Lectionary Year A, Easter 5: April 27 & 28, 2002
St. John's Episcopal Church, Austin, TX

Acts 17:1-15

Psalm 66:1-11

1 Peter 2:1-10

Jn 14:1-14

     Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." "I am in the Father and the Father is in me." What do these statements mean? What did these words mean to the community of believers who first heard them, and what do they mean to us? What do they mean for the Christian mission? Questions like these lie at the very center of the Christian faith. They also leap out at us from today's Gospel lesson.

     The Gospel of John is known for Jesus' discourses which are easily recognized by the "I am" statements like "I am the bread of life;" "I am the light of the world;" "I am the resurrection and the life." Today's Gospel lesson comes from the "Farewell Discourse" in which Jesus tells his disciples that Peter will deny Him and that He will leave them. Peter is astonished and the other disciples are dumb struck by the foreknowledge that their leader is going away. But Jesus reassuringly tells them to not be troubled. He tells them to believe.

     But believe in what? He tells them to believe in God and to trust in Jesus. Nothing new here, right? Trust in Jesus. Trust in God, Jesus, Mom and apple pie. We've heard that since we were kids! But this was new stuff to the Johannine community! Never before had any person said that he could be trusted in the same way God was trusted. The Johannine community eventually came to an understanding of who Jesus was, and that is what got them into trouble with their Jewish neighbors – just like Jesus got into trouble with the Pharisees who heard him talk about himself.

     The Gospel reports that Jesus called Himself "I am." What does that mean? I AM is the voice of Almighty God. We hear it first when the voice addresses "Moses from the burning bush making him the first person in earth to know the name of God. 'Thus you shall say to the Israelites,' God instructed Moses, 'I AM has sent me to you.' 'I AM.' The name of God." [1] Can you see why the Pharisees got upset? As far as they were concerned Jesus used God's name, or rather abused God's name. How dare Jesus equate Himself with God! To the Pharisees, that was blasphemy pure and simple. It did not matter to them whether Jesus was speaking for God or even instead of God. Jesus was way, way out of line when He equated Himself with God. As they saw it, there was only one I AM, and Jesus wasn't it.

     But, to the writer of the Gospel of John, Jesus was it. And every word and action of Jesus in the Gospel shows us their view of Jesus. What can we learn from this ancient community of Jesus followers about who Jesus is for us?

      Jesus told the disciples that he would prepare rooms for them in his Father's house. Isn't that a wonderful image? It is domestic and hospitable. It is a way of showing the loving and close relationship between Father and Son and the Son's friends. The disciples are welcome in His father's house. It is this kind of welcoming presence that Jesus enacted when he washed the disciple's feet. The writer of John is saying to us that just as Jesus did for the disciples, God will do for us. [2]

     Most of us think of the Father's house as heaven, and I think that is right. But the writer of the Gospel also wants us to understand that because of the intimate relationship between God and Jesus, a new reality will be created by Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. And this new reality is what leads us to the hardest, and maybe the most controversial saying in this Gospel lesson: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him" (Jn 14:6-7).

     Many people today take these verses literally, claiming that Christianity is the exclusive pathway to God. But that takes these verses out of context. It also disregards the important theological truth embedded in the entire Gospel of John.

     Let's look first at "I am the way." What does that mean? The word "way" is not meant to convey a particular exclusive pathway or road. The scholar Gail O'Day notes that "way" is used "as a metaphor to describe a life lived in accordance with the law or the will and desire of God." [3] The Johannine community understood this, because when they saw Jesus, they experienced God walking among them by witnessing the relationship Jesus had with the unseen God. After all, at the very beginning of the Gospel, Jesus is described as the word that is eternal with God and in God. The Word became flesh in the person of Jesus. The Johannine community recognized the divine connection between God and Jesus.

     The writer of the Gospel is telling us to imitate Jesus, to follow His ways because they are the ways of God. Think of it this way. Suppose you ask me for directions to the seminary, and I begin by telling you to head east on Braker, south on I-35, and west on 32^nd street until you get to Duval. Maybe you'll get there or maybe you won't. But what if I said, "Let me take you there." In that case, I become the way. Literally. That is what we have in Jesus. His ways are the ways of God and the way to God. [4]

     Let's now look at "I am the truth." This again points to the relationship between God and Jesus. When the Johannine community remembered Jesus and reflected on his miracles and his teachings, they heard essential Truth. They saw in Jesus the embodiment of a life lived in God. Perhaps they saw what it was to lead a moral life. Perhaps they saw what it meant to have an effective and deep spiritual or prayer life. But sustaining all the attributes of how Jesus lived was His relationship with God. It was His life with God that Jesus made available to the Johannine community. Jesus' life is what makes Him available to us today.

     What about the statement "I am the life?" I believe here that Jesus spoke about two things. First, He talked about a God who did the hard human work of a carpenter. Through that work, God experienced what it means to try to stretch the salary to pay all the bills. God also felt temptation. Finally, God learned about struggle, personal humiliation, and death. It is easy to imagine a god who condemns humankind. It is also easy to imagine a god who, when humans oppose him, he wipes them out. But, John knows that the true God felt humiliation and agony when He was raised up on the cross to hang by his limbs and suffer the terrible suffocating death of crucifixion.

