Hermily for 5.21.26
Tell 'em, Jesus
This year at The Village we’re embarking on a shared reading experience again; last year’s was about Unreasonable Hospitality, and this year (I don’t even know if they’ve announced this yet) is called The Measure by Nikki Erlick.
I just started reading it; it’s about a day when suddenly everyone in the world, over 22 years old, receives a box on their doorstep with a string inside it. It turns out, and I’m not spoiling anything here, the strings signify the length of the lifespan of the person who receives them.
So, long string, long life. Short string, shorter life. But that’s all they get- no information about when exactly each character will die, or how, just that they either have a lot of time left to live, or not a lot.
And you know, the story goes on from there. The characters consider what to do, how to react, what to start doing, what to stop doing, and what important things should be said, especially by a short-stringer, to their loved ones and friends? What impact do they want to leave on the lives of their dearest ones?
It’s fascinating to read about and to think about. And it reminds me of the readings for Masses this week, including of course today’s.
All this week the readings for daily Masses have been parts of Jesus’ last sermon, called his “final discourse.” They’ve told Jesus said to his disciples at the last Supper, just after washing their feet and just before going to the garden where he met his betrayal by Judas. Today’s Gospel reading is the last words of that last discourse.
Jesus, by this time in his ministry, knew that his life-string was relatively short, and that he was coming to end of it, and that he had precious little time left with his followers and his friends.
Like the characters in the book, I imagine he thought about this a lot, what he would say, what impact he wanted to make on his friends lives, how he wanted them to remember him. If you’ve been reading along with this week’s Gospels, you’ll know that he goes on for quite a while in his final speech.
He gives them a new commandment: Love one another. He says, don’t be afraid. He promises they’ll be together again in heaven. He says, I am the way. And the truth, and the light. I will send you an Advocate, the Spirit; you will not be orphaned.
Stay connected to me, he says, because I am connected to God, and if you do that, if you hang in there with me and do what I’ve taught you to do, your lives will bear fruit. Count on me, Jesus says. Believe in me. And follow my example.
That’s what he tells them.
And in today’s readings, he prays for them, and for you, and me. And what he prays for, of all the things he could pray for, is unity.
He prays that we will not only stay connected to him and to the Father through him, but to each other. He prays that you and I will experience the kind of intimate oneness that he and the Father share. That’s what Jesus prays for, for his disciples and for us, when his short string is about to come to its end.
Maybe you’ve thought about what your “final discourse” would include; after all, at Brooksby it is hard to forget that we are mortal, and that our time on this earth is not eternal. Maybe you try to avoid thinking about it too much. But if you do have a message, you probably hope that your words and your prayers will have a lifelong impact on your friends and loved ones. Jesus today shares that hope; that we will live lives of faith and unity and sure hope, impacted and marked by our friendship with him.
How can we take seriously Jesus’ words and live the way He instructed us to? How can we let our relationship with Jesus be centered in hope and love and expressed in unity?
How can we be the day to day answer to Jesus’ prayer for the world?
Let’s take a moment in prayer now to rededicate ourselves to Jesus’ teaching and to prepare our hearts to be strengthened and our community of faith to be unified at the table of the Lord.
