John 17
This is another place where I hope I am not missing the real point, but this chapter as a whole really reads to me like an affirmation of the Gospel of Inclusion - for which I am always so grateful when I stumble upon it.
Jesus speaks in such present tense about knowing the Father through Him, about being with the Father now, about none of us belonging in this world.
I think that's what is so easy to forget. Because this world God gave us is amazing - seriously awesome. Just look at some of the space photographs or listen to a WNYC Radiolab podcast. This world is awesome. I've always wanted to be a mathematician or physicist and spend my life studying the translation we're attempting of the Word that made and is everything. Oh the numbers, how beautiful and inadequate they are!
But we are not meant for this world. We are not of it. We belong somewhere else.
One of my favorite songs is from the Muppet Movie "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" which is about, among other things, a home none of us really remember but will someday reach. We all know the feeling of longing for that place. Best stanza, by the way:
There's not a word yet for old friends who just me
Part heaven, part space, or have I found my place?
You can just visit, but I plan to stay
I'm going to go back there someday
It's a deep longing, but I think we forget it. Or we spend our lives looking for it on earth. We call it soulmates or a true home or finding ourselves. We're looking for our heavenly home here. That place where we will be whole and made anew and better and get to be the good version of ourselves all the time - to rest and love and be and do. That's not in this world.
We are not of this world. So we should stop looking for ourselves or our home or our perfect whatever and start getting out hands dirty to make this world better while we're here. Because we are only visiting - and when you're visiting, you try to leave everything just a little better than you found it.
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