Easter 5-A  (4/13/08)                        Acts 7:55-60; 1 Pt 2:2-10; Jn 14:1-14

Epiphany, South Haven                                                Fr. Joseph Neiman

Theme: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (Jn 14:10)

Are you following Jesus’ steps in the way that leads to eternal life, to the abundant life that Jesus promised to give us?

In our opening prayer this morning, we asked God to “grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life” (BCP p. 225). What does that mean in practice for us? What does it mean for those who are not disciples of Jesus? What does it mean for the people of other faiths?

There are great questions, and they are being debated in our day in the public forum. Can only Christians be saved? Is the Bible literally true? Is your belief truly orthodox? Does it matter what one believes? I hope you brought a lunch, because if I try to address each of these questions, we will ceretainly be here all day. Yet I want to speak to part of these and let you reflect on the rest of them yourselves.

The passage we heard read from the Gospel of John this morning is from Chapter 14. The scene is at the Last Supper, and just prior to this passage in Chapter 13, John tells us Jesus said: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’(Jn 13:34-35). Then later in Chapter 14, after what he heard this morning, John tells us again Jesus said to his disciples: “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them’ (Jn 14:21). John then tells us Jesus explains how he will be going to the Father and how he will send the Holy Spirit as an advocate to assist us. We will hear about these next week and beyond during this Easter season when the whole theme is discovering the presence and power of the risen Lord in our midst today. We are not describing history, therefore, in recounting these passages from the Gospel of John. We are talking about the presence of the risen Lord with us, especially when two or three gather in his name, as we have done this morning. He is here teaching us now how to live to inherit the abundant live he promises us as we heard in last week’s Gospel.

We heard at the beginning of the Gospel this morning, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” That relates to the theme of Jesus leaving his disciples, going to the Father, and sending his Holy Spirit to guide us. “You believe in God, believe also in me” John tells us Jesus said next. We often hear this passage at funerals, especially the next phrase: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” Next: “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (Jn 14:1-3).

It is nice to hear that there are “many dwelling places” in what we want to believe refers to heaven. What is some of those ‘dwelling places’ are for persons of other faiths or no faiths at all? Clearly we believe Jesus has prepared a ‘place’ for us who are his disciples, and that he will come and take us to that place, but does that mean only at our death and only a place in heaven? Could it also mean that all who believe in God will find a ‘dwelling place’ for them here and now as people of faith? Could it also mean that we, who have come to know God in Jesus find our ‘dwelling place’ here with him in the assembly of Christians, the Church? Clearly we believe what John tells us Jesus said: “”Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).

Then we have that phrase that sparks so many discussions among Christians today: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). What does it mean to speak of Jesus as “the way”?

There is a story about a father rushing outdoors at night when he finds his home on fire and he sees his small son screaming out of the upstairs window. There is a lot of smoke, and it is filling the eyes of the boy. The dad rushes up to the side of the house beneath the window and says to his son: “Jump, Son, I will catch you.” The boy responds: “I can’t see you!” Dad answers: “But I can see you, jump!” The boy jumps, is caught and his life saved.  In the story the boy knows the father, has lived with the father, and loves and trusts the father, so he jumps. The father is there and catches him. That is a short description of faith. It is first and foremost a way of life built on a relationship before it is a set of beliefs or doctrines.

Marcus Borg, in a challenging book titled The Heart of Christianity, says: “Christianity is about a way of life, a part, and it has been from the beginning. At the center of Jesus’ own teaching I is the notion of a ‘way’ or a ‘path,’ and the first name of the early Christian movement was ‘the Way.’[1]

Indeed, Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, speaks of the first Christians as followers of ‘the Way”. He tells us that Paul, before his conversion, “asked (the high priest) for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9.2).

Herbert O’Driscoll, a noted teacher of preaching, maintains “it is not in the heated arguments about orthodoxy, or in the depths of weighty theological discussion, that Christians are known as ‘the way, the truth, and the life,’ but in the way we treat one another. In other words, the way of Christ, the truth of Christ, the life of Christ are conveyed most powerfully in the love of Christ we share with those whom God gives us.”[2]

So how is Jesus “the way” and what does that possibly mean? Jesus clearly centered his life on God, whom he called by the intimate term, ‘Father.’ “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (Jun 14:10). Because God is in Jesus, we see Jesus as “the Son of God” and speak of him in those terms. Paul told the Corinthians” that God “has caused his light to shine within us, to give us the light of revelation, the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). As a result we firmly believe our “dwelling place” is with Jesus, and that following his words and deeds will set us on “the way of Christ,”  on the path that leads to the abundant life he has promised us (Jn 10:10). What of the others whose lives are centered on God and who from their “dwelling place” walk a path following their vision of God and God’s promises? Are they not also on “the way”?

