John 14:1 „Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 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? 3 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. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.“ 5 Thomas said to him, „Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?“ 6 Jesus said to him, „I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.“ 8 Philip said to him, „Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.“ 9 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‘? 10 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. 11 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. 12 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. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Show Us!<\/strong><\/p>\n One of my Old Testament professors, Dr. Ron Halls, used to say that miracles don\u2019t really convince anyone to believe. They usually just ask you to do it again, slowly.<\/p>\n In today\u2019s lesson from John, the disciples seem to need more convincing.\u00a0 In the chapters leading up to today\u2019s Gospel lesson Jesus has done some amazing things.\u00a0 He has changed water into wine, healed a lame man and a blind man, even raised Lazarus from the dead!\u00a0 Yet, in this passage, on the night before he was crucified, the disciples still have questions.\u00a0 Thomas still doesn\u2019t know how to follow where Jesus leads.\u00a0 Philip still wants to see the Father.\u00a0 None of them seems to understand what it means to ask for things in Jesus\u2019 name.\u00a0 Disciples ancient and modern have been puzzling over these things for nearly two thousand years.<\/p>\n It would be easy for me to point fingers at other people, not just followers of Jesus, but even theologians and pastors, who have gotten things from this passage horribly wrong.\u00a0 But the truth is that even I must admit that I have tried various explanations on to see how they fit, only to find them lacking, one way or another.\u00a0 There are many different ideas about where Jesus is, and many more about how to get there.\u00a0 There are many different ideas about how Jesus and his \u201cAbba\u201d or Father are one.\u00a0 There are many different ideas about how one asks for things in Jesus\u2019 name, and what it means that Jesus promises to do it if we do.\u00a0 And how in the world can we every accomplish the works of Jesus, much less even greater works than these?\u00a0 What are we missing?<\/p>\n For the most part, I believe now that the answers to these questions must be unpacked from a 1st<\/sup> Century Jewish perspective, rather than the modern Western philosophical framework that has dominated Christian thought since the Enlightenment.\u00a0 When we hear the words of Jesus, it might be best to acknowledge that what we hear today needs to be set aside for what we might hear if we use the lens of Jesus\u2019 own time and culture.<\/p>\n The first question arises when Jesus tells the disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them.\u00a0 In our time, we have almost exclusively assumed that Jesus is talking about life after death, perhaps about Heaven.\u00a0 The language of a \u201chouse with many dwelling places\u201d or in older versions a \u201cmansion with many rooms\u201d has fueled speculation in that direction.\u00a0 But then, Thomas asks his question, and we are given one of Jesus\u2019 iconic \u201cI am\u201d statements as the answer.\u00a0 \u201cI am the way, the truth, and the life.\u00a0 No one comes to the Father except through me.\u201d<\/p>\n The trouble with the traditional way of reading Jesus answer is that it has encouraged some in the church to think of our mission as a zero-sum proposition.\u00a0 We have approached others with the idea that if they don\u2019t come to God through Jesus, that they and their religion are not only misplaced, but also that they will not be going to the place where Jesus leads, in most cases, Heaven.\u00a0 In that way of thinking, if you aren\u2019t going to Heaven, then you are eternally damned.\u00a0 There is no in between and no other way.\u00a0 You are either following Jesus to Heaven, of you are going to Hell.\u00a0 So, the church has approached all non-Christians as in dire need of Jesus.\u00a0 Salvation is equated with \u201cgoing to Heaven.\u201d\u00a0 I find all of this to be questionable, if not completely wrong.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think Jesus was talking about going to heaven in this passage.\u00a0 I think he was talking about how God dwells with us.\u00a0 And that makes a difference.<\/p>\n There was something in the 1st<\/sup> Century that Jewish people considered \u201cthe way, the truth, and the life.\u201d\u00a0 That was the Torah. Before its destruction in the 7th<\/sup> Century BC, the Temple in Jerusalem was the place and the means by which the people thought God dwelled with them.\u00a0 In its place, the people began to see Torah as the means by which God was present.\u00a0 This \u201cWord of God\u201d held a special place in the life of Jewish thought both in the exile and in the time when John\u2019s Gospel was written after the destruction of Herod\u2019s Temple by the Romans.\u00a0 Remembering how John\u2019s Gospel begins, with its echoes of the start of Genesis, the start of the Torah, should now begin to ring lots of bells for us:\u00a0 \u201cIn the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.\u201d<\/p>\n When John\u2019s Jesus says, \u201cI am the Way, and the Truth, and the life\u2026\u201d John is telling us something new about how God dwells with us!\u00a0 John is saying that Jesus is the new Torah.\u00a0 If the Covenant is the centerpiece of the Torah, John is saying that Jesus is God\u2019s new Covenant with us.\u00a0 I think the most important thing is this, that Jesus is not talking about how we might find him in a new place, but rather that Jesus is telling us about how to find him wherever we are!\u00a0 By recording Jesus\u2019 words in this way, John is trying to help us to understand how Jesus dwells with us, and through Jesus, how God is with us in every time and every place.<\/p>\n This is amazing good news for us.\u00a0 It means that we don\u2019t have to be consumed about \u201csaving ourselves\u201d so much as our life with God in Christ is God\u2019s project of coming to us and saving us!\u00a0 It means that rather than threatening other people with a join-or-die philosophy, we are free to invite them to join us in caring for the world and others in Jesus\u2019 name whether they become Christian or not.