A Reflection
for VI Easter
All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, NC
May 1, 2016
Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Farewell
Discourse
A couple weeks ago, Pat and I went to a conference
put on by the Church Pension Fund called “Planning for Tomorrow”, looking at preparing
for retirement and beyond. One of the “beyond” aspects is about helping the people
who survive after you die, e.g. with wills, final instructions and the like.
For instance, it would probably be good for me to list and locate all the
documents the survivors need and all the computer programs I use to pay the
bills and their passwords. I see that happen a lot when a parent or spouse dies
and the family gathers together and tries to figure out where everything is.
I remember that, for years before my mother died,
she would sit me down every time I visited her and she would go through all the
bank accounts, wills, powers of attorney, and instructions. She didn’t use a
computer, but she had different places for everything. She talked about what
she wanted done and how she did not want to outlive her money because she
thought that the “children” might need some. I kept telling her that the
orphans would be in their 60’s and she was to spend every penny she had and
write some bouncing checks for the rest. We would talk about her hopes for her
children and grandchildren and said some of the things she did not want to die
without saying. It was a labor of love, for she did love us and wanted her
loving spirit to live within us after she died. When I would visit my mother,
it was not in the places that I had ever called home, and I was a guest there.
The real home was in the loving space between us regardless of any geography.
The Gospel lesson from John for today is part of
what is called the “farewell discourse”, before Jesus’ arrest and after he has
had the last supper with the disciples, washed their feet and given them the
commandment of love. He is saying “Good bye”, saying the things he knows he
wants to say to them before he is arrested and killed by the religious and political
authorities. He says that he will not leave them orphaned but that he will come
to them. The whole discourse is contained in Chapters 14 through 17. Today I
want to focus in on one sentence: “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.”
“Make our home with them”. All of us are passing
through, and home can mean different things. Paul in the lesson from Acts is
invited by Lydia to come stay at her home. The Greek word that is used is a
family dwelling, a household; so he will be a guest, but it is her “home”. I
was struck with idea that both lessons mentioned “home”. But when I did Greek
word studies, there were two different words. The Greek word for “home” the
author of John uses is the same word he remembers Jesus saying earlier in the
discourse, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”
The King James Version will translate it as “mansions”
because the translators for His Majesty King James were instructed to make
everything majestic, as a way underscoring the Majesty of King James himself.
James was new to the throne of England and was somewhat insecure, and he did
not want to come across as a the poor relation from Scotland who was a guest
King at Elizabeth’s invitation. He went to great lengths to have everything
impressive and wanted to have everything, as one contemporary office seeker
keeps saying, “HUGE”.
What does it mean to “make a home” with someone? It
is not about the number of rooms or the furnishings, but a loving commitment of
heart and spirit. It is the difference between people who are “roommates with
benefits”, who only share expenses, food, and saliva for as long as it is
convenient, and those who make a full life-time commitment of their whole
selves with each other. To make a “home” with someone means to know and be
known and yet to be aware of, and honor, the mystery in the other.
The other difficulty in many translations of the
King James and many of the Western translations is that there is a tendency to interpret
things in the private singular tense of “I”, “my” “his”, as in “His Faith”, My
personal relationship” and “HE walks with me.” I approve of the New Revised
Standard, which we use for the Sunday Lectionary, which emphasizes the
corporate community - “They and “Their”. When Jesus gives his Farewell
Discourse, he uses the second person plural of “You” rather than the second
person singular. He is speaking to the community gathered together. When he says, “The Father and I are one”, Jesus
reminds them that he himself is part of the community of the Trinity, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, never divided but always lovingly connected, and the
promise is that we will be taken into that dynamic community of being fully
connected and committed, one to another. To live into the commitment of the
Trinity is a cosmic commitment where we are connected to all things – past,
present, and future, friends and family, neighbors, enemies, animals, the
earth, the air, the stars. That is the vision of the author of the Book of
Revelation where God becomes the light that shines in and through us. The home
of God is in us. God is way more than the guest in our homes; God is the deep
life breath of all home.
My vision of my death is that when I die, all those
things that went into keeping me singular and apart and only sporadically
committed will die, and I will be joined fully with the creative energy
underneath all life, no longer a part time guest but now at home.
Farewell
Discourse (poem)
I
breathe you in deeply with each breath
that
every part of me is filled with you
living
into your vision of us being true
that I continue breathing you after death.
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