Twists and turns

The road to Hobart is very familiar to me. I travel it regularly, from early morning to late at night. I am able to anticipate towns and villages, overtaking lanes and pit stops. In recent years I have enjoyed using the magic of cruise control. It’s an easy drive.

That’s how it is with familiar drives, familiar pathways. We have an urge to recognise landscapes and landmarks, the twists and turns, looking for patterns, for regularity, we make sense of our environment. There are, however, always dangers on the road, unpredictable road conditions, even more unpredictable drivers. There are other factors, of course, speed, attention (passengers, CD players), tyres. Familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt, and we can often take unnecessary risks.

As we progress towards the end of our Easter season, the easy familiarity we associate with the Alleluias, the post-resurrection stories and the frenetic energy of the first disciples as they begin to preach the Good News, it is so easy to accept the familiarity and suddenly find ourselves on cruise control negotiating the bends without being aware of where we are, of what we are doing.

John’s Gospel, the rich landscape in which and through which the story of Jesus wends, proclaims a message both familiar and extraordinarily challenging: This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you (15:12 -14). We hear it at ANZAC Day, Remembrance services and at funerals. But this is no charge for bravery under fire, this is about the way we get up every day and face the world we live in, 365 days a year. Sometimes our days have patterns that we can no longer recognise and around which we revolve until our day is complete. This Gospel pericope offers a clear proposition for all humanity: if you live the commandment of love and are willing to lay down your down life for your friends then you are indeed Jesus’ friend.

Cruise control is fantastic, but it should be left for long trips. As we drive through our days before Pentecost, let’s challenge ourselves to be aware of, and open to, the people around us, to view each twist and turn of our day as an opportunity to learn and to celebrate our friendship with Jesus. The opening prayer for the 6th Sunday of Easter reminds us:
Ever-living God,
help us to celebrate our joy
in the resurrection of the Lord
and to express in our lives
the love we celebrate.