How you get there

• Acts 7:55-60
• 1 Peter 2:2-10
• John 14:1-14
• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

 “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This is one of those gospel verses that seems to give Christians an exclusive privilege, like, I don’t know, the right to issue religious ultimatums.  It’s a passage often read at funeral services, to give hope to the grieving, so it’s strange when you hear, as I did not long ago, a preacher use it to harangue a crowd of mourners, warning them against being insufficiently convinced of the exclusive privilege of the Christian, and thus disqualified from joining their departed loved one in heaven.  And when you do hear something like that, it makes you wonder--what did the author of the Gospel had in mind? 

I took the opportunity this week to really dig into this scripture, more than I have before, and so I packed a little more Bible interpretation into my sermon today than usual—I hope you won’t mind.  I’m not going to cite verse numbers, but if you want to keep your lectionary insert handy, and refer to the gospel lesson once in a while as I’m preaching, I won’t be offended.  And I’m going to go back a little bit into the 13^th Chapter of John, so if you’re so inclined and want to pull one of those black bibles out of the pew rack, go head.  

Because the most important thing I think we can do with a scripture like this is to put it into context.  In the story of the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks these words after supper on the night before the day of preparation for the Passover, after he had washed his disciples’ feet, after his betrayer had left the table and gone out into the night, after he had predicted that Peter would deny him three times.  And Thomas, that tactless disciple, asks him a question about how and where to follow him, now that he was about to die.  

And our reading today begins with Jesus telling his disciples that it’s going to be okay—“do not let your hearts be troubled.”  It’s going to be okay because his death will not mean the end of their relationship.  And it will not mean that the knowledge of God that they have received through him will be lost.  In fact, that relationship, and that knowledge, are about to shift into a higher gear.  Because Jesus is going away, but he is going to the one he calls “my Father”, to be in an even more intimate and equal relationship with God.   

And this will change the way that the disciples relate to Jesus, but it also will be a change toward greater equality and intimacy.  He has already shown them this change, that very evening, by getting down on his knees and washing their feet.  And when he finished inaugurating their new relationship of intimacy and equality with him, he told them that this was now how they were to relate to each other: “Where I am going” he said “you cannot come.  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.”

I don’t think we can over-emphasize the importance of the connection between this commandment and the scripture we are talking about today.  Before Jesus promised to go and prepare a place for us in the house of his Father; before he promised to come back for us, he told us that we cannot come where he is going.  Because we still have work to do.  We have a commandment to obey.  That’s why when Philip follows up on Thomas’ question by saying, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” Jesus gets a little testy: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?”  Because “No one comes to the Father except through me,” is not permission for us to be satisfied.  It is a reminder that we have seen all we need to see, in order to believe in Jesus and get to work.  We already know all we need to know, to keep his commandment, and love as he loves—that is how you come to the Father.

But don’t take my word for it; look at the Gospel, where Jesus goes on to talk about works.  “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.”  It is the works of Jesus, even more than his words, that show us the Father in the Son.  And the greatest of his works is the one he is about to do as he speaks these words, which is the work of the cross.  

It is on the cross that Jesus manifests most clearly and unmistakably the love of the Father, love so great that he gave his only Son to an uncomprehending world, to the end that all who believe in him should have eternal life.  The way that leads to the Father is the way of the cross.  The truth that Jesus is, is the truth that Pilate scorned when he said, “What is truth?”  Eternal life is the life of the Good Shepherd, laid down for his sheep.  It is this kind of love that Jesus commands us to have for one another.  No one comes to the Father any other way. 

So now that we’ve seen the context of this saying, we understand.  Jesus has not given us an exclusive privilege, but an all-embracing responsibility.  Because it is our love that shows the way, the truth, and the life to those whom the Father loves in the world today: so that they might see his glory; so that they might believe that we were sent, as the Father sent the Son, and believing, have eternal life in his name.  Now for many in the world today these are just words, empty of any meaning.  But works—works they might just believe. 

