The Coming of the Holy Spirit (John 14)

A homily on John 14: 23-29. The coming of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.

     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

     "And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe." Today's Gospel reading is a selection from the long Last Supper Discourses in John's Gospel, in which our Lord teaches his disciples about his, and their, relationship to the Father, what is required to maintain that relationship, and about the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, whom the Father will send in Jesus's name, and who "will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you."
     The nature and purpose of the Christian life are summarized in these lines. The reading prepares us for the near approach of Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday, reminding us that Christians live in and for the Trinity. Jesus is preparing his disciples for that life, in his teaching in today's Gospel. We, nearly two millennia after these words were spoken, and after the events they refer to, benefit from all the following centuries of thought and Christian experience which enrich our knowledge of the life to which Jesus , in our text, is introducing his disciples. We are, perhaps, too familiar with what we have read and heard. The disciples are at the beginning of this new life; perhaps our text can awaken us to the newness of this experience, to something like what the disciples experienced when they heard these words for the first time.
      Perhaps, when we think of God, we think of an abstraction, an impersonal concept like the Prime Mover or the First Cause, or the answer to a metaphysical question like, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" - a question to which "God" is supposed to be the answer. Perhaps you have heard of, or remember, the Douglas Adams books The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. In one or other of those books, I don't remember which, there is the famous question, "What is the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything?" The answer, I believe, was...42! This answer, of course, pokes fun at metaphysical speculation and philosophical pretensions to describe the nature and goal of the universe, but it is also asserting that, perhaps, there is no answer to the question at all, and so the question itself should be made fun of.
     For Christians there is an answer, and it is not an abstraction. In the first line of today's Gospel, we hear, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." These words are taken from ordinary family experience. They are rich with meaning, at least for people who had, or have, happy experiences of family life, and for those who did not, they are promises that happy experiences of that kind are what life with God really is. The inner life of God, in other words, is like the life of a family, whose members know each other intimately, and whose members are able to communicate that knowledge, that experience, to the rest of us, who are invited and enabled to participate in it.

     Jesus goes on to say, "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you." It is interesting that we need reminding, and that that reminding is the job of the Holy Spirit. We forget easily. This is why we celebrate the eucharist once or twice a day, why we say the daily offices, two, three, four or more offices a day, with their rounds of daily, weekly, monthly, yearly commemorations and repetitions of prayers and psalms and readings. Because we forget. We forget that God loves us, we forget that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we forget that what we do to the least among us, we do to our Lord. The Holy Spirit teaches us, usually the same things, over and over, and reminds us, over and over, who we are and what our vocation is. Our vocation is, lest we forget, to make our home with the Father and the Son, on the basis of love, as they have promised to do with us. And the Mother of God, we remember, made her home available (if "available" is the right word) to the Holy Spirit, who brought her into the most intimate possible relationship with the Son.
     "And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe." When I read this sentence the other day, it puzzled me somewhat. I wasn't sure what "it" is. Is it Jesus's going to the Father? Is it the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit? And what does Jesus mean when he says, "when it does occur, you may believe?" Believe what?
     Today's reading doesn't provide clear answers, at least not obviously. But the meanings do become clear in the chapter as a whole, which is mostly about the relationship between Jesus and the Father. The first line of the chapter says, "Believe in God, believe also in me." Later, Jesus says to Philip, "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" So Jesus is asking his disciples to believe that he is the way to the Father, that his words and works are those of the Father in him, that the Father will be glorified in him. The closeness, the intimacy, of the Father and the Son is what the disciples, and we, are to believe.
     Jesus's going to the Father, and the coming of the Spirit are almost the same event. The Spirit comes because the Son has gone to the Father. The Spirit's work is, in effect, about that relationship between the Father and Son, which is love, which the Spirit continuously keeps before us and among us. The Spirit continuously reminds us of all that Jesus has said to us, and the Spirit makes it possible for us not only to hear it, but to remain in, and act on, the love between the Father and the Son.
     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

One hundred fifty-three (John 21)

A homily on John 21:1-19. The miraculous draft of fishes.

     In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

     Our Lectionary for tonight and tomorrow, the Third Sunday of Easter, has assembled an impressive set of readings, each of which provides more than enough material for several sermons. The Hymn to the Lamb in Revelation 5, the story in Acts of the Damascus Road experience and the conversion of St Paul, and of course, the Gospel, containing as it does two stories: the Miraculous Draft of Fishes, and the three commands to Peter. Since the rather long Gospel reading affords so much material, I will concentrate on that, and bring out only a few features which caught my attention.

