Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 7, 2023 (5th Sunday of Easter)
Scripture Reading: John 14:1-14
(In our Story for All Ages, we talked about maps. Maps show us how to find a place. Just before his death, Jesus told his friends that they/we would know the way to the place he was going. How can we find our way if there is no such thing as a map to God? Jesus says, "I am the way." Jesus is our map. By looking at Jesus and by doing what he teaches us to do - love God and love our neighbour - we will find our way to God.)
I don’t know about you, but to me this bible passage is most familiar from funerals. John, chapter 14 is probably tied with 1 Corinthians 13 (“the love chapter”) and the 23rd Psalm for the most-requested passage to be read at funerals. And so to me, it is a bit strange to dive into this chapter at a not-funeral setting.
This passage comes from Jesus’s “Farewell Discourse” in John’s gospel. John is structured a bit differently than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because Jesus spends 4 chapters here towards the end of John’s gospel saying goodbye to his disciples, and leaving them with his final teachings. We are literally days away from Good Friday at this point in the story, and Jesus seems to know that this is going to be his last opportunity to get his message across to his disciples.
Jesus’s disciples tend to have a reputation of not being able to understand what Jesus is all about – when we read through the gospel of Mark in bible study, the refrain that we kept coming back to was “Do you get it yet?” We hear a bit of it in the reading that we heard today – Philip asks Jesus a question and Jesus responds with, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and still you do not know me?”
But I have to confess that I have a sneaking sympathy with Jesus’s disciples. Especially with this reading! This reading leaves me with more questions than it answers.
For example: Jesus says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name.” But what about all of the prayers that seem to go unanswered, or prayers where the answer is no. Should Jesus’s promise have come with an additional clause? “I will do whatever you ask in my name… as long as it’s something that I was already going to do.”
And then there’s Jesus’s
statement: “The one who believes in me
will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than
these.” Um, Jesus, you walked on water
and raised the dead and multiplied the loaves and fish. I don’t think that I’m able to do any of
these things, and yet you say that if I believe in you then I would be able to
do all this and more? Because I can't walk on water, does that mean that my faith isn't enough?
And finally, there is the way that this passage has been used to exclude people. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And there are times when people have twisted these words to mean that unless you believe exactly the way that I believe, then you can’t get into heaven.
But I can’t believe that this is what Jesus intended with these words. After all, he says that in his Father’s house there are many dwelling places. (Or “in my Father’s house are many mansions” or “My Father’s house has room to spare” or “There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home” depending on what translation you read.) There is lots of room in God’s home for everyone, an abundance of room! There is room enough for everyone who wants to be there.
I wish that I could offer neat and simple answers to all of the questions that I have for this text, but I’m afraid that I can’t. I’ve heard it said that as soon as we think that we can understand God, then we don’t understand God. For God is mystery. Jesus reveals God to us, but there is still mystery. I don’t understand why some prayers seem to go unanswered, and I probably won’t understand in this life. I don’t understand the miracles of Jesus, and how all of Jesus’s followers are to do the same. I don’t understand how Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
But I trust that Jesus is the Way. Just as we read last week about how Jesus is the gate into the sheepfold, that we pass through Jesus into the community of God’s people, Jesus is our Way to God. Jesus is our map to God. I don’t understand how this Way works for other people, but I have to trust that the Way to God is there for all people; because, after all, there is room for all in God’s house. And as for me, what I need to do is keep myself grounded in Jesus – the Way that he shows to us – for he is our Way to God.
Did anyone else get up early yesterday to watch the coronation? I was watching it through my church geek lenses, because the Church of England does liturgy and ritual so very well. And did you notice how the service began? A child welcomed the king “in the name of the King of Kings” to which King Charles replied, “In his name and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve.”
No matter your feelings about the coronation or the monarchy, I thought that it was a powerful reminder that all of us, no matter who you are, whether you are a king sitting on a throne in London or whether you are sitting here today, all of us are called to ground ourselves in Christ, who is the giver of life and the way to God. For this same God became human in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is nudging us, drawing us, accompanying all of us along the Way of Jesus so that we all become part of the life of God.
And may all of us be grounded in the Way of Jesus, so that we can serve the world as he did, so that we might put our trust in the truth of God, and so that we might be drawn into the life of God. Amen.
“In his name and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve.”
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