“Very truly, I tell you,” says Jesus, “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.”  And we say to ourselves, “What?--You’ve got to be kidding!  Me…you…do the works of Jesus?  Do greater works than Jesus?  Greater than changing water into wine?  Greater than giving sight to a man born blind?  Greater than raising Lazarus from the dead?  Greater than dying on the cross?” 

I guess it all depends on what Jesus meant by greatness.  Is it the power to work miracles, or command armies? Is it charisma, or fame?  Or is Jesus talking about greatness of faith, greatness of hope, greatness of love?  Maybe we can do works greater than his because he, after all, was Jesus, and you and I are just you and me.  Jesus was the only-begotten Son, who shared his Father’s glory before the world was made; all we share are some old stories in an old book, and some bread and wine and water.  Jesus knew everything that was in the hearts of men and women.   All we know is that the rent is due on the first of the month, and that some people are just hard to love.  All that the Father has he gave to the Son.  All we got is our own modest gifts, precariously balanced against our deficits.    That, and the faith that Jesus is in the Father and will give us whatever we ask so that we can do our works. 

They may not be spectacular: raising an autistic child, or tending to a failing parent; planting a garden in waste ground, or organizing a rally for justice; surviving an addiction, perhaps, or a bereavement, and helping a neighbor to do the same; helping resettle a family of refugees from war.  Often they are works we didn’t choose, and we feel like Jesus at the wedding in Cana, when he said to his mother, “Woman, my hour is not is come.”  But it precisely because we do them out of love, in obedience to Christ, with no power but the strength that comes from God, in just the right measure at just the right time to get us a little further along the way—just because of this, these works manifest the very highest truth.  They are signs of the glory of Christ, and they point the way to the Father.

    

God's work--our play

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

I think it had something to do with long hours behind the wheel on winding coastal roads, maybe in combination with sleeping on the ground, but about three days into our recent family camping trip I got a pain in the back.  The muscles along the left side of my rib cage and up under my shoulder blade just kind of tightened up into a knot, and the stiffness went all the way up into my neck so that I could hardly turn my head.  Fortunately, part of my wife’s vacation planning included back-to-back appointments for her and me with a massage therapist.  Meg’s mother and stepfather retired to Ashland, Oregon almost 20 years ago, which was where our trip ended up, and on our visits over the years we have been back a number of times to see this particular practitioner, who offers a very subtle but powerful kind of healing touch that unwinds muscular tension in the body from within.

When I got to my feet after an hour on her table, I had not received a miraculous cure.  The pain wasn’t entirely gone, but there was less of it, and I had regained much greater range of motion.   I could breathe more deeply, and my body felt lighter, more open and balanced than it had, not just since before the acute back pain began, but more than it had for quite a long time before that.  And as I was standing there, experiencing my relief, the massage therapist pointed out something, something I already knew.  She led into it by asking me if I spend a lot of time on the computer.  And I said that I did, and she said she thought so, because long hours at the computer can exacerbate a posture which is stooped, with the shoulders slumped forward, and the chin and neck kind of thrust out. 

She recommended that I do what I can to prevent this from getting worse, because over time that curvature in the cervical spine might start to impinge on the nerves and lead to numbness and tingling in my arms and hands.   She suggested taking frequent breaks from the computer, and getting up out of my chair to stand for a time in what she called the “Superman postures.”  [Demonstrates].   Anyway, over the last couple of weeks I have added doing my Superman to yoga practice, and sitting meditation, and surfing, and the other things I have already been doing to counteract my tendency to slump.  Because, as I said, it not like that massage therapist was telling me something I didn’t already know.

You see, I had this tendency long before I ever started working at a computer.  My father has it, too.  Maybe I inherited it in my DNA.  Then again, maybe it is not so much a matter of biology, but of mental and emotional posture and way of being in the world.  After all, these things that get passed down in families, too.  It is common nowadays to speak about our bodies in the language of mechanics and engineering.  But anyone who has ever lain down to sleep and had a dream knows that, left to itself, the natural language of the body is image and story.  So it has occurred to me over the years to think of my posture not simply in physical or medical terms, but also as a symbol.  Maybe I, like my father, have a tendency to take on too many burdens, to be overly conscientious and responsible, to carry, as it were, the weight of the world on my shoulders.