     First, a reminiscence. I believe that I last preached on this text, at the induction service for a rector in Newfoundland, some thirty years ago. I was rather nervous about it, for two reasons. Firstly, the Bishop had asked me to preach because he wanted to hear me for himself. People had evidently been grumbling about my preaching, and he wanted to know what the fuss was about. Secondly, I would be talking to people (outport Newfoundlanders who lived by fishing) who knew a lot more about fishing than I did. Our story begins with seven disciples fishing unsuccessfully. I was sure that my congregation could have given the disciples good advice, and that anything I said about fishing would be foolish.
     I remember, in fact, one afternoon riding in a pickup with a priest who was also a fisherman, along a still stretch of water which looked quite ordinary and featureless to me. He stopped the truck, gestured over the water, and pointed to some ripples which indicated, apparently, the presence of a school of fish, evidently quite large. He even told me what kind of fish they were, although I've forgotten that detail. He regretted that he wasn't able to hop aboard a boat, and haul in the fish, right that minute! It's an incident like that, indicating intimate knowledge of the fishery, to which tonight's Gospel points.
     In any event, the Bishop was happy with what he heard, and the congregation were generous to their young preacher, who was, as the Bishop said, "right green out of college!" I think I remember one or two remarks I made in that sermon all those years ago. I appreciate the present opportunity possibly to quote myself!
     Tonight's Gospel begins with seven disciples, only three of whom are named (note that number: three), fishing, or at least attempting to fish, on the Sea of Tiberias. The three named disciples are Simon Peter, Thomas the Twin, and Nathanael of Cana. Peter and Nathanael are among the first disciples of Jesus, whose names appear in the first chapter of John's Gospel. The parallelism is intentional, and reinforces the importance of the disciples, especially Peter, for understanding what tonight's reading is about. And that number, three, will come up again.
     Here we have another, post-Resurrection appearance (the third appearance, that is) of Jesus, in which his disciples don't recognize him. The first to realize who he is, is the "disciple whom Jesus loved," when Jesus directs them to where fish may be found. But Peter, when he hears this, jumps into the sea. The story doesn't actually say why he does this. Is he trying to get to Jesus, to get away, or to get to shore? But we hear shortly that he made it to shore, and boarded the boat again, to haul in the net.
     Notice what is happening here. Peter announces that he is going fishing, he leaps off the boat when he sees Jesus, and he goes back aboard the boat to unload it. The Scripture says Peter "hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them." The appearance of this number in the story is very striking. Have you ever stopped to wonder why this unusual number appears in our story?
     One hundred fifty-three is the product of three times fifty-one. Fifty-one is the product of three times seventeen. Three, like seventeen, is a prime number. It is not accidental that the number three appears in this story several times. It emphasizes the importance of three persons: Jesus, Peter, and the disciple whom Jesus loved, that is, John. We recall the back-and-forth in chapter 20 between Peter and John at the tomb of Jesus. John outruns Peter and looks in the tomb, Peter actually goes in first, then John goes in. The twenty-first chapter also develops the importance of this pair.
     The number three comes up again, in the three questions, and the three commands, to Peter. The three questions and the three commands tell the disciples, and us, that Peter is very important to Jesus and his disciples, in a special way, as is John.
     Had I been sorting out the Gospel readings for the current lectionary, I would have laid out this chapter, John 21, a little differently. I would have had two readings, the first to be the story of the miraculous draft of fishes, and the second to include the three questions to Peter, and the concluding verses about John. Such a selection would make it easier to bring out the contrast between the two, as well as their mutual importance in the earliest Christian community. As it is, the current arrangement emphasizes Peter more.
     Since tonight's Gospel points so clearly to Peter, we need to find out what qualities he had that make him important to Jesus, to the other disciples, to the writer of the Gospel, and to us.
     Firstly, he is willing to go fishing in the dark. The others trust him enough to follow him, even though they have no success at first. That kind of courage is essential; the other disciples have it too, and it is a quality that every Christian needs.
     Secondly, not only is Peter willing to go fishing in the dark, he is willing to jump into the sea, with clothes on, no less. His faith that he will reach the shore regardless, shows us another facet of the courage that is essential to faith.
     Thirdly, Peter is willing, and able, to haul the net ashore. Although the outcome had not seemed likely through the dark night, at dawn came the fulfilment. Peter was ready for that too. Success and discouragement, darkness and light, are the same to Peter. He is there to do what needs to be done, whatever the outcome.
     Fourthly, Peter is willing to be questioned closely by Jesus, repeatedly, about the nature of his attitude to Jesus. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you really love me? When Jesus is sure of Peter's response, he tells Peter what this means: caring for his flock, and, in the end, being willing to give up everything, to return to that uncertainty with which our story begins. So it is for us, to be willing to be questioned and known by Jesus, to do the work he gives us to do, and, in the end, to have let it go, all for the glory of God.

     In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.