Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (8 June 2025), or Whit Sunday. Tomorrow is the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Easter VI, 25 May 2025), and is known in the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of the Blind Man.
Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers John Wesley (1791) and Charles Wesley (1788), Evangelists and Hymn Writers. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 15: 18-21 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 18 ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.’
Today’s Reflection:
The Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary today at the Eucharist (John 15: 18-21) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper in Saint John’s Gospel.
Jesus has been urging the disciples to love all those around them as a sign of their love of him. In today’s Gospel reading, he warns them that there is no guarantee that they will be loved in return. If people hated such a loving person as Jesus so bitterly, his disciples cannot expect to be treated differently.
He explains the reason they will be hated is because they will refuse to identify themselves with the values and priorities of the secular world. They will reject materialistic greed and competitiveness, the scramble for status and power, the hatred, anger, violence and revenge that mark so many people’s lives.
The most terrible thing to happen to Christians is for them to be loved by that world; it is a sign they have become part of it: ‘I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you’ (verse 19).
Once again he reminds them that the servant is not greater than the master: ‘If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also’ (verse 20).
At times, it may be difficult to understand and accept this. Often I am upset when I hear back of how I have been spoken of pejoratively behind my back and out of earshot to friends I have long valued and cherished but who have become distant. But that is personal. It ought to be more upsetting to hear about people suffering, in jail, tortured, deported or murdered simply because of their political, social or political views or because of their ethnic or cultural background.
Yet, when we look back in time, we can take pride in the religious martyrs of the past or the courageous heroes who sacrificed so much to win the democratic liberties and social freedoms we have today – rights and freedoms that we often take for granted but that are being eroded and whittled away in so places these days.
I sometimes wonder whether those people who speak out find it worse to be ignored that to be silenced. And it is tragic when those who are demanding and campaigning for a better society and a better world find themselves under pressure, turn against one another and become divided and then ineffective, sometimes even descending into or even wallowing a sense of righteousness and moral superiority.
In a similar way, it is more than disturbing to see the name of Christianity being hijacked in the world by leaders whose policies and decisions work against the love of God and the values of God’s kingdom: Trump setting up the so-called White House Faith Office headed by the televangelist and prosperity theology proponent Paula White, while the Trump regime in its actions panders to the violence and the hatred of the far-right; the way Patriarch Kirill of Moscow seeks to make the Russian Orthodox Church beholden to the Putin regime; the way Russian Orthodox soldiers are being told it is their Christian duty to wage ‘a holy war’ that slays Ukrainian Orthodox soldiers and civilians, all in the name of Russkiy Mir …
All this compromises our witness to the love of God for God’s people everywhere. When any of these things happen, people see the Church and Church figures as having failed the Gospel … and having failed the world.
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 24 May 2025):
‘That We May Live Together: A Reflection from the Emerging Leaders Academy’ has been the theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update from Annsli Kabekabe of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 24 May 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, help us to see beyond first impressions and be slow to judge others. Remind us that everyone carries their own stories, shaped by struggles we may never know. Teach us to listen with empathy so that our communities may be grounded in compassion.
The Collect:
God of mercy,
who inspired John and Charles Wesley with zeal for your gospel:
grant to all people boldness to proclaim your word
and a heart ever to rejoice in singing your praises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God, shepherd of your people,
whose servants John and Charles Wesley revealed the loving service of Christ
in their ministry as pastors of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.
Collect on the Eve of Easter VI:
God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us
to eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org