In any case, I’m not so much interested in talking to you about my own physical and mental problems, as in making a more general point, which is that the state of our souls affects, at least to some extent, the shape of our bodies.  And recent research in fields from neurobiology to cross-cultural anthropology to clinical psychology have shown the profound connection between mental and physical patterns.  But this is one of those things we don’t really need scientists to tell us is true.  I think for most of us it just makes intuitive sense, and our ancestors understood it perfectly.  So when the Gospel of Luke describes a woman in the synagogue who is bent over and cannot stand up to her full height, Jesus has no trouble seeing a spiritual cause for her condition.  He lays his hands on her and tells her she has been set free.  Which would be a strange choice of words if her stooped posture were a sign of a structural problem with her spine, or lack of core strength.  But for Jesus it is bondage inflicted on her by Satan, the Spirit who accuses and oppresses human beings and denies them the full, free flourishing of their lives.  After eighteen years of carrying that monkey on her back, Jesus drives it away in a moment, and this is what enables that women to stand up straight and tall.  

And I think this connection between body and spirit is the key to understanding the larger context of today’s Gospel story, and why acts of healing have such a central place in the ministry of Jesus.  Because this is not just a story about the miraculous healing of a woman who could not stand up straight.  It is also part of the larger arc of story in the Gospel of Luke about the intensifying controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees.  It is one of no fewer than three incidents in that larger story where Jesus gets into trouble for healing someone in the synagogue on the Sabbath day.  And it would be easy, and even traditional, to interpret these incidents as conflicts over the Jewish law, and how rigidly scrupulous to be in observing it.  But in my reading of today’s story, it is really not about that.  What it is about is what Jesus is really doing when he heals people, and what that has to do with the loving and redeeming purpose of God. 

When the Pharisees look at Jesus laying hands on someone and curing them, they see a person doing work.  He is like a masseur or a chiropractor providing therapeutic services to a client.  He may not be getting paid, but he’s receiving other benefits, such as gaining another follower and enhancing his reputation.  And he is doing this work in the synagogue, on the very day when it is forbidden to practice one’s trade or do anything to advance one’s personal interest in the world.    It’s a prohibition that is rooted, as you know, in the Jewish story of creation.  It is a way of honoring the creator God, who, after finishing the work of making the world, rested.  God gave us every seventh day to cease all striving to improve things, a day simply to be thankful for the life we already have, and to worship the one who gave it to us. 

But what the Pharisees fail to understand is that when Jesus helps that woman cast off her spiritual burden and stand up straight and tall, so she can breathe freely and be fully alive, he is not merely doing a job on behalf of a particular individual.  He is making a proclamation to the entire community gathered in that place, of what their Sabbath rest is really meant to be about.  It is a continuation of the same proclamation he made at the very beginning of his public ministry, when he stood up in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and read from the scroll of the prophet, “the Spirit has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom to the captive, liberation to the oppressed, to announce the year of the Lord’s favor.”  Jesus heals in the synagogue on the Sabbath to remind us, that the Sabbath God wants to share with us is perfect rest, perfect joy, perfect peace—and as long as there is even one person in our midst still burdened by oppression, want, loneliness, fear, or grief, God’s work is not done.   

Which is not to say that we should never stop to rest, to celebrate a Sabbath.  But it does give that rest a significantly different meaning.  The Sabbath that Jesus proclaims is not simply the enjoyment of work completed; it is also, and maybe more importantly, anticipation of work fulfilled.  The followers of Jesus gathers for worship on the first day of the week, not the last.  Here we rest and give thanks for the blessings we’ve received, but we also take in nourishment, in word and sacrament, to refresh us and renew our strength for another week of carrying on Jesus’ work.   Now, I say “work,” but if it’s really the work of Jesus, it’s more like play.  Because it’s not our personal responsibility to fix the world—that is a burden none of us can bear.  No, our work, like Jesus’, is neither more nor less than this—to tell stories, and create images, and act out symbols that proclaim what God is doing to complete the new creation of the world.