In what sense do we speak of Jesus as ‘the truth’? Last week we heard about the Good Shepherd who “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought our all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice” (Jn 10:3-4). We all hear voices, but do we hear and heed the voice of Jesus who is the ‘good shepherd”? Do we like the boy on the story jump into the arms of our father when we hear his voice?

Fr. Henri Nouwen, a gifted spiritual writer, has told us: “Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, "Prove that you are a good person." Another voice says, "You'd better be ashamed of yourself." There also is a voice that says, "Nobody really cares about you," and one that says, "Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful." But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, "You are my Beloved, my

favor rests on you." That's the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. That's what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us "my Beloved."[3]

It is difficult to know the truth of who we are since we hide so much of ourselves deep within our subconscious mind and memory, and we learn to see ourselves all too easily in the words of others from around us. We can learn to see ourselves as beloved of God when we enter into silence and prayer and ask the good Lord to speak to our hearts. We can learn to see ourselves as beloved of God when we participate actively with the community of disciples, the Church, who seek to love us as Christ has loved us (Jn 15:12). The more familiar we become with the words and deeds of Jesus given to us in the Bible, the more we can discover the truth of who we are and even begin to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd who teaches us through his Holy Spirit about the truth in all things that happen to us and around us.

“Strangers, people different than we are, stir up fear, discomfort, suspicion, and hostility,” Fr. Nouwen teaches us. “They make us lose our

sense of security just by being "other."  Only when we fully claim that God loves us in an unconditional way and look at "those other persons" as equally loved can we begin to discover that the great variety in being human is an expression of the immense richness of God's heart.  Then the need to prejudge people can gradually disappear.”[4]

What about other people of faith who seek the truth of their own identity, of the meaning of life, of what they can contribute? Are they not also beloved of God?

In what sense do we say that Jesus is the life? St Paul tells the Galatians: “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20) . “Our lives are full of suffering, pain, disillusions, losses and grief, but they are also marked by visions of the coming of the Son of Man "like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into west" (Matthew 24:27).  These moments in which we see clearly, hear loudly, and feel deeply that God is with us on the journey make us shine as a light into the darkness”[5]. When we are more fully convinced we are “beloved of God,” and have begun to see others as “beloved” also, we are walking the path of freedom. We are beginning to see “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding” as Paul said to the Philippians (Phil 4:7).

In a moment we are going to stand and profess together the Nicene Creed. It begins with the statement: “We believe….” In Latin the word is “credo”. Marcus Borg tells us “credo does not mean, ‘I hereby agree t the literal-factual truth of the following statements.’ Rather its Latin roots combine to mean ‘I give my heart to’ As mentioned earlier…, the heart is the self at its deepest level, a level below the intellect. As the giving of one’s heart, credo means ‘I commit my loyalty to…” Thus when we say ‘credo’ at the beginning of the creed, ‘I give my heart to God.’ And who is that? Who is the God to whom we commit ouir loyalty and allegiance? The rest of the creed tells the story of the one to whom we give our hearts: God as the maker of heaven and earth, God as known in Jesus, God as present in the Spirit.”[6]

There are many questions which come before us, questions about our own identity, about the importance of others and our relationships with them, about what is happening in our world around us today. As will hear in the next few Sundays, the Spirit can guide us in answering these questions if we are walking in the way centered on God in Christ; if we are walking in the path that seeks to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow him; if we are walking in the path of seeking the truth in all these questions; and if we are walking the walk as well as talking the talk, that is, living as fully as possible the life Jesus taught us to live. Then our hearts need not be troubled for God is with us and will prepare a dwelling place for us no and for all eternity. 

For your homework this week, look closely at the flowers coming up. See the hand of God, our creator, in them. Look closely at those with whom you live day by day. See the beauty in them as created in the image and likeness of God. Listen to the voice of others around you. See the truth in those who love and live as people of faith. When we have eyes that see and ears that hear, we are living into the way, the truth and the life that Jesus promised us. So don’t question all the time, jump and discover you are in the arms of the Good Lord who see you as beloved.

God bless you and keep you this day and always, and remember the good Lord comes to you in shepherding that you may have life and have it abundantly, and because He loves you more that you can ask for or even imagine. Do you believe it?