A reading of the holy gospel according to John. But the disciple said to Jesus, at last, you are speaking plainly without talking in failed language. We are convinced that you know everything. There is no need for anyone to ask you questions. We do indeed believe that you came from God.
Jesus answered, do you really believe? An hour is coming, indeed, has already come, when you will be scattered and each will go his own way, leaving me quite alone. Yet I can never be actually alone. The father is with me. I tell you all of this now that in me, you may find peace.
You will suffer in the world, but take courage. I have overcome the world. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. Once again, we have here the grim picture of what it is to be a Christian. But while that is very definitely part of the picture, it's not the whole picture. Far from it. But just notice those two lines our blessed lord is speaking.
He says, you're going to be scattered. Then he says, in me, you will find peace. Immediately, he says, you will suffer in the world. Then he says right away, take courage. You have the these antinomies, one after the other.
He talks about, obviously, the lack the what of peace as we interpret it. And then at the say in the next very next sentence, he says, you're going to have peace. Then the next sentence says, you're going to suffer like the dickens. And then the next sentence is, but take courage. What does it mean to be a Christian?
It certainly doesn't mean sitting back passively and watching the world go by, including our own lives. That is one thing it doesn't mean. Now I I don't like it I mean, I it's superficial, I know, to pick up a word because actually the one thing we're sure of, Christ didn't speak English. But take that word scattered. Christ tells it to his disciples, you're going to be scattered, but you're going to have my peace.
You think of that word scattered. Think of a firecracker going off on the July 4 when we were allowed to have firecrackers and to have a little fun. When that thing went off, think of how it scattered. If you've ever shot a 14 gauge shotgun, Think how that shot scatters, if that's the kind of a a rifle you're using. And our lord is telling his disciples, you're going to be scattered.
He's not talking to the massive people, to the vulgar crowd, to the hoi polloi. He's talking to the elect, to these handpicked men. He says, You're going to be scattered. What does that mean you're going to be scattered? Does it mean that they're just going to be dispersed over known world?
Possibly. That certainly happened. And that is the obvious meaning that you're that this little tight group we have here that had been wandering around with me and staying with me morning, noon, and night as we go up and down the highways and the byways from the North to the South, from Galilee down to Judea. Obviously, the meaning is you're going this little group is going to be broken up, and each will go his own way. You're going to lose all that wonderful companionship.
You're going to lose all that fine feeling that comes from being one with one another and one with me. You're going to lose all of that. That's the obvious meaning. What else might it mean? Let us call it the figurative meaning in our own lives.
The opposite of being integrated is to be scattered. That, I think, is a fair statement that the contrary of being altogether is the opposite, the contrary, of being all apart, to be scattered. Now that word integrated, integer, one, is just so much the opposite of the idea of being scattered. Or a word that don't hear much but seems to me to be the right word is distraught. Distraught.
Now this is a phenomenon that happens to all of us. And the we're as we are in this world living day in and day out, we have to live. We have to work. We have to we have to fulfill our duties, our responsibilities. So we are being pulled in all kinds of directions.
We are being scattered. And it is the pulls of all of this, you can't avoid them. They are part and parcel of living. So that the great problem is to try to integrate our lives. How do you do it?
You're not going to do it by eliminating all these various and even contrary and opposing activities because some of it we have to do out of our duty to man and to God and to ourselves. So we're not going to eliminate the poles. But what we have got to work on is to to bind ourselves together. With what? With what?
This is the million dollar question. What will be the principle that will bring unity into all this scattered activity? What? Can you answer that? And by an answer, I don't mean something theoretical and academic.
What actually functions in your daily lives? What actually pulls together your prayers, your washing of dishes, your going to your job, your driving a car, visiting a physician, taking care of a sick child, trying to make money enough to keep a roof over your family's head? What pulls all of these things together? Because any man or woman can actually live on the basis of one of them being the all and the end and the beginning of living. It can be done.
Some of us do it all the time. But that's not the integrated life. So what pulls our scattered lives together? Can you answer that in fact, in practice, in the empirical order? Well, we ought to be able to.
It was answered for us in baptism. It's up to us to live it. And so because the answer is is to be with Christ. That's the answer, To be with Christ. And if that becomes functional in your daily lives, then everything, no matter how scattered it appears to be, will not be scattered.
It will be integrated. It will be put into the whole. It will be put into the all of you, into your whole self because your whole self will be living with Christ. Notice that's what Carl Lord said. And that, as far as I know, is as close as we can come to a definition of peace.
In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.