In our weekly prayer/Biblestudy/Staff meeting this morning we looked at the readings for 7 Easter. The reading from John 17 there has a lot in common with the reading for Sunday, John 14.15-21. What got me is that in both John uses this word world in conjunction with humanity, but not to actually define any group of people.
It seems like we often read "This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him." as "This is the Spirit of truth, whom they cannot receive, because they neither see him nor know him."
OR
"I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours." as "I am asking on behalf of those who truly love me; I am not asking on behalf of them who don't get it, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours."
We read it as "us v. them" but what I think is really happening here is that the people who the Father gave Jesus, the one's for whom he asks protection, are all of us; that is to say, all of humanity. It isn't the orthodox pulled out from the revisionists. It isn't the fundamentalists made special against those who make their worship and idol. It isn't about us v. them, but about God giving Jesus all of humanity to be redeemed, and Jesus accepting that request.
It is about the Spirit of Truth that lives within us all. It is about how we hear/see/respond to that Spirit. It is about a "world"view that says, all are good, but a "world" that says, "buy, consume, hoard, destroy." That, I think is what the "world"view is of John.
Last night the EYC watched Rob Bell's Everything is Spiritual here is the crux of it.
It isn't about "us v. them" - those who get God and those who don't. But rather it is about being that liminal group - Spirit and Creation and which path we will choose.
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