Easter 5

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Easter 5
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: May 2, 1999

TEXT: John 14:1-14 - Jesus' Farewell Discourse (Section)
"Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works then these, because I am going to the Father."

ISSUE: Jesus work is to bring God's people to the Father. They like himself are to be at one with the Father. In this relationship they are able to do significant works as Jesus himself had done. This passage addresses a very idfficult time for the early church. Jesus' farewell address is providing assurance and hope. His people presently dwell in peace with him if they accept him as Lord, and as the way to the Father. They'll never be abandoned. It is a message for our world in a period of great anxiety. We find in Christ the way and what is truly authentic and meaningful. Maintain a relationship with Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today's reading from the Gospel of John is a passage which is taken from what is called "The Farewell Address" of Jesus to his disciples. We have a portion of it read this morning. Farewell addresses are fairly common in the Bible. Jacob when he is near death, makes a farewell address in Genesis 49 to all of his twelve sons. Moses in Deuteronomy 31-33 makes a farewell address to his people before his death, and before the people cross the Jordon River into the Promised Land. Paul gives a farewell address in Acts 20. They tell usually what must be watched for and guarded against in the future. They are something like pep-talks to the troops. So John tells us some of what he believes are last words, or what he thought Jesus may have said Jesus to his disciples in his Farewell Address, in his last days before his death.
The Farewell portion of the address that we read today is in the true Johannine style. It is addressed to two disciples: Thomas and Philip. Thomas is Jewish, and Philip is Greek, and thus it is an address to both significant cultures of the period. True to the Johannine style both disciples appear to be dense, and express lack of understanding. Remember some of the other recent passages of John that we've read. Nicodemus did not understand how to be born again, and did you have to get back into mother's womb. The woman at the well could not understand how Jesus could be living water. Did that mean she would not have to come to the well again? The healing of the blindman is not aware of what has happened to himself, and has to encounter Jesus a second time to know that he is the Messiah, the Son of God.
In this passage, Jesus says to Thomas that he will go away for a time, and that the disciples will follow. But Thomas becomes very anxious declaring, "Lord, we do not knowwhere you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus has to reassure Thomas with his words: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father expect by me." Philip also who has been very close to Jesus, brings another disciple, Nathaniel to him. But Philip, similar to Thomas who cannot imagine where they would find enough bread at the feeding of the multitude, asks Jesus to show them the Father. And Jesus somewhat impatiently must say, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." You get the impression that Jesus wants to shake these guys into a greater awareness of what is going on, and what they have been up to. They have a hard time catching on.
As we read and study passages like this one we have to keep in mind what was going in this early Christian Community, when John was addressing his community.
1. All the eyewitnesses to Jesus' life and ministry were gone. It was imperative that true faithfulness be an essential part of the community's life together. There were dissentions within the church itself.
2. It was clear that in the Jewish community it was being declared that anyone who believed Jesus to be the Messiah were being thrown out of the synagogues. This excommunication was a significant threat to people's livelihood. To be excommunicated was to lose family ties, and to lose economic business connections, and I suppose to lose honor and standing in the community.
3. There were influences on the early church from the Greek and Roman cultures that included superstitions and questionable beliefs unrelated to the life and ministry of Jesus.
4. It was also a time when the early church was beginning to feel the pain of outright persecution for their beliefs.
Thus, John is writing in a style that works at repeating and clarifying, and saying things sometimes in an almost repetitious way to solidify the church's beliefs and to keep clarifying for newcomers entering the community.
As the passage reveals itself you see Thomas as a symbol of a very anxious community. But John is telling that anxious community: Though Jesus has died and goes away, his work has been to reassure his people that God has a place for them. That God will not abandon them. Jesus died, was crucified, rose again, and appeared to them. He is the living Lord and there is plenty of room for them. Though the world may reject them, i.e. their excommuniction, God has room for all, and takes all into his family. God, Yahweh, is the Father of the family. Jesus is the truth about God. Jesus is the Way to God, and through him you have life, inspite of your fear of death. Remain faithful and be assured.
Philip also somewhat dense, but John is impressing upon the community through Philip's questioning "Show us the Father." How do we know the Father? How do we know God is with us? The answer is that if you have seen Jesus you have seen the Father. Jesus is the expression, the incarnation of God, the enfleshment of God into human existence. Look at him, believe in him, and pay attention to what he has done. Be aware of the work that Jesus has done. Jesus is the full expression of God's love. He is redemption, the buying back of his people. Not a soul is lost from God, because Jesus has come to reclaim the creation for God.
