Who here likes rap music? like a lot of people of my generation, I don’t. However, about 10 years ago, I discovered the music of Kanye West, and I learned to appreciate it. He has a great voice, great melodies, and musically it’s sophisticated and very clever. However, I had to stop listening to it because of the lyrics, which were misogynistic, violent, and thoroughly nasty. So imagine my surprise when he released the album Jesus Is King in 2019. After a mental health crisis and a profound spiritual experience, Kanye West suddenly got Jesus. He described encountering God’s love and grace as life-changing. Nor was he the only one, a musician more of my own generation – someone equally aggressive and shocking – was Alice Cooper, who rose to fame in the 1970s with his shock-rock persona. His personal life was marked by excessive drinking, drug use, and a stage act that embraced dark, rebellious themes. By his early 30s, his alcoholism and addiction had spiralled out of control, and his marriage was on the brink of collapse. The turning point came in the late 70s and 80s. Cooper later described how he hit rock-bottom using drugs alone in his hotel room and realised that he needed to change. His wife, Cheryl, gave him an ultimatum: get sober or lose your family. In the months that followed, he reconnected with his faith and made a conscious decision to commit his life to Jesus Christ. Since his conversion, Cooper has been sober for over 40 years and has used his story to encourage others. He has said that Christianity is basically a one-on-one relationship with Jesus if you’re a disciple of Jesus. But how do we do Jesus? How do we have a one-to-one relationship with Jesus now that he is no longer around? That is one of the themes of today’s gospel.
This Sunday, and for the next two Sundays, our readings are taken from that part of John’s Gospel known as the Farewell Discourses. This is the long conversation that Jesus has with his disciples on his last night, between the Last Supper and his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. And the Farewell Discourses address essentially that one question: how should the disciples relate to Jesus when he is no longer with them. This, on the night before the Crucifixion, is about to become the disciples’ problem; it is also an issue for any and every disciple of Jesus who has lived in the days since Jesus walked the earth: how do we relate to a Jesus who is no longer here, who is no longer with us?
Jesus gives his disciples what they sorely need in order to “fare well” in their new and unusual relation with an invisible and yet (as all disciples of all times can testify) with a graciously present Lord, and that answer can be summed up in the four letters that are written at the bottom of invitations: RSVP.
The living Jesus, embodying his Father, will come to his disciples, as he comes to us in the four following ways: R, by his Resurrection; S, by his Spirit – by sending us his Holy Spirit; V, by his Visits; and P, by his Parousia. Now that last, the Greek word Parousia, means return, and it is used by theologians to refer to the Second Coming, the doctrine that one day Christ is coming back. But perhaps I need to say more about V, his ‘visits’: this refer to all the ways, ecclesiastically and spiritually we become aware of Christ’s presence: by reading his Word, through the sacraments, through prayer, and through fellowship: that sense, in other words, of Jesus being with us such as the two disciples were witness to on the road to Emmaus. Such visits are – scripture, the Eucharist, prayer, and spending time with other Christians – are the principal ways we can cultivate our relationship with Jesus today.
So coming specifically to today’s Gospel reading, the shape of it looks something like this: Jesus begins by telling his disciples not to let there hearts be troubled and that he is going to a prepare a place for them in his father’s mansion, which has many dwelling places. There are two things to notice here: it isn’t surprising that the disciples have troubled hearts? After all, Jesus has just announced that he is about leave them, and that after this night they are never going to see him again. What’s more, Peter, their leader, far from proving himself the hero he believes himself to be, has just been told he is about to deny Jesus, ignominiously. Next comes the promise of heaven: in my father’s house are many dwelling places. Jesus doesn’t speak much about the afterlife, and what he says is fairly cryptic. Indeed if you compare what the New Testament tells us about Paradise with what the Koran has to say, it’s like comparing a fragment of a grainy old black and white film, with a detailed technicolour production. Is it any wonder then, that Thomas, always the sceptic, responds by saying, ‘No Lord, we don’t know the way. We don’t know where you are going.’ Philip, whose feast day, BTW, was on Friday along with the apostle James, is also confused: Show us the Father, he says, to which Jesus replies Have I been with you so long, and you still don’t know me? And finally comes that enigmatic promise that his disciples will do ‘greater works’ through faith in Jesus name than he ever did. How are we understand this?
On the one hand, we can look to the Acts of the Apostles to see the incredible achievements that this lost and fearful band of disciples were to go on accomplish; and on the other, we can look to the Church’s incredible track record as an organiser of schools and hospitals down the centuries. So perhaps it is true, quantitatively if not qualitatively, that his disciples have been able to do greater works than he did.
But to come back to our question: how do we, like the disciples, have a relationship with a teacher, a guide, a Saviour who is no longer with us? Like Alice Cooper, how do we have a one-on-one relationship with Jesus? I think that V of the RSVP is the important thing: we let him visit us through his Word, by reading, and rereading, the Gospels; we let him visit us through prayer and by coming to church and receiving the sacraments; and we let him visit us in our fellowship with other Christians. Our relationship with Jesus isn’t an intellectual thing: we don’t need a college degree to understand what Jesus is all about. Christianity isn’t a matter for the mind but an opening of the heart. Acceptance and submission are what are essential for a one-on-one relationship with Jesus. It is by giving ourselves to him that we come to him, and that he comes to us!