Unique to The Gospel
According to John are Jesus' "I am" sayings. Today's Gospel includes one of
them: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Elsewhere in John we
hear "I am the true vine, ... the sheepgate, ... the good shepherd... the bread
of life, ... the light of the world, and ... the resurrection and the life."
All of these sayings reflect primary themes of John's Gospel: life, light, and
the glory of God revealed through Jesus' words and actions.
Years ago a Dade County priest
told me that some young people in his congregation went to some sort of revival
meeting, "found Christ," and were "born again." Now believing themselves to be
superior to the rest of us, they no longer participated in corporate worship
and in learning from others. Private adoration of Jesus was enough. Moreover,
they concluded that as long as they loved Jesus, their behavior was
inconsequential. In their own minds they had progressed beyond criticism or
accountability. The priest told me that their behavior took on corrupt
qualities at all levels. Yet they regarded themselves as at the pinnacle of
Christian spirituality, elevated beyond good and bad.
When Jesus related the "I am"
sayings, he was not extending an invitation to stare adoringly at him in an
isolated compartment of one's life. He was not proposing that people gaze
passively at the way, the truth, and the life or merely bask in the presence of
the Good Shepherd. The Dade County youth claiming to love their new-found Lord
could most likely recite all the "I am" sayings with great reverence, then
disengage, and go their autonomous ways with so-called truth and corrupt lives.
Yet, in less extreme ways, how many others segregate their discipleship from
the rest of their lives?
Reflecting his Jewish heritage,
the faith of Jesus was not a distinct activity of any sort. Furthermore, Jesus'
legacy is neither a disengaged religion nor an eerie spirituality. His
fundamental mandate affecting the totality of everyone's life is, as was
declared moments ago: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." For Christ, for you and me, everything hangs on this "Summary of the
Law."
In our Chapel on Friday we
celebrated baptisms of an infant and of an adult in his 20s. In less than an
hour from now, Bishop Said will begin a Eucharistic celebration and confirm or
receive the people noted on page x of your leaflet. These individuals have not
been baptized and are not to be confirmed or received to gaze in loving wonder
at Jesus and then go their detached, peculiar ways. Privately cherishing Jesus
as the Good Shepherd, Vine, Bread, Light, Way, Truth, Life, or otherwise as
only a fragment of one's life is to miss the point entirely. These persons, as
well as you and I, have accepted Christ's invitation to join the
corporate pilgrimage with Him who lives and makes real "the way, the
truth, and the life." Our deepest understanding of Christ will be
discovered not only in private reverence and prayer, but also by walking his
road with him and each other, a road that takes us into the hills and valleys
of every moment of daily life in all its complexities.
Let us bow our heads in a
prayer by Erasmus: "O Lord Jesus Christ, Who art the Way, the Truth and the
Life, we pray Thee suffer us not to stray from Thee, who art the Way, nor to
distrust Thee, who art the Truth, nor to rest in any other thing than Thee, who
art the life. Teach us by Thy Holy Spirit what to believe, what to do, and
wherein to take our rest. Amen."