Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 10, 2020 | Sermon on John 14:1-14 | by Luke Bouman |
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.
Show Us!
One of my Old Testament professors, Dr. Ron Halls, used to say that miracles don’t really convince anyone to believe. They usually just ask you to do it again, slowly.
In today’s lesson from John, the disciples seem to need more convincing. In the chapters leading up to today’s Gospel lesson Jesus has done some amazing things. He has changed water into wine, healed a lame man and a blind man, even raised Lazarus from the dead! Yet, in this passage, on the night before he was crucified, the disciples still have questions. Thomas still doesn’t know how to follow where Jesus leads. Philip still wants to see the Father. None of them seems to understand what it means to ask for things in Jesus’ name. Disciples ancient and modern have been puzzling over these things for nearly two thousand years.
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. 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. There are many different ideas about where Jesus is, and many more about how to get there. There are many different ideas about how Jesus and his “Abba” or Father are one. There are many different ideas about how one asks for things in Jesus’ name, and what it means that Jesus promises to do it if we do. And how in the world can we every accomplish the works of Jesus, much less even greater works than these? What are we missing?
For the most part, I believe now that the answers to these questions must be unpacked from a 1st Century Jewish perspective, rather than the modern Western philosophical framework that has dominated Christian thought since the Enlightenment. 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’ own time and culture.
The first question arises when Jesus tells the disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them. In our time, we have almost exclusively assumed that Jesus is talking about life after death, perhaps about Heaven. The language of a “house with many dwelling places” or in older versions a “mansion with many rooms” has fueled speculation in that direction. But then, Thomas asks his question, and we are given one of Jesus’ iconic “I am” statements as the answer. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
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. We have approached others with the idea that if they don’t 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. In that way of thinking, if you aren’t going to Heaven, then you are eternally damned. There is no in between and no other way. You are either following Jesus to Heaven, of you are going to Hell. So, the church has approached all non-Christians as in dire need of Jesus. Salvation is equated with “going to Heaven.” I find all of this to be questionable, if not completely wrong. I don’t think Jesus was talking about going to heaven in this passage. I think he was talking about how God dwells with us. And that makes a difference.
There was something in the 1st Century that Jewish people considered “the way, the truth, and the life.” That was the Torah. Before its destruction in the 7th Century BC, the Temple in Jerusalem was the place and the means by which the people thought God dwelled with them. In its place, the people began to see Torah as the means by which God was present. This “Word of God” held a special place in the life of Jewish thought both in the exile and in the time when John’s Gospel was written after the destruction of Herod’s Temple by the Romans. Remembering how John’s 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: “In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
When John’s Jesus says, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the life…” John is telling us something new about how God dwells with us! John is saying that Jesus is the new Torah. If the Covenant is the centerpiece of the Torah, John is saying that Jesus is God’s new Covenant with us. 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! By recording Jesus’ 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.
This is amazing good news for us. It means that we don’t have to be consumed about “saving ourselves” so much as our life with God in Christ is God’s project of coming to us and saving us! 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’ name whether they become Christian or not. 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’s 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. All of this is not to say that I do not think there is life after death. I believe in the resurrection, as I confess the creed with all of Christianity. It simply means that I don’t 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. Where Jesus is going, is part of a future that has tremendous impact on our life in the here and now. That is what I think the balance of his statements in this passage are about.
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. God has chosen a human face. God has chosen to walk through life as we do, including our pain, our suffering, even our death. 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. There is no place we can journey where God does not go before us in Christ. John’s Gospel is a “testimony” to the ways in which God is both hidden and at the same time revealed in the common, the ordinary, the outcast, the forgotten. Jesus’ response to Philip is important for all of us. 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. We are used to seeing God in the pleasant things. God is teaching is to see beyond miracles to the miraculous presence in the ordinary.
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. When one is attentive to and mindful of God’s presence, even the most ordinary things, water, wine, and bread, become extraordinary communion. Even the most ordinary people, fisherfolk and tax collectors, become extraordinary witnesses to God’s continued presence. We are the Body of Christ. We, though ordinary, carry with us extraordinary grace and forgiveness, not of our own making, but conveyed from God, through us, to the world.
Finally, we get to the tricky business of “asking for things in Jesus name.” I’ve known people to be disappointed that when they tacked “In Jesus name I pray” to the end of a ridiculously selfish prayer request (my opinion, and probably too judgmental, I admit) and then not get what they want. It isn’t as if saying the words alone would give us the power that religious hucksters would claim. It isn’t the words ‘In Jesus’ name” that hold the power.
What does it mean to do something in someone else’s name? It means that we carry their authority, but are also accountable to do something the way they would do it if they were present. If I send my son on an errand and instruct him to tell someone that I sent him, there are several dynamics at play. First, I trust my son not to abuse this power. Second, I expect that he will represent me fairly in the transaction. If I didn’t 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’s name.
I think that Jesus is giving his followers, ancient and modern the same gift and responsibility. Asking for something is Jesus’ name means asking for something consistent with Jesus’ way of being in the world. Jesus way was the way of a humble servant of God. Jesus way was a mission and ministry of healing and hope for the world. Asking for something selfish or hurtful to others, even if we tack “In Jesus’ name” on the end of the request, is something other than asking in Jesus’ name. Jesus entrusts the asking to us, as the Body of Christ, to be done in concert with God’s mission to bring healing and hope. 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. Such a request is not only “given” to us, but we are, in the act of asking, committing ourselves to being part of the answer. And God’s affirmation includes, then, sending us out in the world to be healing and hope, as Jesus was.
So, asking in Jesus’ name, is serious business. Only those who are prepared to have their lives upended by God and placed in the service of God’s creation should ask in this way. 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. Living, as the Body of Christ, is where I think Jesus is found. He has indeed prepared many dwelling places for us in which to carry out this mission: Houses of worship, homes of the faithful, wherever the Body of Christ gathers, there Jesus has prepared a place.
At no time has it been clearer to me than now, as I write this, staying at home during the time of a pandemic. The normal gathering places for the church have been disrupted. People are finding new ways to be the Body of Christ. But one thing is certain. God, in Christ, dwells with us all. We are not alone. And our mission has not changed. 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. So, we go, or stay, or do whatever we do, in Jesus’ name and way of being in the world.
Rev. Dr. Luke Bouman, Valparaiso, IN
luke.bouman@gmail.com
Deutsch 
English (UK) 
Português do Brasil 
Dansk 
Español