Today, Tony Worner, Leader of Formation, reads from the Gospel of John (10:31-42) in which Jesus tells those opposed to him, ‘If I am not doing my Father’s work there is no need to believe me but if I am doing it, then even if you refuse to believe me, at lease believe in the work I do, the works, then you will know for sure that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.’
Tony says in reading today’s Gospel, we missed all of Chapter 9 and half of Chapter 10. Chapter 9 is the cure of the Man Born Blind, and the first half of Chapter 10 is Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Both these stories we hear on various Sundays. Today’s story takes place at the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, again, in the Temple. It continues the confrontation Jesus has with the Jews that we’ve heard all this week. Jesus is again establishing his true identity and the passage reminds us of the trouble Jesus has in being accepted by the authorities when he speaks like this. I wonder if we can accept that Jesus and the Father are one – “that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” – or, like those around him, do we want to arrest Jesus as well?!
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