our place in this divine, human relationship?
We participate through one-ness
with each other and God. Jesus asks at the beginning of our reading that “they
may all be one. As you father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in
us.”
When the Evangelist was writing
this Gospel, it’s clear that the community or the Johnanine Community, as
scholars call it was deeply divided. Here the Evangelist is speaking directly
to them, and also to us as a community.
Just as Jesus and the Father are
one, we are challenged to be one with each other, to live in a similar
relationship to God’s self.
What makes a community attractive?
The early followers of Jesus were attracted because the faith offered an
alternative vision for society. An alternative to the culture they were living
in.
So we too need to offer an
alternative way of being, a different kind of community, a community shaped in
the love of God, that has created us, surrounds us, and sustains us.
Like my bandmates need to be a
community that ministers to one another in love, and to the strangers outside
of it too. That calms and helps the stressy bessie’s of this world.
It’s simple and small things that
make us an attractive community, and it’s everyone’s responsibility to do their
bit. Talking to new people after church, being open to help others in our
lives, and sharing who we are with them are all part of our calling as
Christians.
A group of rag-tag fishermen,
peasants and prostitutes helped change the world, because they got on board
with God. It wasn’t easy, as the book of Acts shows us, but they worked
together and managed to create a new way of being. We need to think now more
than ever, what is my calling?
A couple of questions to perhaps
think about this week;
How can I be more one with those
around me?
How can I share something of God’s
love for me, to others?
What is God calling me to do?
Preached at 10am Service, St Peter Mancroft Church, Norwich
02/06/2019
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