The Rev. Richard W. Budd, Ph.D., Rector
The Church of the Good Shepherd, Richmond, VA
Fifth Sunday of Easter, 4-24-05, Year A
Acts 17:1-15; Psalm 66:1-8; 1 Peter 2:1-10; John 14:1-14
Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a map person. Invite me to lunch at O’Toole’s and I will dive to get out my trusty map book. Whenever I am going virtually anywhere I haven’t been, don’t confuse me with directions (you know the kind: turn right at the 7-11 and go three blocks to the Baptist Church, etc.). Give me a map, let me imprint the visual image, and turn me loose!
A few weeks ago, I was to attend a Diocesan meeting at St. Peter’s in Norfolk. So I went to my computer, took out my nifty CD called Microsoft “Streets” and entered the address “224 S. Military Highway”, and Voila! A piece of cake! I printed out the map and put it with the things I was taking to the meeting.
The day before the meeting, the Rector of St. Peter’s called to make sure I knew how to get there. “Sure,” I said, I-64 to 264 West and get off at Military highway and go south about three blocks until I find your street address.
“That’s great,” said the Rector, “but even though our address is Military Highway, the Church is not actually on Military Highway, but on an access road. You’ll actually have to go past the church, do a U-turn and get off Military Highway just before you get back to the church, loop around and head back to the north.”
Ohhhh! That was an important bit of information. Without it, who knows where I might have ended up? I might still be looking for St. Peter’s. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Computers and maps are great, but it is always better to get directions from someone who has been there!
And so we come to today's gospel reading where Jesus says to his disciples in those familiar words—words so often used as we celebrate the lives of those who have gone to be with God -- the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples on the evening before
he was nailed to the cross:
"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."
And Thomas replies to him:
"Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Thomas's confusion about not knowing where Jesus was going is not one that we share. We know where Jesus has gone because of what happened after Jesus rose from the dead three days later.
But the question of knowing the way there—that question still burns in many hearts. If you want to find the way to heaven, where would you look? Well, we have the Bible, don't we? The Bible will help us to know the way to heaven. But there are other books as well. We have libraries and bookstores full of books that purport to tell us how to get to heaven. --we have books by the prophets of other religions and books of other traditions like those of Joseph Smith - and Ron L Hubbard - and even the prophet Mohammad—all of which give us a variety of views about how to know God and how to join God in his eternal kingdom.
In fact we have no lack of information—information from a huge variety of sources more than willing to provide direction—like the information on my printout from MicroSoft Streets—what streets to take and what turns to make.
All these things are great—but if we want to find the way to heaven, much as I wanted to find the way to St Peter’s in Norfolk—then we really need to talk to someone who has been there.
And I think we might have found someone!
In today's reading, Jesus answers the question of Thomas: "How can we know the way," with these words:
"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."
If we want to find the way to heaven, we need to look no further than Jesus, because he is The Way!
Jesus was there before he was born of Mary and Jesus is there now, able to help us find the way, because—like no other person before or since—he has not only exemplified the way, he is, because of who he was, and is, and evermore shall be—The Way.
As Jesus says to Philip: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, and again as he says:
"The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the
Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe
on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
Karl Barth, who is easily one of the most widely read theologians of the 20th Century, was lecturing once to a group of students at Princeton University. One student asked him a question that has probably crossed your minds from time to time:
"Sir," said the student, "don't you think that God has
revealed himself in other religions and not only in Christianity?"
Barth's answer stunned the class.
"No, God has not revealed himself in any religion, including Christianity,” he answered. “He has revealed himself in his Son."
That is the challenge and the discomfiture of our faith. That is the great claim that Jesus makes - and the great stumbling block for many people. We are not called to believe in a religion—nor to follow the teachings of a religion. We are called to believe in a person—a living person; a person who claimed not only to speak for God—but to be God.
It is this basic and straightforward understanding of our faith that changes everything. Indeed, the very first Christians -- the thousands in Jerusalem who decided to follow Jesus on the day of Pentecost and the tens of thousands throughout the known world who become followers in the next two or three decades, were not called Christians -- they were called "Followers of The Way"
Think of some of the claims made by Jesus in today's Gospel:
He tells his disciples "I am in the Father and the Father is in me"
He tells them "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father"
and he tells them "I am the way, the truth and the life"
There is something unique about Jesus that no prophet, no priest, no teacher of any other religion has ever had.
"I am the way, the truth and the life;
no one comes to the Father but by me"
A lot of Christians spend a lot of time apologizing for that statement by Jesus. They assure all their friends, their family -- and those people who have no religion as well as those who follow the prophets of other religions, that God is loving and kind and all that is important is that we love one another.
And while God is indeed loving and kind, and while Jesus himself ha commanded that we love one another, we should never apologize for Jesus and what he said, and likewise we should never set up ourselves as the judge of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.
What we are called to do as ones who believe in Jesus, as ones who proclaim "He is Lord" despite the risks that are involved--be it the risk we find in our society of being scorned and ridiculed by others -- or the risk that others find in other parts of the world of being put to death for saying those words aloud, what we are called to do as ones who have said that Jesus is Lord and as ones who proclaim in our worship that Jesus has been raised from the dead - is to listen to him and to follow him in the way that he shows us to go, and to testify to others about the joy, and the hope, and the love, and the peace we have found in him.
I know that many of you really understand and have experienced within your lives the mercy of God - that mercy that has brought you from a sense of alienation and loneliness and guilt to a new life - a new life in which you feel connected to God and a part of his great and wonderful family - a family different from all other families because it is a family dedicated not simply to doing good rather than harm, but to receiving and sharing with others the Living Christ - he who is our strength our joy and our hope.
I am the Way and the Truth and the Life!
As People of The Way -- as men and women who are called to connect people to the Lord – to bring them to the Way that we have found—we need to do that not by apologizing to them about how Jesus claimed to be the Son of the Most High God - and the way, the truth and life . . . but by rejoicing not only in the powerful experience of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but even more powerfully by speaking of how he has acted within our own lives--
- the prayers he has answered
- the teachings that we have been given, especially those lessons which we did not seek or want,
- the strength we have experienced well beyond ourselves that has sustained us when we ourselves were seemingly at the end of our rope with nowhere else to turn,
- the little miracles, the often unexpected miracles, that happen that bring ever new light and hope and peace into our lives and into the lives of others.
Our experience with Jesus is an experience that is meant to be shared – not hidden for fear that we might somehow be offending others - that we might somehow be judging others. We here today who believe in Jesus are people of the Way. Our job is to point to The Way - to point to Jesus - and to testify as to who he is and what he has done,
- with no apologies
- with no attempt to say what God will or not do to them if they refuse
to listen to us
- and with no judgment upon those who refuse to accept our testimony.
We are called to pray for others - that God will forgive their sins and bring them to the dwelling place in the highest heaven prepared for them by Christ even as we proclaim by our words and by the quality of our love the wonderful things that God has done for us - and for all humankind through Him who is the Way - the Truth - and The Life. Amen.