Herm-emus Papam!
For 5.8.2025... in the before-times
I preached this in the morning on Thursday, while the conclave was still in session, while the sede was vacante. Remember those days?
listen to a lot of old-time radio shows; I love Jack Benny and Phil Harris and Alice Faye; Bob Hope... comedies, mostly. But one that kind of drives me crazy is George Burns and Gracie Allen. I like both of the actors, but their characters are so messy. And so often, the episodes about them as a couple revolve around some misunderstanding, and their decisions to go with their misunderstanding rather than to clear things up with each other.
Each one takes what they thought they heard from the other, and acts on that, usually to some ridiculous extent. And I get that this is how plots work, but I always find myself kind of yelling at my car radio: that’s not what he meant!! THAT’S NOT WHAT SHE MEANT!! I find myself wanting them to meet back in the kitchen and have a clarifying conversation.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says something that is a sticking point for a lot of people. In fact, this one phrase—or the reverse of it later in the Gospel of John, where Jesus says ”no one can come to the father except through me”—is one that I’ve heard cited by both atheists and orthodox Catholics, as an example of how God leaves some people excluded.
But, maybe those of us who find ourselves on one end or another of this spectrum are missing something vital in these words, and a clarifying conversation is needed here too.
These words are only found in John’s Gospel, and if you were with me on Tuesday for our series called “Easter People,” you know that the author of this Gospel has a pretty strong opinion about following Jesus. We learned that this author thinks that following Jesus, the Christ, is the only way to go, and that it overrules the Jewish religious traditions that came before. So we can kind of keep that in mind- maybe John is putting these words in Jesus’ mouth, to make a particular point to his particular readers. But I don’t think that means we should move on or gloss over it without looking into what Jesus is really saying.
If it is true that no one comes to Jesus unless the Father draws them, today’s New Testament reading from the Acts of the apostles, tries to show us how this works. We hear a long tale about an unexpected character coming to faith through the intervention of Philip, known as Philip the evangelist.
Philip is on his way to somewhere, feels a prompting from God, follows that prompting not knowing what to expect, and changes the Eunuch’s life; brings them to Christ, through teaching and preaching and baptism.
When the Gospel says “"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,” this is what that looks like; it wasn't Philip who decided that this person should be included or excluded, it was God all along. God drew the Eunuch to Christ through Philip. This is how it works; Jesus' words are not about exclusion, but about how all are included.
It’s been God, all along who has drawn people to Jesus. People don’t come to Jesus by the work of others but through God’s invitation, which is delivered through others.
This is of course still true. Whenever people like you and me, are drawn to Jesus, we are in fact drawn to God, by God. It’s God always who makes the first move, and those of us who come to faith do so always in response.
John is not an easy Gospel to parse. It's written in a most challenging, if beautiful, way, but I think the challenge is good for us. It’s good to have clarifying conversations with God in prayer, with Jesus in the scriptures. And we are invited to do just that; to come to know Jesus better through the invitation of our God.
It’s never too late to gain understanding about the scriptures, and when we feel drawn to do so we can know that this is because God is inviting us to meet in the kitchen for a clarifying conversation. Although on my beloved radio shows, everything always gets figured out in around 20 minutes, our clarifying may take much longer- maybe our whole lives- but the invitation to a conversation about what Jesus really means when he says what he says, is a gift that we should not ignore.
Thanks for reading! Happy new pope!