‘At one with the teaching’
HOMILY: John’s Jesus is a teacher of Wisdom. John’s Jesus is also Wisdom personified, Sophia incarnate. The offence, the “stumbling block”, has to do with this.
‘Let us become what we receive’
HOMILY: Sara Miles used to describe herself as a “left-wing, atheist, American lesbian” who loved to feed people. Sara had never been to a church and didn’t think there was a place for her in the church. In fact, she hadn’t even bothered considering if there was a place for her – she didn’t care. On her morning walk one Sunday morning she decided to walk into her local church where she promptly found herself participating in the Eucharistic meal being offered.
‘Write, sing, dance’
HOMILY: Standing up for what’s right and compassionate is to risk/live your life. Paranoid powers – gluttons and abusers like Herod – deeply resent social and political criticism, and prophets like John the Baptiser are undermined, ridiculed, imprisoned.
‘Faith calls to faith’
HOMILY: Jesus was turned around. Jesus turned. Made aware of multiple needs, possible directions. Ministry on both sides (“all sides”) of the lake. Younger and older people. Life and death issues.
‘Regeneration’
HOMILY: Jesus says: “You shouldn’t be working for perishable food, but for life-giving food that lasts …” (John 6:27). The gospel directs us beyond immediate needs and shallow pleasures, and toward a maturity “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
‘Ever-present as promise’
HOMILY: Jesus says, “I am the bread of life …” There are seven “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s gospel. In addition to the bread of life, Jesus compares himself to light in darkness (8:12), a gate to safe pasture (10:9), a good shepherd (10:11), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way or path (14:6), and the true vine who fulfils Israel’s destiny (15:1; Isaiah 5).
‘Where none may perish’
HOMILY: We give thanks for the witness of John, the poet-evangelist whose gospel invites us to receive a poetic Word, dense and substantial like bread.
‘The fountain and the fig tree’
HOMILY: On Monday morning I met with Dorothy for a walk in Redfern Park. We talked about the gospel, about the apostles with Jesus in a boat (boundary crossings), about the tassels (tzit-tzit), the Torah, touch and healing.
‘Shake it off’
HOMILY: Jesus calls disciples to travel lightly and to live simply – to declutter, we might say, to discard weighty anguish, foolish ambition, gnostic wishes, fears of missing out, even worries over other people’s desiring and accumulating …
‘Connectedness, the highest truth’
HOMILY: Far from being an exclusive “guru” figure dispensing eternal wisdom, John’s Jesus invites all who see and hear him to join him in humility as the One who goes to the cross, united with Abba God in redemptive suffering for the world.
