This week’s Gospel comes at the end of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel (Chapters 14-17). It’s a sort of after-dinner speech – half sermon half prayer – which follows the Last Supper. For the last few weeks, it has made up our Gospel readings. It is meant to offer the Disciples hope and comfort before Jesus faces his arrest, trial and death. There is a danger, however, that it can be misunderstood as an incitement to form closed, pious and inward-looking sects of Christian believers, given its repeated encouragement that we love one another and oppose ourselves to the ways of the world. But in our passage today it is clear that this is not what Jesus wants. Instead, he wants us to use the love he has for us – which we have learned, through him, to have for one another – and to radiate that love out into the world to call others to his side.

Rev Richard