Sixth Sunday of Easter
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Readings: Genesis 8: 20 – 9:17 and John 14: 15-21A
A few weeks ago two colleagues and I were driving under a clear sky one evening and noticed something in the sky which we could not identify. If it was a cloud it was an extraordinary shape, being vertical rather than horizontal. We discounted this possibility, then wondered whether it could be a kite flying high, or a drone, but then thought it could equally be a comet of some kind. We watched it for a few minutes but then lost it as we changed direction, and never established what it was that we saw.
Strange sights in the sky have often worried humans who look on with awe, and sometimes fear. These phenomena may sometimes be frightening, or comforting. After the destruction caused by the Great Flood, God establishes his covenant with Noah, the righteous man, and with his descendants. The bow in the clouds, which we hear about in today’s reading from Genesis – the rainbow – is to be the sign of that covenant. These days the image of the rainbow has other connotations, of course.
Now a covenant is a legally binding agreement between two parties, with penalties imposed if either side breaks the promise. But here in the Genesis story, God makes all the promises. He undertakes to restrain his own divine powers, and hands over his creation into human hands – every animal of the ground, every bird of the air and fish of the sea, and the green plants. They are created for human use, so that Noah and his sons and descendants might be fruitful and multiply.
I like to think that our ancestors wondered about the appearance of the rainbow in the sky, as my friends and I puzzled over what we saw above us that evening. What did the rainbow mean? This would have been before humans came to any clear understanding about meteorology. But perhaps they at least acknowledged that God grants sunshine after rain – part of the fulfilment of the promise he made to Noah after the Flood. As we heard, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” The promise to Noah is extended and fulfilled in Jesus.
In our own day the promise is challenged by the threat of climate change and the damage we have caused to the environment. Today, as it happens, is Rogation Sunday. Traditionally, on this day, annual processions took place in many places to ‘beat the bounds’ and to ask God to bless the land and the growing season. The priest and poet George Herbert interpreted the procession as encouraging fellowship between neighbours, and charitable giving to the poor. Maybe that is why Rogationtide often coincides with Christian Aid Week, as it does this year. More recently, the scope of Rogationtide has been widened to include the theme of accountable stewardship.
In the gospel for today, Jesus is making another sort of covenant with his disciples. He is preparing them for the time when he will no longer be with them. We are reading this passage before Ascension Day, when Jesus returned to his Father, but in the original discourse he was more than likely preparing the disciples for his ‘leaving’ of them at his death. Whatever the detail, he knows that their bewilderment and pain will be that of children suddenly bereft of their parents. For a while, they will be as orphans, and there can be fewer more powerful symbols of loss than that of an orphaned child.
But Jesus promises, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” We can interpret this coming either as his returning from the dead, or as his sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, or even as the ‘second coming’ – or as all three. Whichever was intended, it is Easter that ends the disciples’ bereavement. So Jesus is not abandoning them. He will ask the Father to send the Advocate, the Spirit, to continue to teach them and remind them of what he has already shown them. The promise of the Spirit makes explicit what was hinted at in the first part of the chapter which was last Sunday’s gospel. The mutual love within the Godhead has a threefold shape. True life springs from love, given, received and communicated.
Angela Tilby notes that one of the spiritual tragedies of our time is the loss of personal relationship in daily life that has come through our increasingly automated world. This was accentuated during the Covid pandemic, when personal dealings and human contact were understandably replaced by on-line communication and virtual encounters. This proved particularly damaging for young people, many of whom have not recovered the skills of personal communication. Even more recently we have the growth of AI in so many areas of daily life, which can bring great benefits, but also opens up the prospect of an even more disembodied world where personal interaction, human contact and wisdom are at best diminished; at worst dismissed. Not to mention the more sinister uses of AI to create images which we don’t know whether they are real or not.
Angela Tilby continues to say that we are in danger of becoming spiritually autistic, isolated and empty, aware only of our own needs and incapable of recognizing the reality of other people. Jesus shows us that our neediness cannot be met by grasping at what we imagine will satisfy us. Ultimately, we need to recognize our emptiness and turn away from ourselves to the love that already embraces us. To help us, Jesus pledges that those who love him will receive the Spirit of Truth.
Another writer urges us to ‘Consider the Spirit of Truth’. First, the truth about ourselves – the inescapable truth of our lostness and incompleteness. Secondly, the truth about the world. No power structures can provide security, no wealth can secure lasting happiness, and no medicine can prevent death. Thirdly, the truth about Jesus – that his love and transforming forgiveness can cure the lostness; provide the security and bring healing between peoples and nations, and overcome death. It is these truths which make possible the promise that ‘you also will live.’
Of course, I am preaching to the converted. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t grasped something of the truth of the divine presence within you, within us, guiding us, shaping us. So may our prayer today be for those who feel increasingly lost and alienated in today’s world. And may we do all we can to promote human contact; in even simple things like using the check-out assistant rather than the self-service till; making the phone call or even writing a letter rather than the impersonal e-mail; wondering about the people we see or meet, not being afraid to speak to strangers; encouraging other folk whenever we can; praying for those about whom we are concerned or for whom we want good things to happen; doing all in our power to build-up community and helping others to find the life that so many have lost.ind the life that so many have lost.