St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN
Year A - 6 Easter - May 17, 2020
Music is so ingrained in the way I worship, it sometimes bleeds over to how I read scripture. I can’t read the Gospel Lesson from John 14:15-21 without a Motet from the famous English Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis playing in my head… Maybe it’s because I’ve sung the anthem a few hundred times… Perhaps it because the harmonies transport me to another dimension – a place beyond this world.
Maybe it’s because the text in Tallis’ music is some of the most comforting and reassuring words that Jesus ever spoke. We may never know why this simple motet that Tallis wrote in 1565 still moves the hardest heart to a closer place with God. The text is from the first part of our Gospel reading from John chapter 14 versus 15-17. It’s only a couple of minutes and definitely worth hearing today.
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may ‘bide with you forever; E’en the sp’rit of truth.
Simple, yet profound directions from Jesus to show our love for Him by loving the Lord God and by loving our neighbor as our self. It’s not prescriptive or conditional, but about us becoming a symbol of presence… A symbol of the presence of the living Christ to others…
And if we do just that, if we keep the commandments to love, we will have the comfort of the Holy Spirit – a spirit of truth that will be with us wherever we are, wherever we go.
In the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, this Gospel reading was appointed for Whitsunday or White Sunday, which is another name for Pentecost. A day on which the baptismal candidates would all be wearing white robes as a symbol of their purity in baptism – of being made anew in Christ Jesus.
But, today, we have the reading, and there is yet another week before we get to Pentecost that we celebrate on the 31st of May. I have a feeling that today’s lectionary placed this reading here because this is the week before the ascension, which is celebrated this coming Thursday. The text here is the resurrected Christ telling his followers that they will not be abandoned when he ascends to heaven. That they will experience Jesus through the Spirit of Truth rather than experience him physically.
So we have to ponder a bit about what this “spirit of truth” is and what it means for his closest followers and what it means for us today…
In this short passage, Jesus has told us that there is no reason to be anxious because we don’t physically see him. But - Because when we are keeping his commandments, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Then we can look at the world around us and see Jesus and experience him in those who are loving others. Because by loving others, they are loving God.
It’s often said that eyes are windows to the soul. I tend to believe this – because I know when I look deeply into the eyes of another living thing – I can see beyond this world. I think that this what it means to see and recognize that “indwelling spirit.”
When Jesus says, I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you… This is what he is referring to…
But, I also know what it means to look into those cold dark places the places of evil… where the spirit doesn’t seem to exist.
If we are believers, and if we are keeping the commandments to Love as Jesus taught us. Then this love shows itself in action. You’ve heard me speak of Teresa of Avila, who happens to have lived during the same period as Tallis and who also happens to be another patron Saint of Spain along with our Patron St. James.
It was St. Teresa of Avila that said, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth, but yours.”
When we love like Jesus loved… Then we are a tabernacle, a vessel of the living Christ’s presence within us. And we, in turn, learn to see Jesus in ways we didn’t realize and in places where we don’t expect.
But, it’s difficult sometimes amid the distractions of this world… amid the chaos and animosity to simply focus on the good… to simply focus on the love… I think it was the philosopher Aristotle that said, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
When we see the light (in the Christian’s case, the light of Christ), we see love. And when we focus on love, we see love (we see Christ), and when we focus on love, we attract love… And if we love, like Jesus taught us, we are, in fact, keeping his commandments.
Unfortunately – this works both ways. If we focus on the negative... If we focus on the worry, the hate, the evil (and all those things that separate us from the love in God), then it creates more stress, and causes us more anxiety and leads us in wrong directions.
That’s when we need to remember that God loves us… And God’s love always prevails over evil despite the most horrible tragedies. The light always obliterates the darkness. Just one small candle, and then the darkness is gone.
When the world around us makes no sense, and people do the strangest and most hurtful things. Hope is there, and the love and kindness point the way to Jesus. See, God made the first move of love toward us… creating us and giving us all our own creative powers.
God sent Jesus to be for us that perfect image of what God intends us to be... of how God means for us to live. Each one of us is made in Imago Dei (in the image of God.) We are, in fact, living images of the living God. We embody the indwelling of the Holy Spirit… the Spirit of Truth… Jesus is in the Father, and we are in Jesus, and Jesus is in us. Therefore, each one of us is a sanctuary of love… It is our purpose, it is our destiny…
Let yourself know and be comforted in the fact that we have not been left alone… that God loves us… and has not left us… That we have and feel and see and hear the Spirit of Truth all around us. Listen to the music of Thomas Tallis; you might be able to hear it and feel it. Look into your neighbor’s eyes; you might be able to see it.
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