Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter Years 1 and 2 2024

Peter H. Davids

Easter • Sermon • Submitted 24 days ago • Presented 20 days ago

Knowledge of Jesus Christ

Jesus Came in the Name of the Lord

In Nomine Domini

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In Pisidian Antioch God’s people, the Jews, did not know God and so got jealous, did not recognize that God was reaching out to the Gentiles, and ended up being placed outside God’s people by Paul. In John, Philip is told that to really know Jesus is to recognize the Father in him and their unity in word and works. Thus, when there is no more need to veil his unity with the Father, his unity with believers will become apparent when they out of loyalty to him seek his will and speak his will Jesus (and his Father) will express their will through such persons in words and works which may even be greater in some people’s eyes than those Jesus himself worked. So we have a choice whether to follow our way and understanding of God as in Antioch or commit to and meditate on Jesus and consume him in the sacrament and, living out of that love-unity be channels of his will in the world.

Notes

Transcript

Title

Do We Know Jesus?

Outline

Our first reading revealed a people of God who did not know God

They had a history with God going back centuries

God himself considered them his people so Paul says that they had “first dibs” on the good news

But they were jealous, showing that they were into their egodrama about being God’s people

And they rejected the idea of gentiles being included, showing that they had missed God’s theodrama as written in the Old Testament

The result is that we have the only place in Acts or the Epistles in which Matt 10:14, Luke 9:5, or Luke 10:11 is actualized. Only the “disciples” have joy.

Our gospel shows us how to know God

It is not in visions or revelations (unless they just happen), but in focusing on Jesus, getting to know him better: “If you know me, then you will also know my Father.” And, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”

The identity is so close that Jesus says about his words and works, which we have in our gospels, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.”

Thus if one believes in or entrusts oneself to Jesus “will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.” That is because he is in us not just in the sacrament we consume, but also in the world. The Father is in him and he is in us. There is a love-interpenetration.

And when we express this back to him, his words being spoken by us and his will being willed by us, we are living in his authority (“in my name”) and so “whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.” Notice that is not “what you want” or “whatever you will” but “whatever you ask in my name.” When we see the results of our union with him, that union with him is strengthened - we take our eyes off the action and look into his eyes in gratitude for his will working through us.

So we see a law in our texts

If we focus on our will and wants, if we take pride in our place in God’s economy, if we get exclusive in any way, we are liable to be separated from God, cast out of his true community.

If we focus on being loyal to and one with Jesus, on grasping what he and the Father means by his words and works, on deepening our commitment, and on speaking only what is in accord with his will, we will experience his will, which is one with the Father’s, flowing through us and doing the same and even greater works (since, after the ascension there was no need for his being cloaked). That is what God will do, not to make us look good, but to reveal himself, bring honor to his name through Jesus, and call outsiders into his community.

We have that choice, as did St Dominic and St Catherine of Siena, with our time with him and with every word we speak in the world and every desire of our hearts that flows from his heart. They did so well with that choice that we call them saints. Jesus is saying that we can as well.

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