EASTER 6 PROMISE OF PARACLETE - John 14:15-21

EASTER 6
Dark Age Ahead! No don’t panic. This is not one last piece of negative campaigning ahead of polling day. On the contrary, it’s the title of a recently published book by the Canadian writer Jane Jacobs.

Jacobs argues that we are entering dark age unless certain trends are reversed. To her the danger is not only the loss of precious things but also the memory of them.

To her the threats are to be found in five area;

- Community and family are threatened by consumerism being put before family welfare.
- Higher education is threatened by being more about empire building than providing quality education.
-Science is becoming debased by being dominated by economics. Hence essential environmental action is rejected when costly.
- Government has become more about satisfying the desires of powerful groups than addressing the welfare of the nation.
- Once respected professional groups have become more interested in self protection than in accountability.

This side of the Atlantic we would probably see the dangers in different ways. There are echoes here of all the concerns of Jacobs but I for one would see prime threats coming from
the ocean of private debt, the growth of addiction problems and the serious environmental threat but what do I know? These matters have barely figured in the debates of the past four weeks.

Jacobs fears the entering of a Dark Age. Such a fear also existed amongst those who first read John’s Gospel. By now Christians had been kicked out of the synagogues which were the heritage of most of them. Families were divided, even the church was divided and most of all Christians were living on the edge of society despised by the powers that ruled in Rome and by the educated elite steeped in Greek culture.

So we find John reminding them of words from Jesus - words that would help them in their times of darkness. For the message was that they were not alone. Jesus had promised them that with the ending of his physical presence they would not be orphaned. Instead they would be given a Paracletos which can be translated as a comforter, an Advocate, a Helper or even coach - one who enables us.

But enables us for what. The answer is to be found in the first line of our reading which talks about keeping the commands of Jesus, continuing the work of Jesus. And what was that work? Well when I look at the stories of Jesus I see the one who valued everyone. The man who accepted those with checkered pasts, the man who elevated the role of women, the man who spoke of responsibilities to neighbours but showed the neighbour to be not just those with whom we are comfortable with but those who might be termed as strangers, those who are other than us and he demonstrated it most powerfully in the parable of the Good Samaritan where the neighbour comes from a hostile religious and racial tradition.

And the need for that way of love is needed today. I wonder why we do not see the sickness in society when many people live their lives experiencing a crisis of self esteem, feeling either denied of worth and acceptance or fearing that such acceptance is tenuous. There is something wrong in a society that not only throws away scarce resources in an environmentally destructive manner but people as well.

In our prayers we will along with the other churches of our District be using prayers concerning the General Election. They will come from the Bolton and Rochdale District and they do in part reflect the concern of Christians in that part of our land about the racist threat of the BNP. Yet before we feel to smug, even in Cornwall and Devon, there is a growing problem of racist attacks mainly but not exclusively in our bigger towns and that is not to mention the recently reported figure of 8,000 homophobic attacks in Devon and Cornwall last year.

Oh, the power of transforming love is needed now as much as at any time if we are not to slip into a new Dark Age. But our Scripture has reminded us that love goes on - not merely depending on us but with the help of the Holy Spirit. And to that cause we need to devote ourselves afresh this morning - for the sakes of James, Mark, Ellie and Levi if we can think of no other reason.

In the 20th century one of the greatest writers of opera was the Italian Puccini. ‘Madame Butterfly was one of his greatest successes. During the writing of Turandot his final opera, he was diagnosed with the illness that would kill him. Faced with death he threw himself into his work. However, in the end he was unable to complete it. After his death a small group of friends completed the opera. In 1926 it was performed for the first time at La Scala Opera House in Milan. Puccini’s friend Toscanini was the conductor. They got as far as Puccini had written before Toscanini stopped the performance dropping his baton and saying to the audience, ‘This is where the master ends.’ That was it for the evening but the next evening, came a different message as the opera continued, the message, ‘And this is where his friends began.’
And that is how it is with Jesus. The story does not end. Jesus work of love continues through his friends depending in the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. For Love has no ending and ultimately it is Love that is able to confront and vanquish the dark forces that would take us to a Dark Age.

A Sermon by Canadian minister Dave Martin inspired this sermon.
The context of this sermon was a service in Bideford at whichwhich four young children were baptised on May 1st 2005