Word to the Wise
Saturday, April 19, 2008 - Saturday in the Fourth Week of Easter
[Acts 13:44-52 and John 14:7-14]"If you know me, then you wil also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to Jesus, "Maser, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."
When I was a first year law student (1963-64) at Tulane, I had to take a course called Agency and Partnership. This course involved some fundamental concepts in legal actions. How does someone represent someone else in a binding way? How does someone unite with someone else to form a single entity? The first of these can address the feeling we have sometimes that an agent can never truly represent a "principal?" Isn't there always the chance that some other agenda may affect the way the agent represents the principal? And in partnership, isn't there always a danger that one partner will "outshine" the other and claim a larger portion of the proceeds or else feel that he/she is due a larger portion and thus resentful? It is the Jewish cultural concept of an agent that enters into Jesus' preaching about his relationship to his Father. The context is a practical, mission-oriented, one, and not a metaphysical one (that would be developed much later in Christian Trinitarian theology). Here Jesus represents himself as the one sent to accomplish a mission. To see him is to see the one who sent him. It is not a relationship of subordinate to superior. It is a means whereby a mission is accomplished. The mission is to proclaim God's love and then to send the Spirit to enable believers to find their way to the Father and to proclaim that same love to the world.. These are the basic goals of Jesus' mission. If we are to accept him, we must accept that mission, knowing that in doing so we accept God's presence. AMEN
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