John 24:23-29, Sixth Sunday of Easter

Nothing in this world is ever still. Everything is moving all the time. When something moves, we say it is alive. When it is motionless, we say it is lifeless. Motion is life. Life is motion.  

 

Even things that seem dead to us are not without motion. The little electrons and quarks that make up the “deadest” of stuff are always on the move. They do not really rest in peace. If motion is life, then stones are not dead. Stars that die are not dead. Motion is in everything. Motion is everywhere. 

 

What keeps life moving? We invent words like “force” or “energy” to explain motion. Physically, we are alive because of the energy of atoms that bump and blend into each other. Biologically, we are alive because of the energy that comes from food, water, and air. Socially, we are alive because of the energy that sustains our motion in community. 

 

Ultimately, and so we say “spiritually”, we are alive because of something inside us that is in perpetual motion, something impossible for us to get on our own. We are alive because of energy we draw from God’s motion in our lives. The word for this kind of energy we could not invent. Jesus gave the word to us. That word (well, two words actually) is the Holy Spirit.

 

When the Holy Spirit moves us, it is not like pushing carts along an aisle or pulling rabbits out of a hat. There is nothing magical about the Spirit moving in us except to say that the fact that everything keeps moving is itself already magical. 

 

We get to glean this motion of the Holy Spirit from Christ’s words in the Gospel today: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

 

What is there to teach and remind? Many really. What are the lessons we so easily unlearn and fail to remember? I can think of one which we so readily forget in the name of fairness or security, and many times out of fear. That lesson is mercy.

 

In his teaching on family, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), the late Pope Francis tells us:

 

“We cannot forget that ‘mercy is not only the working of the Father; it becomes a criterion for knowing who his true children are. In a word, we are called to show mercy because mercy was first shown to us…. All of [the Church’s] pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness which she shows to believers; nothing in her preaching and her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy.’ It is true that at times ‘we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.’” (Para 310)

 

Today we seem to be more fascinated with building tollgates and tollhouses. The most powerful nation in the world is turning inward and more selfward. Some are following suit. We see this playing out not only in the community of nations but also in the community of disciples that is the Church. We justify the tollgate with the excuse that motion has become commotion. 

 

Thankfully, there are those who will not be swayed by this tide of intolerance and insecurity. There are those who continue to hold onto the same Spirit who moved the disciples in that first Council of Jerusalem. In our first reading today, we remember this Council deciding in the Spirit to move Christianity outward to the so-called gentiles. Were it not for their decision, which they state boldly was also the decision of the Holy Spirit, Christianity would not have moved. It would have remained a small sect within Judaism, insular and isolated from the rest of the world.

 

The Holy Spirit comes to teach us that love is always on the move. It is set in motion by mercy. The Spirit reminds us to lift the barriers that we think keep us safe, but which only stop us from accepting and forgiving one another. From God’s motion in our lives, from the Holy Spirit we draw enough energy to tear down the tollgate and let mercy through.

 

Nothing in this world is ever still. Motion is in everything, always it seems, even in stones that are immovable. 

 

In this motion is life. In this life is love. We live because love is always on the move. Such a love is set in motion by mercy. Time then to begin lifting burdens again and taking out barriers. Let us clear the lane please and let mercy through.

*image from Anabaptist Resources site