The Gifts

 John 17:20-26

Did you get that? Read it if you haven't. In full John fashion Jesus has gone into these high and lofty words and like Nicodemus in the beginning of this we are left shaking our heads. In seminary this type of Johannine language is Spirit talk, but what does that mean?

We have to look at a lot of things in John to understand this. First is how there are three writers to John. The original John, the editor who always likes to add things and make sure we understand things, and then there is this high lofty Spirit talk. The only way to explain it is to say it leaves Nicodemus mute, the woman at the well asking questions, and here it is a prayer for the disciples before he is crucified. In seminary we call this Jesus' high priestly prayer, yet this doesn't help us out with understanding.

The commentator this week pointed out how we would like it to be orderly and make sense but that ignores another factor of John's gospel which is insider language. This gospel came to us with the others, but it was with a whole separate set called the Gnostic gospels. This is the only one which makes sense out of the many texts and half texts discovered. 

Now you have to understand Gnosticism in order to get the full picture. They believed that Jesus' spirit inhabited a body on earth and once it knew enough, on the cross, the spirit left and returned to God. All people in this belief were special because they didn't fit in this world, but were meant to obtain Gnosis, knowledge by reading the texts then they would join Jesus' spirit. So John is written for a group of people with insider language. This community only should understand what the gospel is saying. It is exclusive and exclusionary and yet what does this passage try to convey?

Just the opposite. Oneness, being a part of one another. A connection from the beginning to the end. Because for John Jesus was at the creation of the world in a oneness with God and the Holy Spirit. Now Jesus is asking us to realize those connections. Every connection in the gospel and live them out. From talking with questionable women, to meeting religious officials for spiritual guidance, to healing the sick centurion's son. It all doesn't matter. What does matter is what is included here, Judas at the last supper, Peter asked to feed the sheep even when he denied Jesus, belief in the shadow of Thomas' unbelief. 

So let us be more like Jesus and find the connections. Because our earth is hurting. Our neighbors are hurting. Our world is hurting and until we see we are all a part of each other we can't heal the hurts.