Look at what Jesus has done. He is the profound expression of God's love in this sacrifice upon the cross. He dies for the world to see that he loves the world of God's creation. His ministry has been one of a healer, and one who enlightens the blind. He loves the least, the last, the lost, and restores them to a place of honor and dignity in the eyes of God. Jesus is a lover of true justice and works for justice among his people. Note the parables in which he honors and loves those who are beaten and down trodden. He calls for the last to be first. He calls for transformation of human existence and of the world of this time.
It is clear for John that if you accept Jesus Christ as Lord, if you see in him a whole new way of life. If you see in him the truth about God, God is love and grace, then you have life and hope without end. He calls his community into a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is the restoration and the renewing family of God. Those who embrace and trust Jesus as Lord, who accept his love and forgiveness and live that way, will become able to do what he did and more. They are, in fact, called into partnership. The love that John is talking about is the love of Jesus Christ that transforms people, and that gives them peace and hope, and an assurance in view of their terrible anxiety and uncertainty. Jesus is the expression of God. He is the hope that God is present and cares. He calls them each by name and loves them, and reassures them.
This teaching is often greatly misunderstood by our culture, and popular religion. Many people have come to believe that Jesus comes to the world and does some good things, dies on a cross, gets resurrected, and ascends to heaven somewhere in outer space to build a gigantic motel for good people. That is not the meaning of this passage, for John's time or for ours. The point is that Jesus lived and died and came back resurrected to reassure the faithful community that God continues to live and be with his people, and that there is ample room in the Kingdom of God, now! Here in this present time. God in Christ and through Christ is with us.
The world we live in today is tricky, and we must be careful what we believe. We have never known a time in history when, at least in this country, there has been so much prosperity. Success and prosperity has often been the measure of godliness in the world. But our prosperity has not really saved us. It is also a time of great anxiety and uncertainty. It is an age so complex that it is particularly difficult to know the answers to some of the problems, issues, and involvements of the world. We hardly know what to believe. Our country is now engaged in a war and we hardly know what to make of it. We do not want to see peoples discriminated against, or murdered, bacause of their race or economic or religious beliefs. On the other hand we seem to become easily involved in using tremendous force through bombing, as a kind of solution to every problem. We can't get at finding ways to negotiate understanding and peace.
We have seen as a result of only two very sick teenage children in the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, raise the anxiety level of this country to a phenomenal level. It knocked the war in Kosov right off the networks for several days. It raised all kinds of anxieties over gun control issues, over appropriate kinds of video games. It raises the issues of how can we be safe in such a violent world in which we all seem so vulnerable. It raises the issue of whether or not both parents in homes where there are children should be working full time. It raises the issues of what is the place of the church and the Sunday School in the world. We are confronted with what may well seem to be a tremendous failure, and a lack of influence on the world.
People and especially children have never before in history been so exposed to pornography, sex, bombs, racial hate, terrorism, drugs and alcohol like the world we know today. The wonderful and awesome internet has come upon us, and nearly everything that is good, and that is so very bad is at the finger tips of everyone of us. What are we to do?
What is the truth for us? What is the way for us? How do we find God. How do we re-enter into the family of God in the awful age of great anxiety. The foundations of our lives are shaken, aren't they? We have difficulty in finding what to hold on to. The very idea that someday when we die there is heaven in the sky is not a satisfactory response to our basic human need.
Jesus said to Thomas who was really quite anxious, as we are. I'll be gone awhile through my dying and sacrificial love. But my work is to assure you and to prepare a place for each of you, and I will come again and you will see me risen and alive. Trust that my way of love and forgiveness, my way of healing and restoring is the way of God. Trust that I am authentically the truth about God, and the way to God, and you will have life, life without fear.
Philip said in his anxiety: How do we know the Father, how do we know God. Jesus said to him if you have seen me, and know that I am with you, you have seen God, you see the Father.
The world, along with ourselves, may well know fear and anxiety. Yet, we have a faith that calls us to trust that God is still with us. That God is with us. Embrace the Christ, embrace the Father, be in relationship with him and with one another. Be in union and love with one another. Carry on in the light of Christ and there will be healing, hope, and peace. We may not know all the answers. We may still be confused about the world. But we shall be in the Kingdom of God do our work with Christ, as the body of Christ, transforming the world into the Garden of God.