\u00a0 It means that God is concerned with more than just those people who follow one or another religious set of rules, but rather God is concerned to be with all of creation. It means we are free to care for God\u2019s creation, as God does, rather than using and abusing it because our ultimate goal is to leave it. It means we are free from the tyranny of living for ourselves.\u00a0 All of this is not to say that I do not think there is life after death.\u00a0 I believe in the resurrection, as I confess the creed with all of Christianity.\u00a0 It simply means that I don\u2019t think that God, in Christ, was disinterested in life in the present moment. I happen to think that new life in Christ is something that we live both in the present AND in anticipation of a future with God.\u00a0 Where Jesus is going, is part of a future that has tremendous impact on our life in the here and now.\u00a0 That is what I think the balance of his statements in this passage are about.<\/p>\n Jesus and the Father are one, not in the same way that we think of things as one, but rather that Jesus is how God has chosen to dwell among us.\u00a0 God has chosen a human face.\u00a0 God has chosen to walk through life as we do, including our pain, our suffering, even our death.\u00a0 God has done this in order to be with us not only when things go well, but also, and maybe especially, when things go badly for us.\u00a0 There is no place we can journey where God does not go before us in Christ.\u00a0 John\u2019s Gospel is a \u201ctestimony\u201d to the ways in which God is both hidden and at the same time revealed in the common, the ordinary, the outcast, the forgotten.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 response to Philip is important for all of us.\u00a0 Learning to see God in Jesus, and especially in his works, is the key to seeing God present and active in every aspect of our lives.\u00a0 We are used to seeing God in the pleasant things.\u00a0 God is teaching is to see beyond miracles to the miraculous presence in the ordinary.<\/p>\n So, when Jesus says to the community gathered around him that they will also share in his works, and even greater works, perhaps he is pointing to our ability to see God active in and through Christ in the extraordinarily ordinary living of our everyday lives.\u00a0 When one is attentive to and mindful of God\u2019s presence, even the most ordinary things, water, wine, and bread, become extraordinary communion.\u00a0 Even the most ordinary people, fisherfolk and tax collectors, become extraordinary witnesses to God\u2019s continued presence.\u00a0 We are the Body of Christ.\u00a0 We, though ordinary, carry with us extraordinary grace and forgiveness, not of our own making, but conveyed from God, through us, to the world.<\/p>\n Finally, we get to the tricky business of \u201casking for things in Jesus name.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve known people to be disappointed that when they tacked \u201cIn Jesus name I pray\u201d to the end of a ridiculously selfish prayer request (my opinion, and probably too judgmental, I admit) and then not get what they want.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t as if saying the words alone would give us the power that religious hucksters would claim.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t the words \u2018In Jesus\u2019 name\u201d that hold the power.<\/p>\n What does it mean to do something in someone else\u2019s name?\u00a0 It means that we carry their authority, but are also accountable to do something the way they would do it if they were present.\u00a0 If I send my son on an errand and instruct him to tell someone that I sent him, there are several dynamics at play.\u00a0 First, I trust my son not to abuse this power.\u00a0 Second, I expect that he will represent me fairly in the transaction.\u00a0 If I didn\u2019t expect these two things, I would not send him. It is a gift and a responsibility to be sent to do something in someone else\u2019s name.<\/p>\n I think that Jesus is giving his followers, ancient and modern the same gift and responsibility.\u00a0 Asking for something is Jesus\u2019 name means asking for something consistent with Jesus\u2019 way of being in the world.\u00a0 Jesus way was the way of a humble servant of God.\u00a0 Jesus way was a mission and ministry of healing and hope for the world.\u00a0 Asking for something selfish or hurtful to others, even if we tack \u201cIn Jesus\u2019 name\u201d on the end of the request, is something other than asking in Jesus\u2019 name.\u00a0 Jesus entrusts the asking to us, as the Body of Christ, to be done in concert with God\u2019s mission to bring healing and hope.\u00a0 And, of course, when we ask for such things, as the Body of Christ, we are committed to seeing them come to fruition in our world.\u00a0 Such a request is not only \u201cgiven\u201d to us, but we are, in the act of asking, committing ourselves to being part of the answer.\u00a0 And God\u2019s affirmation includes, then, sending us out in the world to be healing and hope, as Jesus was.<\/p>\n So, asking in Jesus\u2019 name, is serious business.\u00a0 Only those who are prepared to have their lives upended by God and placed in the service of God\u2019s creation should ask in this way.\u00a0 But the good news is that with God, in Christ, dwelling among us, we have all we need and more to live out the mission to which we are attached in water and word, and equipped in wine, bread, and word.\u00a0 Living, as the Body of Christ, is where I think Jesus is found.\u00a0 He has indeed prepared many dwelling places for us in which to carry out this mission:\u00a0 Houses of worship, homes of the faithful, wherever the Body of Christ gathers, there Jesus has prepared a place.<\/p>\n At no time has it been clearer to me than now, as I write this, staying at home during the time of a pandemic.\u00a0 The normal gathering places for the church have been disrupted.\u00a0 People are finding new ways to be the Body of Christ.\u00a0 But one thing is certain.\u00a0 God, in Christ, dwells with us all.\u00a0 We are not alone.\u00a0 And our mission has not changed.\u00a0 We find whatever ways we can to offer healing and hope to a people who cling to division and hate, which is what Jesus did.\u00a0 So, we go, or stay, or do whatever we do, in Jesus\u2019 name and way of being in the world.<\/p>\n