The Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year A, RCL)
April 20, 2008
Reverend Kay Johnson, Interim Associate Rector
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My husband, Dick, who as child was made to listen to the long sermons in his small midwestern church -- and who left the church for many years because
of that -- said that one thing he remembered very clearly was how, when the preacher had to deal with a difficult passage of Scripture, the preacher
would read the passage, and talk about how difficult it was, and then basically, spend his sermon explaining how the passage didn’t really say what,
in fact, it had just said.
So that’s just what I’m going to begin by doing...
...by saying that the historical Jesus almost certainly didn't say these words that we heard today, and that include those very difficult (for
most of us gathered here) “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Most of you probably know that John’s Gospel, written some 70 years after Jesus’s death, is not a historically accurate record of what Jesus said
and did, but rather a theological reflection on how Jesus lived, what Jesus meant, who Jesus was. And you also probably know that many scholars now
think that the historical context for John’s gospel is the struggle between the group of believers in the synagogue who saw Jesus as “the Way,” and
the majority of the synagogue that said to them, “You can’t have it both ways ... you can’t be both a Jew and a Christian ... you have to choose.” And
they did choose, and so it was very important to them to say, not only that Jesus is A way to God (as I would want to say now) but that Jesus is
the way to God, and in fact the only way to God. I don’t want to be disrespectful about what was surely a very painful, wrenching, struggle,
but it’s as though they were reassuring themselves by saying, “The synagogue is going to kick us out, well, nyah nyah, they’ll be sorry, because
our way is the right way.”
But the words in today’s Gospel are historical in a different way. They are our history. The Gospels -- and all of the New Testament -- are our
story, as we look to understand better what it means, to be God’s people in Christ.
And so we read them as a way of understanding.
What’s happening in the Gospel reading this morning is that Jesus is saying “good-bye” to his disciples. Jesus and the disciples are gathered at
the Last Supper. Jesus has told the disciples that he has to leave them ... he has to die ... and they - obviously - don’t understand and are upset.
That’s what those opening lines in the reading are about. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” It’s ok. It’s gonna be all right. Believe in God -
believe in me - (and remember: believe in means trust in ... it doesn’t mean intellectual assent to a concept ... it means hang your heart on,
build your life on. Liebe in German means “love”) Jesus is saying, “Trust me - it’s gonna be all right - even though I have to leave ... in
God’s house, there’s plenty of room for all of you...”
And then there’s the dialogue with Thomas -- St. Mark’s patron saint, the one who wouldn’t believe in the Resurrection unless he could touch the
wounds of Christ. Thomas is always the experiential one among the disciples, the scientist, the one who needs more than poetry or intuition in
order to understand) ... Both Thomas and Philip in the reading today, in slightly different ways, are asking, “How do we get there? How do we
find God?” and Jesus answers, “You’ve found God. Here I am...” or perhaps more accurately, “God has found you. In me, God has come to where you are. ”
Athanasius, in the 4th century, said, “God became human, so that humans might become divine.” Maybe it’s more comprehensible to say, “God became
human, so that humans would learn that they are divine.”
Jesus the Way ... Jesus, the Incarnation, the embodiment, of God in the world. How do we understand that?
My own faith has gone through a sea change since my husband died two years ago. His death, and my awareness that I would not see him again in any
way that mattered to me, somehow demolished any sense I had had of God’s presence ... God suddenly seemed to me completely mysterious, completely
unknowable, completely distant. But after awhile, I remembered -- it’s Christianity 101, though I don’t think it get talks about so much anymore:
that in our tradition, what Jesus is, is the way to God. Jesus the human one tells us who God is, what God is like. We learn about God through
human stories.
Jack Harris -- sermon seminar two weeks ago -- story of friend who had been diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma ... Jack talked to him on the
phone and his friend was very downhearted, his voice was leaden...
But 2 weeks later, when Jack talked to him again, everything had changed. Not the diagnosis, but the way the friend spoke. His voice was light,
cheerful. He said, “I’ve turned entirely around in my attitude towards facing what I have to go through. I saw an account of Christ’s crucifixion.
