Bible Study Guide for Sunday, May 29, 2022

• Acts 16:16–34
• Revelation 22:12–14, 16–17, 20–21
• John 17:20–26
• Psalm 97

 

 

Our Collect again offers a good place to begin considering the scripture this week: “Do not leave us comfortless…” Indeed, with domestic violence and racial hatred demanding our attention along with a terrible war ravaging millions of innocent people, we certainly need comfort. But surely our faith commands more than mere comfort. Therefore, the Collect goes on to pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen us so that we can help humankind overcome those evils. But how is that possible?

Do any of our three primary passages this week provide an answer?  My 21^st Century head wants to analyze the Acts miracle story. But that is a distraction – what I think about or believe in this story really doesn’t matter. The visions of  Revelation are by turns wonderful and horrible, but do those visions help me to understand how God will bring that Holy City down from Heaven? However important these texts may be as part of our spiritual heritage, they don’t help me respond to the above question. But Jesus’ prayer! Here is a Truth that matters.

Throughout the Gospels Jesus has consistently called us to love God and to love others as ourselves. Here in the concluding passage from what is often call the farewell discourse, John is making clear the connection between Jesus’ divinity (being “one with God”) and the idea of God’s love being in us. That is the focus of Jesus’ prayer and is essential as we attempt to face up to the evil in our world. Jesus claims oneness with God and also with his disciples. Then he makes clear that being in one another means that that Love is in him and must therefore be in us, his followers. By loving one another, we will make God known in the world and that will make a difference. So, come Holy Spirit, strengthen us so that we can truly love one another by rejecting hate as a response to evil and instead offering loving responses to those spewing hate into our world. Our Faith promises that overcoming evil is possible with God’s love-filled help!

Chuck Medler

 

Questions

Do you react differently than this author to the Acts and Revelation texts? How might either of them relate to the Collect’s prayer?

Does “God is Love” work for you? Why or why not?