This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:
ITALIAN BISHOP TURNS HEADS WITH ARMANI VESTMENTS
John 2: 12-17
12 I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven on account of his name.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young people,
because you have conquered the evil one.
14 I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young people,
because you are strong
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; 16for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live for ever.

The writer uses the stages of family life as symbols of faith: children of forgiveness; fathers of the origin of life; young people, of the battle against evil. Mothers are omitted because they fall below the perception of this male writer. The injunction not to love the world is questionable in the perspective of John 3: 16 “God so loved the world….” Perhaps we can say that the love of the father is not in those who love the world; but the love of the world is in those who love the Father. Those who love God will also rightly love the world. Choosing God to the exclusion of the world is not a Christian option.

love the world through its maker

John 17:20-26

20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

The unity of the disciples of Jesus is the one life of God shared in Jesus and with each other. The supreme “location” of the shared life is the cross as this is where the glory of God’s love is un-veiled in Jesus. The purpose of this un-veiling is “that the world may believe…” Although the world does not know God, the eternal love is revealed for it in Jesus. It is vital that churches realise that the world will  not be converted by the visible glory of a monolithic church; but  only through the lived glory of the cross.