     Second, when Jesus said "I am the Life" he spoke about a future life-giving unity with God. That's what the raising of Lazarus was all about. In that story, Jesus' life giving powers restore his friend Lazarus. Today's reading promises that we can share in those powers. Jesus said, "the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these … If in my name you ask for anything, I will do it." Jesus is talking to us about prayer, but He is not giving us a magic formula for getting what we want. Quite the contrary! By putting "life" at the end of "I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus is telling us that to pray thoughtfully we need to first follow the way (imitating Jesus) and second, we need to understand the Truth. Only then can we pray using Jesus' name as authorization for our petitions to God, confident that we make our requests from our relationship with God and in God rather than making selfish requests. In other words, Jesus is telling us to be thoughtful about prayer, and to pray about what to pray for. [5]

     So where do we stand regarding the questions I asked at the beginning? Just who is Jesus to you? The writer of the Gospel of John was an evangelist, and he had a definite point to make. For him and his community of followers, Jesus was the incarnate presence of God on earth. The writer of John believed that the kind of faith in Jesus that his community possessed was necessary to salvation. He probably did not care about the faith of the Nubians, Parthians or the other peoples of the Mediterranean isles. The author of John was exercised about what he knew and felt in his gut. [6] The Gospel writer is telling us how his community understood faith. To them, faith in Jesus was not something in addition to God, to be exercised by those who choose to do so. [7] Rather, the community understood Jesus to be the revelation of God, and so for them, it was only natural to seek God through faith in Jesus. This is what the Gospel says: Develop a personal relationship with Jesus, because it is through that relationship that we will more clearly understand God's relationship is to us and our relationship to each other.

     It's important – perhaps vital – to understand that relationship is what this is all about. That's why we are in church today! We are here, as a believing community to share our stories and our faith with each other so that we can understand our individual and community experiences of the divine. I remember many long talks with my Dad as we painted the fence or did other chores around the house. He would tell me stories of his youth and about when he and my Mom were dating. At dinner I would tell Mom what Dad had said, and then she told me her side of the stories. That sharing is what the disciples did with their stories of Jesus. It is what we do to understand who and what we are as a Christian family following the way of Jesus.

      What we do here every Sunday is make the kind of memories that will sustain and nourish us in those times when we feel distance from God, or when we let our own illusions separate us from God's presence. [8] The preacher Fred Craddock once wrote that what we need to remember is the worship, the Table, the bread and cup. Someday, he said, the memories we make here will be the "only food [we] will have.

     "I am the way, the truth, and the life" is an expression of the Johannine memory of who and what Jesus was to them. It is not a prescription for admission to the heavenly mansion. And we would be well to remember that, because we human beings have enough trouble without also trying lay an exclusive claim to divine Truth. In 1936, the poet T.S. Elliot wrote a poem called "The Rock" in which he described how as human beings we become so full of ourselves that we create idols our of everything – including religion and even Jesus Himself. Any exclusive claim to Christian Truth is idolatry. Here is what Elliot had to say, which summarizes for us the Gospel of John and gives us a warning.

First the Gospel:

In the beginning GOD created the world. Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And when there were men, in their various ways, they struggled in torment towards GOD

Blindly and vainly, for man is a vain thing, and man without GOD is a seed upon the wind: driven this way and that, and finding no place of lodgement and germination.

They followed the light and the shadow, and the light led them forward to light and the shadow led them to darkness,

Worshipping snakes or trees, worshipping devils rather than nothing: crying for life beyond life, for ecstasy not of the flesh.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep.

And the Spirit moved upon the face of the water.

And men who turned towards the light and were known of the light

Invented the Higher Religions; and the Higher Religions were good

And led men from light to light, to knowledge of Good and Evil.

But their light was ever surrounded and shot with darkness

As the air of temperate seas is pierced by the still dead breath of the Arctic Current;

And they came to an end, a dead end stirred with a flicker of life,

And they came to the withered ancient look of a child that has died of starvation.

Prayer wheels, worship of the dead, denial of this world, affirmation of rites with forgotten meanings

In the restless wind-whipped sand, or the hills where the wind will not let the snow rest.

Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep.

Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time and of time,

A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history: transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a moment of time,

A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning.

Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word,

Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being; Bestial as always before, carnal, self-seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before,

Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light;

Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way.

And now, Elliot's warning:

But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.

Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before

That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason,

And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.

The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what have we to do

But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards

In an age which advances progressively backwards?

     Let's not progress backwards. Let's move toward the light, remembering and celebrating that it is Jesus who shows us Christians how we can live into God, and let God live in us.

Acts 17:1-15

After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you." Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason's house. When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, "These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus." The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.

That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas off to Beroea; and when they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. These Jews were more receptive than those in Thessalonica, for they welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing. But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well, they came there too, to stir up and incite the crowds. Then the believers immediately sent Paul away to the coast, but Silas and Timothy remained behind. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him.

Back to Top

Psalm 66:1-11 or 66:1-8 Page 673, BCP

Jubilate Deo

1

Be joyful in God, all you lands; *
sing the glory of his Name;
sing the glory of his praise.

2

Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! *
because of your great strength your enemies cringe before you.

3

All the earth bows down before you, *
sings to you, sings out your Name."

4

Come now and see the works of God, *
how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.

5

He turned the sea into dry land,
so that they went through the water on foot, *
and there we rejoiced in him.

6

In his might he rules for ever;
his eyes keep watch over the nations; *
let no rebel rise up against him.

7

Bless our God, you peoples; *
make the voice of his praise to be heard;

8

Who holds our souls in life, *
and will not allow our feet to slip.

9

For you, O God, have proved us; *
you have tried us just as silver is tried.

10

You brought us into the snare; *
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.

11

You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water; *
but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

Back to Top

1 Peter 2:1-10

Rid yourselves of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

"See, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious;

and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

"The stone that the builders rejected

has become the very head of the corner,"

and

"A stone that makes them stumble,

and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,

but now you are God's people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.

Back to Top

John 14:1-14

Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. 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 will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 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 than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."

Back to Top