Jesus’ Last Supper Discourse in John’s Gospel gives us a great deal of insight into who Jesus is and what his relationship with us is all about. Jesus tells his disciples, I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Jesus and the Father are one, with no division between them, and God is revealed in all that Jesus does and all that Jesus is. In this way, Jesus is the path to the Father: I am the way and the truth and the life, he says. Moreover, just as Jesus is the revelation of the Father, so is Christ to be revealed in us, in our shared faith and the way we give witness to that faith.
One example of such witness is found in Acts of the Apostles, in which the tasks of the disciples need to be shared so that the needs of all may be met. No one is to be neglected in the daily distribution of food, and so a group of seven men are chosen to ensure that all receive what they need. The basis of community is our collective responsibility for each other, as shown in the love with which we embrace lives of service. In so doing, we become the living stones spoken of in the First Letter of Peter, all connected, built into the edifice that is our church community, with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, the foundation that holds up that edifice. We are all connected, one spiritual house, called to trust and to praise God, as Psalm 33 exhorts us: Exult, you just, in the Lord!
Our Christian faith teaches us that Jesus is the way, the means by which our world can be drawn together as one by the power of God’s love, a love that gives us common ground even as it transcends our differences, for it is grounded in compassion and mercy and the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. May our church, built of living stones, give witness to that same compassion and mercy and love, filled with the trust that comes of our faith in the Lord.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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