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The Upload

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I pray that you have had a blessed week.

Our Gospel text for this Sunday is John 14:15-21. When we ended our Gospel text last week, although it sounded like Jesus was finished talking, he actually had more to say, and this Sunday we get to hear the continuation of the story. If you remember, last week Jesus told the disciples to not let their hearts be troubled. He went on to say that, although he was leaving them, they would be able to accomplish great things because he was going to the Father. These were words of comfort and assurance to his followers. He explains to us why we will be able to do great things, and that is because, after he ascended to the Father, he asked the Father to send his Spirit into his followers, and that is the promise that we hear this week. We will never be alone or orphaned, he promises, because his spirit, the spirit of truth, will always abide in us. What an incredible promise!

Even though this Spirit lives in each of us, I believe many of us Christians ignore it and, instead of following the spirit, we live a life of loneliness and bitterness. We bicker with each other, and we continuously ignore the needs of the poor and the oppressed, even though Jesus said that is what we are called to do.

Congregations fight and split over things Jesus never even mentioned because we each think we are right. Our federal government can’t stop name-calling and finger-pointing long enough to actually run the country. Sometimes this feels like an inevitable and incurable state of affairs. Yet, the gospel says no, this is not our necessary future. There is hope, and that hope is Jesus.

In our Gospel text, Jesus says: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them” (John 14:20-21). In this story, we are offered a description of a circle of love, a cycle of care, an upward spiral of gentleness and commonality, a new community built by the work of God in Christ and bound together in a web of love.

The question is, what do we have to do here at Salem to become this community? Well, the answer to that is we don’t have do anything to become this community because we are already this community. We are it. It is already here in our midst. It is God’s gift to us, and we are called today to pay attention to this gift and to make it a reality.

We are called to be the church in the world. We are called to stand up and stand out in the midst of the world’s loneliness and division as a unique and warm place of community and acceptance, of forgiveness and love. May we always strive to be that community.

Have a blessed week!

Shalom,

Pastor Dave

Tags: Weekly Word