A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.
Jesus said to his disciples,
I still have many things to say to you,
But they would be too much for you now.
But when the Spirit of Truth comes,
He will lead you to the complete truth,
Since he will not be speaking as from himself,
But will say only what he has learned.
And he will tell you of the things to come.
He will glorify me,
Since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine.
Everything the Father has is mine.
That is why I said,
All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
This is a very overwhelming Gospel reading.
It is so,
I'm almost reeling from everything that is contained in here,
If one sits and dissects it some.
Everything the Father has is mine.
It's not there.
What does God have?
Everything.
I think over the past few weeks we've been moving towards this point of God has everything.
God is everything.
And the Son has that,
And the Spirit teaches us everything that the Son has.
Is that not maybe a sign that we are learning more and more about everything,
About God?
And as we progress in science,
As we progress in learning about ourselves,
As we progress in learning about anything,
We are hearing the words of the Spirit.
Maybe in different places,
Maybe in different ways,
Maybe through a microscope.
Is that not the Spirit speaking to us?
And that is awe-inspiring.
But something else stood out for me as I was listening to the Gospel reading.
Everything the Father has is mine.
Not just the good.
Everything.
And we have been talking about challenges that people are facing.
And bringing that to God.
Isn't that then part of how we learn?
Maybe I'm taking a bit of a leap now with these connections,
But when the Spirit teaches us,
When we experience things as our truth to glorify God,
We don't read here that it's the positive things that we will be taught.
We read here that it is all,
The complete truth.
He will lead you through the complete truth.
And I think that is one massive message for us going into this week,
Into the future,
That what we experience,
What we learn,
Is true.
And that truth is something that is going to be unique to each of us,
Because each of us have a unique experience.
I might love a dog.
Other person might hate a dog.
The dog is good or bad.
Maybe both those statements are true depending on which lens you look at it from.
And I think in our human incarnation,
That is what we are here to learn.
That the dog is not necessarily good nor bad,
That the dog is.
And that life is not necessarily good or bad,
But life is.
And that the Spirit of God shows us that life is through different lenses,
And that we will hear the Spirit,
And we will perceive the Spirit in different ways.
Not to judge,
Because it is human to judge,
We judge.
We judge to stay alive,
That is what the ego is there for.
The ego is there to keep us alive,
And to judge is this good for me or bad.
It comes back to this concept of do I run or do I stay.
But we started placing so much emphasis on the ego that we forget to sometimes just step back and be and perceive,
And try not to judge.
It is not an easy thing to do,
But we try.
And I think that is part of the truth of the Spirit,
That we will see and we will experience the truth in different levels,
That we will experience the truth from within our human lens,
Our human expression.
And that we have the opportunity then to also try and see things from beyond the human lens,
From just the place of being,
To experience life and moments in life,
Not as good or bad,
But just to experience them.
And when we do that,
We do this continuously,
And we start listening to the Spirit,
I think that is when we actually start with connecting with what the Spirit does.
He will glorify me,
Since all He tells you will be taken from what is mine.
So that when things in life happen that we don't agree with,
Things in life happen that cause us trauma or sadness or discomfort,
When disease happens,
When heartache happens,
We will be able to recognize that even that is part of what Christ owns,
Of what Christ is.
And that slowly we will be able to hopefully one day start glorifying Christ,
Start glorifying God,
Through the truth of the Holy Spirit.
And that truth for me this time is realizing that all is God.
Amen.
