I’m not sure why he is called John the Short. I wonder–could this name have attached itself to this person because he spoke in brief sentences? Or maybe it is because he was, shall we say, compact in stature? Perhaps it was because his instruction to his disciples was extremely concise. Then again, he may have been the sort of individual who was abrupt with others. We will probably never know, after all he did live a very long time ago–some fourteen to seventeen hundred years ago to be more accurate.
John the Short was one of the Desert Fathers; that group of men and women–and yes, there were women there too–who in the third, fourth and fifth centuries combined the early Christian ideal of standing where Christ stood with a much older way of life common to all religions, that of the monk–of the person who lived not in company with another but alone before God. These hermits, some of whom had a cache of disciples, undertook a lifestyle of greater simplicity than what most people at that time were living. And the sayings and stories of these early monastics have come down through the ages to us. One of these concerns this most unusually named Desert Father John the Short.
It was one day after morning prayers that the incident occurred. John the Short had returned to his cell when a disciple appeared expecting some sage instruction or words of wisdom. He thought for a minute, sat down and said, “I will invent a man composed of all the virtues. He would rise at dawn every morning, take up the beginning of each virtue, and keep God’s commandments. He would live in great patience, in fear, in long-suffering, in the love of God; with a firm purpose of soul and body; in deep humility, in patience, in trouble of heart and earnestness of practice. He would pray often, with sorrow of heart, keeping his speech pure, his eyes controlled. He would suffer injury without anger, remaining peaceful, and not rendering evil for evil, nor looking out for the faults of others, nor puffing himself up, meekly subject to every creature, renouncing material property and everything of the flesh. He would live as though crucified, in struggle, in lowliness of spirit, in good will and spiritual abstinence, in fasting, in penitence, in weeping. He would fight against evil, be wise and discreet in judgement and chaste in mind. He would receive good treatment with tranquillity, working with his own hands, watching at night, enduring hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness and labour. He would live as though buried in a tomb and already dead, every day feeling death to be near him.” Having finished his instruction, John the Short looked at his disciple. The disciple stood there for a moment, and then, without a word, turned and walked away.
Well, that’s one way to be in the service of God. But I wonder what God meant when he said to Israel what we heard in this morning’s first reading. Surely God had something in mind that would be wonderful, something life enhancing and enriching and which expands the soul. God makes a tremendous promise to the people of Israel through the prophet Ezekiel. It is a promise that he will cleanse his people, replace the heart of stone with one of flesh and put a new spirit within them. This would have given great joy to the people because prior to this surprise announcement they had been suffering in exile; away from the sacred land–a separation which corresponds to separation from their God. However, this promise raises a question: given that, from the moment of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites showed themselves to be selfish and distrustful of God’s actions on their behalf, how can the people of God live truly according to this calling?
The prophet records these words of God: “I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” It sounds lovely, but there is something unsettling in these words. Listen to them again: God says to Israel “I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” This suggests a degree of compulsion that will rob the people of freedom and, in any case, make the statutes and ordinances of God redundant. Perhaps the meaning here is that God will create the ideal conditions for his people to follow his statutes, not that he will, as one commentator puts it, turn them into compliant robots.
This idea of creating the right conditions to make possible the service of God is important. In Israel after the exile, as in today’s world, the right conditions never existed. So the question of how the people of God can live truly according to his calling remains unanswered within the constraints of the world as we know it. Or does it? There are two aspects to this promise of God. One is that the Lord will gather up the people and return them to their land. Second, if they are to remain there a major transformation must occur. A new covenant is to be made with a new Israel.
John the Short had a very particular view of how this transformation occurs and what renewed life would be like. It would be incorrect to assume, looking at the world today, that just because the conditions–perfect conditions–to make possible the service of God do not exist that God is not present and active in the world through the actions of his people.
Probably one of the most amazing examples of a people transformed and God being present and changing the world comes from South Africa and the way apartheid–that great evil–was defeated.
Almost as remarkable as that itself is what has happened as a result of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work. I would like to read an extract from the words of the Chair of that Commission, Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
“We have been shocked and filled with revulsion to hear of the depths to which we are able to sink in our inhumanity to one another: our capacity for sadistic enjoyment of the suffering we have inflicted on one another; the refinement of cruelty in keeping families guessing about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones, sending them carelessly on a run-around from police station to police station, to hospital and mortuary in a horrendous wild goose chase. That is one side–the ghastly and sombre side of the picture But there is another side We have been deeply touched and moved by the resilience of the human spirit. People, who by rights should have had the stuffing knocked out of them, refusing to buckle under intense suffering and brutality and intimidation; people refusing to give up on the hope of freedom, knowing they were made for something better than the dehumanising awfulness of injustice and oppression; refusing to be consumed by bitterness and hatred, willing to meet with those who have violated their persons and their rights, willing to meet in a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, eager only to know the truth, to know the perpetrator so that they could forgive them We have survived the ordeal and we are realising that we can indeed transcend the conflicts of the past, we can hold hands as we realize our common humanity “
Surely what happened in South Africa is a shining example of people being, as James puts it in his letter, “doers of the Word and not hearers only.” And I wonder, as those people held hands in realization of their common humanity, if they smiled aware that at that moment some lovely words God spoke so long ago had come true: “I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
Amen.
Terrance Bell
Easter 7, Year A
TEXTS: Ezekiel 36:24-28
I Peter 4:12-14 & 5:6-11
John 17:1-11