Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The High Vison

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 -- Week of 2 Easter, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 958)
Psalms 119:1-24 (morning) 12, 13, 14 (evening)
Daniel 2:17-30
1 John 2:12-17
John 17:20-26

Today as we listen to the great prayer that John's gospel uses to focus the mission and vision of Jesus, we get a high and transcendent view of our relationship with God and with one another.

We are invited to participate in divine glory. We are invited into unity with God and with one another. Jesus uses powerful language. Jesus prays, "As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us..." Later Trinitarian theology will pick this up by speaking of God as one unity of being in a relationship of three persons. Jesus draws us into that divine relationship of union.

Jesus assigns to us the same glory that he receives from the Father. "The glory that you have given me I have given them..."

The sense of identity between us and God is an experience of complete unity. Jesus prays that God will give us God's divine glory "so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one..." We are enveloped into the very being of God, energized by God's life and spirit, united as one with the divine. This is an exalted vision of the human condition, circumstance and potential. Our essential identity is to be in a life of ongoing union with God.

At the center of that union is love. Jesus prays to the Father that all people may know that God has "loved them even as you have loved me, ...so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them."

Talk about affirmation! In John's gospel, Jesus intends to teach us that we are one with God who loves us with a divine love.

I know many people who grew up being told that the main purpose of the Christian religion was to convince people that they are essentially bad and sinful, and to frighten them with a conviction that everybody deserves to go to hell. That seems such a strange way to shape, and I would say trivialize, the gospel. It posits such an odd view of God, of Jesus and of humanity, so out of touch with the vast witness of scripture.

The vision of Jesus in John's gospel is just the opposite. We are loved with the same love that God the Father loves the Son. We are united in the same life and glory that is union with God, the life and glory that Jesus reveals. John focuses that identity and call in the new commandment: "Love one another."

This is our true identity, purpose and destiny. John contrasts this life in union with God in Jesus with life in the "flesh" or in the "world." The world is the place of darkness and unbelief, the condition of not knowing our essential union in God's love. Jesus brings light that casts out darkness, bread that satisfies, life that is eternal. It is the gift of union, the gift of the Son who is sent from the Father to reveal to us our essential unity with the divine. All that is necessary is to accept the gift. Accept the gift of identity -- we are one with the divine; we are given life with one another in union with God. At the core of everything is love. Love one another. Walk in love. Love God and be one with God.

It is a high and glorious vision for our humanity, all humanity.

Lowell
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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

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