what is important?

I have been at training courses for 3 out of the past 8 days. Last Saturday, was SMAT, which stands for Sexual Misconduct Awareness Training. This is considered so important by the Uniting Church, that we spent a number of days on this, and the code of ethics, while we were at college, and we are expected to complete a one day refresher at least each three years. This is not only for Ministers, but also lay people in leadership positions.

SMAT covers what the church considers to be sexual misconduct, and also the process that happens when a complaint is made. Some in the group last weekend were asking: how many people in congregations know about the regulations or the process. Basically, if you have a complaint against a Minister or Lay Leader, speak to Grant, the Presbytery Minister. 

Then on Thursday and Friday I was at a Leadership Intensive. This was the third of four, two day sessions, with lots of reading in between. One thing we discussed this week was what spiritual practices help to keep us motivated, what sustains us. I leant a new word: Ubuntu – I am because we are. This is an African word, and many African languages have a word with a similar meaning.  We only know ourselves; we only exist, in relationships with other people. While this word, and the philosophy behind it, sounds foreign to our western ears, I hope that it resonates with our Christian hearts. Christianity is a religion where relationships are important, relationship with God, God’s creation and with each other.

The passage from John’s gospel we heard this morning is part of a long section, in which Jesus teaches and prays for the disciples before his arrest. This passage comes after the washing of the disciples’ feet. Looking at this farewell discourse, we see Jesus reminding the disciples of a number of important things.

I have heard of people with small children leaving video or letters for their children to be given to them at particular stages of their lives. Do you know anyone who in preparing to die left a message for a child, or a loved one?

If you had the opportunity to leave a message for your family, friends, and congregation; what would you say? If you knew you would probably die tomorrow, what would you want to record? In the time Jesus was speaking, a person’s last words were considered to be very important.

In this section Jesus is speaking with the disciples, not a crowd, not the religious or political elite, but the disciples who had been with him, travelling together, hearing him teach, watching him heal and touch, hearing him chastise some and offering healing to all. The people Jesus is speaking to were the disciples. He has just washed their feet, and is talking about his impending death, which the disciples find baffling.

What do we hear in this section of the farewell discourse recorded in John?  Have faith; there is a space for you. By the time John was writing this, the Christians were a minority, and were being expelled from the synagogue. They were no longer able to make the necessary sacrifices; they no longer could carry out some of the required Jewish practices.

Here, Jesus is telling the disciples there is space for them in God’s house, there is room for this minority group, expelled and reviled by the Jewish leaders.  These words of Jesus are words of reassurance to a group of bewildered disciples, and to a small community of Christians in the first century: Words about the presence of Jesus, a God with room for all, and Jesus who is the way.

Jesus being the way, the truth, the life, may not have been understood the way it is often interpreted in modern times. Biblical Scholars don’t all agree in this. Some hold that this means that Jesus is the one and only way to God. Others argue that this is not how it would have been interpreted by the early Christians. They would have heard this in a Jewish context, a context they no longer fitted into. They needed a way to God that did not include the Jewish religion or practice.

There is reassurance of God’s care and protection. Looking at Philip’s question of Jesus: "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied”, and the reply: "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?  ……  ” I wondered how do we know God? On Friday I was in the city, near Town Hall, and we had the task of going for a walk and finding signs of God, and God’s activity in the City. Where do you see signs of God in your day? In what ways do you sense the presence of God in your life?

When they heard these words of Jesus, the disciples were confused; the early church was comforted, what about us? In this passage we are reminded of the constant care and presence of God. We are told that there is room for us, room for everyone in God’s heart. We are told that Jesus will show us the way.

An observation on the presence of God: One comment I read this week noted that God is always present. We may not recognise that presence, we may wish God would take a holiday sometime, but God is always present with us, and there is always a place for us with God.

While this passage, or the first part of it, is sometimes read at funerals, the places that are prepared for us are not only about after we die. There is a place for us with God now.

And when we live in union with God, when we open our lives up to God’s presence, when we are sure of our place in God’s kingdom and God’s heart, we live lives that change the world.