Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Divinely Personal

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus announces to his disciples:
“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

Many mysticisms and philosophies of the ancient world—Platonism and Gnosticism come readily to mind—
spoke of God or the sacred, but they spoke of it as a force or a value or an ontological source.
It was impersonal and at an infinite remove from the world of ordinary experience.
These ancient schools find an echo in many modern and contemporary theologies. Think of deism, which was so influential on the founders of the United States,
or even the New Age philosophy of our time.
These speak of a “divine” principle or power,
but one would never dream of addressing such a force as “thou”
or of engaging with it in intimate conversation.

Then there is the Bible.
The Scriptures obviously present God as the overwhelming,
transcendent, uncontrollable, inscrutable Creator of the heavens and the earth,
but they insist that this sublime and frightening power
is a person who deigns to speak to us, to guide us,
and to invite us into his life.

In making that utterance—“I no longer call you slaves, but friends”—
Jesus turned all of religious philosophy and mysticism on its head.

+++Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also
love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you
will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy
might be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one
another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I
command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what
his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I
have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I
who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear
fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father
in my name he may give you.
This I command you:
love one another.”+++

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