[Propertalk] A few quotables for the gospel lesson - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

It is important to observe that throughout the passage the third person plural is used when speaking of believers. Jesus is addressing the community of believers, not individuals. It is tempting to read the Gospel of John in terms of "Jesus and me;" the language of the Gospel, however, challenges individuals to understand that they are believers in community and to recognize that Jesus is embodied in and expressed through the words and actions of this community.

http://www.goodpreacher.com/shareit/readreviews.php?cat=28

Holly E. Hearon
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When my wife  and I were in seminary we would often worship at different churches together.  One Sunday we drove about thirty minutes outside the city to a small church that we expected would be very friendly and welcoming.  Boy, were we wrong!  I don't think a single person spoke to us the whole time we were there.  Now that I think about it, I don't even think anyone made eye contact with us.  It was saddening.  It was frustrating.  It was eye-opening.  Afterwards we wondered together, "What made us so different?"  Was it the way we look?  The way we dressed?  Was it just that we were strangers?  Why did they see us as different, instead of seeing us as the same?  I still don't know why we weren't greeted more warmly by that church family, but I have heard enough similar stories from other people to know that it's not an uncommon experience.

http://reflectious.com/2010/05/10/john-1720-26-sundays-and-other-days/

Lee Koontz, 2010
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      I remember when I was a youthful member of my local church fellowship, that once a term, at the evening service, we would have a special evangelistic outreach. This was a time when people could give their life, or rededicate their life, to Jesus. Our old minister used the "alter-call" method which involved moving to the front of the church in plain view of everyone; a bit embarrassing. There was this young girl, a sad case really, who rededicated herself every time there was an altar call. I remember thinking at the time that the heads bowed and hands up routine would have been less embarrassing. Mind you, we all would have peeked anyway.
      Of course, the truth is that when it comes to rededication, it wouldn't hurt any of us. In fact, there is a sense where going to church on Sunday serves this very purpose. We are always falling from some great height, slipping on slushy ground, continually short of our spiritual goals. Yet, as the Sundays go by, will we always focus on rededication, or will it wear thin?

http://www.lectionarystudies.com/studyg/easter7cg.html

Bryan Findlayson
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 Holy hospitality is be the place where all grow in wisdom and strength where the blind see and the lame walk - this is meaning of unity - to be the church of welcome to variety of colors around us - to be a rainbow in a world that seek monochromatic experience. In this way our testimony is a living organism. We practice our faith by living for the common good.

http://www.georgehermanson.com/2007/05/the-nature-of-the-church-year-c-easter-7-sermon.html

George Hermanson
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In The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center, Father Bruno Barnhart writes:
This prayer is an epiclesis (i.e., a calling down of the Holy Spirit) over the bread of the words of the Word, the wine of words of the Spirit, which he has set out among them. The bread will be broken, the wine poured, upon the cross. He lifts his eyes and prays that the fire may descend to fill these words and figures with the reality which they have evoked as in shadow. Jesus' prayer is a sacrificial invocation, a flame which gathers all of the themes and words of the supper into itself, and bears them upward ritually to the Father, calling for the returning flame of the Spirit.

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2122

Suzanne Guthrie, 2001
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The  issue goes back to The Beginning. To the first principle of Creation (not the fundamentalist kind!) that everything & every- one is created good. A consequence of humans being made in God's own image is that that image, including its oneness with God (& therefore with each other) is to flow on to benefit the whole Creation. We cannot be one with anyone else, not even our own self, unless & until we are restored to the oneness that has always been God's plan for Creation. That only happens as we are restored to grace by the New Adam (who also has an Eve side!) Mostly our efforts at 'church unity' go nowhere because we don't make Jesus' connection of the centrality of oneness of Being, before any attempted oneness of doing. 

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/laterallyluke/LLKJN172026EAST7.html

Brian McGowan
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