Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Ephrem Arcement, OHC
The Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2026
Religion can be a very dangerous thing. We have used it to say all kinds of things about God, about ourselves, and about each other, often with frightening certitude, that entrap us in belief systems that perpetuate ideology over humanity, blind assertion over wisdom, and security over generosity. In the post-modern era, this realization brought about the condemnation of religion itself, a convenient way to circumvent the demands of healthy religion. Instead of deep observation and reflection on how religion can be manipulated, how God can be made to say what may serve our will instead of the divine will, or acknowledge the great good that religion has often inspired out of the heart of humankind, an easier option has been
chosen by many…to throw the baby out with the bath water and go at it religionless. This choice was understandable, even if shortsighted, in light of the gross violence perpetrated in the name of religion, indeed, in the name of God, throughout the centuries. In saying religion can no longer be trusted, the post-modern mind has, though, in effect, too quickly said God can no longer be trusted. And in this vast theological wasteland what has emerged is a human consciousness rootless and without a ground on which to stand and a spirit parched wondering where to slake its thirst.
This is not, however, an entirely bad thing. Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, our images of God need to die in order to give birth to more adequate ones. The crises of church history have done just this…forged theological revolutions which birth new belief systems which better serve the human spirit and better foster a more universal peace. Perhaps we are living in such a time now.
Liturgically speaking, we are indeed at the cusp of a new birth. The tide of Easter has crested, the Lord has Ascended, and, in a week’s time, the Holy Spirit will fill us anew. And the lections for this seventh Sunday after Easter (note seven being the number of fullness), take us right into the heart of the story of this new birth…this revolution of a religion.
The birthing of Christianity out of Judaism is not about a Christian but about a Jew…a Jew suffused with the ancient stories of his faith and the sacred traditions which helped form his religious sensibilities and belief system. Yet, Yeshua (Jesus), son of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth of Galilee, had a special attunement to the divine, and this attunement allowed him to sniff out bad religion with the snout of a bloodhound. His fidelity to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was at once doggedly traditional and daringly original. In being traditional, Jesus would assert the messianic hope and hold to the fulfillment of the covenantal promises of Israel’s God. In being original, he would also assert that he was himself that fulfillment.
A rupture of the old from the new was bound to follow. Or from another perspective…a new birth.
From reading the Gospels one doesn’t, however, get the sense that Jesus saw himself as a religious revolutionary. One, rather, gets the sense that he was just a faithful Israelite with a strikingly original vision of God and his intimate proximity to this God. Jesus was less interested in intentionally overthrowing a religious system as in simply…and wholeheartedly…living inebriated in the love of the God his own religious system proclaimed and which so claimed him. This was no new god. This was the same God of the covenants, of the prophets, and of the sages of old but internalized in such a way that first-hand experience gave validation to the testimony of the sacred page. And it was this…his experience of the covenantal love of his God as a faithful Jew…that would become the arbiter of his spiritual compass and would lead him along a path where he would at once put forth his revolutionary teaching about God’s kingdom and simultaneously critique with the fire of a prophet any misrepresentation of this God he had come to know with such
personal assurance.
From reading the Gospels we also get a clear sense of Jesus’ own
understanding of his mission. The course of his life was set and his destiny was never in doubt. From the perspective of the Fourth Gospel, the purpose and identity of Jesus are intertwined as one. He is the Word of God come to reveal, at the appointed time, the glory of God, and he is the Son of God come to bestow the eternal life and love of the Father…and no one who heard him was prepared to
receive either.
The clashing of light and darkness that resulted was not just a clashing of good and evil, it was a clashing of competing theologies, ideologies, and authorities. There was no way that there would be two left standing in the end…one of these would have to be defeated for the other to survive. And Jesus was well aware of this. He had calculated the cost but there was no question that he could ever deny his experience of the one he knew as Abba. The love that so claimed him was the one and only truth of his life. Everything about him flowed from it and led back to it. And it was his mission, as he understood it, to share this love every chance he got.
So he calls others to follow him. He shepherds them, nurturing them on this good news about God’s love and merciful kindness. He challenges many in authority to see God differently. He incarnates the way of God not as a way of dominance and power but as a way of service and compassion. He confounds everyone while intriguing some and repelling others. Those who stick with him are asked what seemed impossible: to bear a cross of suffering and persecution for
remaining true to their own experience of the God they encountered in Jesus and his teaching.
This is all the backdrop of the “Farewell Discourse” of John’s Gospel. Beginning in Chapter 13 and stretching through Chapter 17, in the context of a meal, Jesus opens up his heart and shares God’s vision with astounding beauty and clarity. He first kneels before each of his friends and washes their feet, an act embodying what he is about to speak. He breaks bread with them not even leaving his betrayer out. And after his betrayer departs and the final act of Jesus’ life on earth is commenced, he begins to tell them what is about to take place.
He tells of the way God’s love will be made known to them very soon when he will be lifted up and glorified. This glory, he explains, is the very love of God, and it will also become their glory. So, he gives his friends a new commandment…to love one another. This is how the world will come to know who God really is. He tells them not to worry or be afraid in the troubling days ahead because he will soon send the Advocate to be with them always. He will have to depart soon. But this is a good thing because it is in this very departing that the love of God will be made known with the greatest intensity…with the greatest glory. This Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will strengthen their hearts when they are weak in faith and will comfort them in their sorrow at his departure. Stick to this Spirit, he says, as a branch to a vine, and you will indeed be comforted. This Advocate will also teach you everything about God’s love and you will come to know, he assures them, the Father in the very same way as he knows him.
It is here, after these instructions, that Jesus raises his eyes to heaven and, surrounded by his disciples, prays his prayer for glorification we hear in today’s Gospel. In his prayer he acknowledges that he is done preparing his disciples for his departure, “the hour has come” for him to be glorified. His glorification, his being lifted up both on the cross and back to the Father, he acknowledges, will be the gift of eternal life for those who have become his own. These, his own, will then come to know the love that has eternally existed between the Father and the Son…they will come to know the very name of God. There is nothing that will be held back. The name of God…God’s essence, reality, being…they will come to know as love itself in this glorious lifting up. Everything that God has is gifted. Everything that Jesus has is gifted. And the glory of the Father and the Son is to be known in the abounding love of God’s own: “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.” So, Jesus prays that the Father may protect those that are his own in this name of glorious love and bear witness to this love in their unifying love they will share with one another.
Friends of Christ, we too find ourselves now present at this same meal of Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse.” We have heard the Word, and we will soon call down the Holy Spirit upon bread and wine as a commemoration of his being lifted up and
glorified. The very same gift of God given once upon a cross is now given in bread and wine…and nothing will be held back. The full expression of God’s love,
God’s glory, will become personalized to you and to me. Spirit and sacrament together we will encounter and no one should be left wondering if they too are included in this family of love. Time, this moment in which we now find ourselves, will be impregnated with eternity, and heaven and earth will kiss. And the God of heaven will, once again, take abode in human flesh. This is the glory of God!
So, yes, religion is a very dangerous thing. But it needs to be purified rather than discarded. The Gospel of John presents us with a theological vision that does just this: it dismantles every form of human impulse that would seek to use religion as a cloak to buttress any form of self-propagation and strips it bear upon the altar of a cross. If religion is about anything other than love…and many have been, including Christianity…then it deserves to die. For the only hope for our world and its transformation is a religion where glory is found in sacrifice and power in a cross.
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