Easter 5, 2020

 

Gospel: John 14:1-14

This morning Jesus graces us with another of his “I am” statements.  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  Jesus says this at the very beginning of his long farewell discourse in the book of John.  He is getting ready to go to the cross, so he is preparing his disciples for his absence.  And we are those disciples that he is absent from, in the body anyway.  He is not physically present in a way we can readily recognize.  We, like Thomas, don’t know the way.  I love Thomas.  The other disciples smile and nod at everything Jesus says, but Thomas isn’t afraid not to know.  He’s not afraid for the other disciples to see he doesn’t know.  He goes ahead and asks the questions.  “How will we know the way to where you are going?”

I love lists.  Lists have saved me a lot of pain and misery over the years and when I lose my list, something is very wrong.  I want to keep track.  I love to check things off.  I love to accomplish something.  I am the disciple asking Jesus for a list of what I have to do to follow him.  Maybe I’d like a list of directions.  “Turn left at the post office, go about a mile past the school and it’s the third house on the right.”  Or I’d like a list of meetings I need to attend or good works I need to accomplish to be right with him.  Maybe the disciples are like that, too.  Tell us what we need to do and we’ll do it, so that we can arrive. 

In the past two months most of my lists have become garbage.  My calendar is empty.  I’m not going to be trained on leading a boundaries class.  I don’t need directions to my meetings or to visit your homes.  I’m not going to visit my mom and sister this summer.  I’m not leading adult forum or visiting the homebound or meeting the neighbors.  All my lists are useless.

Instead of a list, Jesus offers a person, himself.  “I am the way,” “I am the path.”  The way is relationship.  It isn’t a box to check off.  It is a person to be in relationship with.  And although we can’t see Jesus standing right in front of us, Jesus is in front of us in the imprisoned, in the ones left out, in the hungry and frightened and medically fragile, in the lonely, in the scared, in the frustrated, in the refugee, in the unemployed. 

Jesus says, “I am the way.”  Jesus is the way.  It’s not a matter of whether you say his name.  It’s a matter of relationship with him and with his people, the raggedy nobodies that he is in relationship with.  The truth is, we are these nobodies, helpless, frustrated, needy, tired.  He came to us, even when we handed him over to death, tired of his graces being wasted on people who were undeserving and ungrateful.  He came to us and we rejected him and he said, “Father, forgive them.”  When he says this, everytime he says this, I hope we look up from our lists and maps and see something we had been longing for—mercy and hope that opens our eyes to a greater vision.

Maybe we are starting to put aside our lists and see what God has been trying to show us.  If you’re always looking at the map, how can we enjoy the scenery, the view, our companions on the journey?  If we open our hearts and imaginations, can we see God making our world anew?  Things I always wondered why they couldn’t be, are happening.  People can ride the bus for free where I live.  Kids can get a free meal every day with no one asking if they are deserving or hungry.  Farmers are offering their potatoes by the truckload to people in need and Kroger is buying excess milk and donating it to food banks.  Folks have been extra generous to our Food Bank here at Spirit of Life.  We’ve been receiving monetary donations above and beyond.  We’re in conversation with HelpLine and Positive Olalla Project, the other Food Banks in Port Orchard, to talk about what we can learn from each other about feeding our neighbors.  Although our lives are re-arranged, some of that is an improvement upon what went on before.  When we listen to the vision that Jesus is placing before us, we can see all the hungry being fed, folks having adequate shelter and clothing, people sacrificing their comforts to give to people who are hurting, people forgiving each other and asking forgiveness.  This is the way of Jesus.  This is the way and the truth.

And don’t forget, Jesus’ way and truth can be very challenging.  The story of the stoning of Stephen is proof of that.  Stephen has been following the way that Jesus speaks of.  We would hope that we would know the way because it opens before us easy and calm, but no.  Stephen follows Jesus way of proclaiming the vision, even as he is being murdered.  This vision and hope and love enrages people who can’t bear it, who don’t want people to be empowered by relationship with Jesus.  Jesus’ path leads through death’s valley and to the cross.  It doesn’t go around the long way.  Jesus’ way goes through those places.  Jesus goes with us into the hospitals to the ICUs and sits vigil with those on ventilators.  Jesus’ way challenges injustice that favoring the wealthy over the poor and ignore widows and refugees.  Jesus’ way goes into prisons to comfort those who suffer and wait on death row or endure lockdowns to prevent the spread of Covid-19.  Jesus’ way goes into the woods with those who have nowhere to lay their heads.  But it also brings a light to those places, resurrection hope to those people and places.  The Valley of the Shadow of Death is not forever, because of relationship with Jesus.  Because of the assurance we have in Jesus’ vision for this world and the next, and the relationship we have with him, we are on solid ground and assured enough in the truth to go to the difficult places of death and despair and to risk our own comfort to say, “This is wrong, it needs to change,” and to hold people accountable to make the changes.  And we go there knowing that Jesus will transform us and death’s dark valley and bring us through to eternal life, to that place with many dwelling places.

Jesus assures us that we will be with him.  There is plenty of space.  Although we live in a world of pain and sorrow and illness and injustice, God is transforming our vision of what could be into God’s own vision of what will be—a vision of a garden with healing leaves, a vision of dancing and feasting, a vision of all creation drawn together.  It makes us long all the more for what God is doing, for the milk he offers.  And so we take bold steps on that path, on that way of love and justice, speak truth to powers that kill and destroy and find those powers zereoed in on us, much as they have been on the one we follow.  But we find ourselves undeterred, more determined than ever, because it is the only vision worth following, the one that calls to us with hope and that asks us to expand our gifts and use them for noble and just purposes, for God’s purposes and values.

We hear this reading so often at funerals.  But it is also a wedding text.  Jesus is the bridegroom who is going to prepare a place for us to abide, to live together in unity and love, in relationship.  So our anticipation is one of joy.