I saw how this man’s body was pierced by nails, he was cut by a spear, a crown of thorns was jammed on his head. I saw how he was willing to go
through all that so that we would understand his willingness to be faithful to his mission from God. And I thought, if he can do that for so many
people, I can do it for just a few.”
Jack said, when I talked to him about his friend, “It even seemed to me that he had experienced a kind of Resurrection.”
I found that story incredibly moving. The story of Jesus had inspired Jack’s friend. “Inspire” is a rich word. Pull it apart, and you’ve got
“inspirited.” The image of Jesus, the memory of Jesus, the story of Jesus had filled Jack’s friend with the spirit of Jesus. The holy spirit.
Jack’s friend had become intertwined with Jesus, had taken that holy spirit of Jesus into himself -- had taken Christ into himself -- and expected thereby
to become Christ for his friends ... to inspire them with the same courage and strength and joy he had found for himself.
Throughout the Gospel of John, much of the discourse is about the intertwining of Jesus and God and then the intertwining of Jesus and us. ”The words
that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” and then he
extends that to the disciples -- and thereby to us -- “the one who believes in me (loves me, trusts me) will do the works that I do ...”
Several years ago, when Steven Charlton, the bishop of Alaska, was leaving that position, he said, in his farewell address to his people:
You are the church. Individually you are as sinful as I am, but collectively you are holy and sacred. Together you are the dream of Jesus when he
hung on the cross -- the dream of a holy people, entrusted in your care, inspired by the Holy Spirit to live it out every day. Hold that dream dear
people, be worthy of [God’s trust]... Be the church in Alaska.
He’s saying that God believes in us, trusts us to complete God’s work. We are what Jesus dream of as he was dying -- that people would go on living
the life of God in the world as he had.
...as Jack’s friend is living God’s life in the world. As I think probably most of you are.
What Jesus is pointing to in the Gospel today is that, like him, we are not just CLOSE to God .. we are one with God .. OR.. we have that in us
that is of God, and our work in the world is to allow that part of ourselves to become ever and ever stronger, ever more the whole of who we are.
We are to grow into our true selves, which is God in us.
We don’t do that alone. A powerful image for the church is that we are the Body of Christ -- that we are Christ together -- the hands and feet and
fingers and toes and heart and eyes and mind of Christ ... not each of us all of it, but all of us part of it, and all of us called to be our part
... fully. Which brings us, perhaps, to another of the stumbling blocks in today’s readings: “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do.”
We don't always get what we pray for. “Heal my friend,” we beg. “Help me get that job.” And then my friend dies, and someone else gets the
job ... and we think, “well, God didn’t hear me.” Or: “God doesn’t care.” Or: “maybe God isn’t even really there.”
But Jesus says “pray in my name,” which calls us back to who we are. Not people separate from God, trying to get God to do us a favor ... as though
God were there and we are here .. and I have to convince God to bridge the gap and do something for me..
But people who are one with God .. Asking God for something in Christ’s name is asking for the increase of this holy life and work that we are
engaged in together (you and me and Jesus).. Praying in Christ’s name is praying with Christ, as your hands and your feet and your toes and
your nose would pray with you.
I’m not entirely sure how that plays out. In practice, I certainly pray not thinking of what Christ’s way is, praying for my own needs. I prayed for
my husband to live, and he didn’t -- or he didn’t live forever ... or as long as I wanted him to live. But I think that he lived in ways beyond my
understanding. As Jack’s friend is living now, even though he is dying.
The truth of the church is a deep and passionate unity between God and God’s people -- a unity that I don’t think we can ever really wrap our minds
around. Consider the paradox, that we call ourselves as “the body of Christ” at the same time that we know ourselves inspired -- in-spirited -- fed,
nourished, made whole by that holy bread that is not us, and that we also call: the Body of Christ.
Both Thomas and Philip in the Gospel today, in slightly different ways, ask, “How do we find God?” and Jesus answers, “You’ve found God. Here I
am...” or perhaps more accurately, “God has found you. In me, God has come to where you are. ”
How do we find God? Is that different from asking, How do I find myself? I’m right here, right now.
