Saturday of the Fifth Week of
Easter
Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater
than his master.’ If they persecuted me,
they will also persecute you. If they
kept my word, they will also keep yours.
And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because
they do not know the one who sent me.” John 15:20-21
Piety
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the people I cannot change, which is pretty much everyone, since I’m
clearly not you, God. At least not the
last time I checked.
And while you’re at it,
God, please give me the courage to change what I need to change about myself, which
is frankly a lot, since, once again, I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect. It’s better for me to focus on changing
myself than to worry about changing other people, who, as you’ll no doubt
remember me saying, I can’t change anyway.
Finally, give me the
wisdom to just shut up whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter than everyone
else in the room, that no one knows what they’re talking about except me, or
that I alone have all the answers.
Basically, God, grant me
the wisdom to remember that I’m not you.
Amen
Study
Jesus just wants to
be a part of our lives. Much of what he
speaks to addresses ways for us to walk with him, dwell with him, and unite
with him in thought, word or deed. He
teaches us to pray as he does to the Father.
He asks us to imitate Him. And he
asks us to work in his name not any other.
Doing
so will set us apart from people motivated by other goals. “[T]he Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither
sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in
you.” (John 14:17) We know the spirit of truth when we come to
know Jesus.
The Notes from this
passage in the New American Bible explain that the term “Spirit of truth” is a
moral force put into a person by God, as opposed to the spirit of perversity.
It is more personal in John; it will teach the realities of the new order (John
14:26), and testify to the truth (John 14:6).
But the other
forces of the world will not appreciate the “truth.” While that truth might set us free from being
enslaved by consumerism, entertainment, capitalism or our local sports
fanaticism, we will end up being “hated by all because of my name, but whoever
endures to the end will be
saved.” (Matthew 10:22)
Jesus reinforces this
message of unity with Him and how it makes us estranged from the world in the Sermon
on the Mount: “Blessed are you when
people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name
as evil on account of the Son of Man.” (Luke 6:22) The idea of persecution for Jesus’ name is
frequent in the New Testament. For John,
association with Jesus’ name implies union with Jesus as Eucharist is communion
with Jesus.
Action
Two actions by Jesus
bookend the Last Supper Discourse. First,
Jesus conducts the most humbling of service when he washes the feet of his Apostles. Second, Jesus surrenders to the physical
forces of the world which arrest, convict and execute his mortal body. Through that surrender, he is not
extinguished but rather he conquers those forces by rising above them.
This weekend we can
celebrate, honor and remember those who sacrificed their lives for us. In addition to the veterans who fought for
us, do not forget others who were innocent victims of violence and hatred that
paved the way for greater freedom for all.
We have all heard about Martin Luther King, Medgar Evans and Malcolm
X. However, veterans like Army veteran
Jimmy Lee Jackson helped to pave the way for the voting rights act. Korean War veteran Clyde Kennard survived the
battles thousands of miles from home only to be barred from attending an all-white
college. Framed for a crime he did not
commit, Kennard died of cancer in prison two years before the first black
students attended what is now known as the University of Southern Mississippi.
On
this Memorial Day Weekend 2014, read and remember the sacrifices made by these
veterans and other
forgotten martyrs of the American civil rights movement here.
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