So You  Want to Know About God

Sermon by James W. Crawford

May 2, 1999

John 14:1-14

We have been touched, I dare say, over these last ten days with images from Littleton, Colorado, of funerals, memorial services, testimonies to religious convictions, hymns, prayers, the words of counselors, priests, rabbis, ministers.   We are not familiar with all of the religious components of these services, but many of them, as a staple of their liturgies, included the passage from the Gospel of John we heard a moment ago.   The references in the Gospel sound somewhat arcane. They can be difficult to grasp.  But, be assured, John writes these words to provide comfort, encouragement, strength to those of us in distress or numbed by catastrophe.  Indeed, although we tend to read them most often at memorial services, John intends them for moments of stress and threat—moments when we wonder what is going on in this world; who is in charge;  moments when we ask, "Why does everything seem to be going down the drain?"  "How can such a terrible thing happen?"

So this morning, I want to plunge into this glorious testimony of St. John. I want to indicate to you why John and his own beleaguered community confess Jesus amid a chaotic and disruptive world as Way, Truth and Life.  I want to probe with you this profound assertion that through the event of Jesus of Nazareth we can see, know, come to trust, and find ourselves freed for creative life in this world by the loving and gracious Presence at the heart of the Universe—the Presence whom John names "Father."

I

We approach, first, John's affirmation of confidence and encouragement. Remember?  "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. In my father's house there are many dwelling places—many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you I go to prepare a place for you?"

Now what are these "troubled hearts" John points to?   What triggers his reference to fear?  Why are his readers afraid? John really writes about terror here.

The Greek words he uses suggest  trembling, shuddering.  John describes a condition he experiences with his own friends some seventy years after Jesus' death: a bitter contempt and fierce assault from religious types who believe Jesus a fraud and his church a poison pill.  John speaks from a community whose efforts to infuse the world with compassion and peace receive stark repudiation.  They live in terror of obliteration by religious and civic enemies; they gather stricken with fear of abandonment by the love of God. They live on the brink, (some of them, perhaps, passed over the brink!) of believing the world, finally, a hostile, violent, capricious, meaningless, chaotic and bloody mess. 

John, you see,  knows our own condition.  He knows we need assurance. He knows your cry, my cry.  "Help! I'm drowning. Anybody out there? Anybody care?"  John confronts questions we confront.  Can we really trust love when everything around us denies it?  Can we hope even as our cherished world falls apart?  Are we tempted to agree with the cynic  when he says,  "The only excuse for God is that He doesn't exist."?

O friends,  the Gospel knows the fear gripping us when the rug is pulled out, trust is betrayed, commitments turn sour, hopes collapse.  The Gospel knows what it is like to be you and me under the threat  of abandonment and desertion by the Source of love itself.  Through it all, the Gospel pours out a Divine empathy.    "Really?" we ask.  A Divine empathy?  How could this be?  From where does it come? Now hear this: It comes from the One who appears himself to be most abandoned. Jesus on the Cross testifies to "Love's" abiding through the worst life and death and can do to us.  The Gospel shows us One, even Jesus Christ, who experiences the same crumbling and disintegration of confidence and security we may face; One who identifies with our plight.  And just as a trustworthy, vulnerable, gracious Presence accompanies Jesus through the terror of abandonment, so we live in confidence that Presence accompanies us through  threats of menace and terror.

Can we grasp that?  When all hell breaks loose in your life and you feel like you are going under, when you are frightened for yourself and your future and no one—no one— could care less, I beg you, fear no longer. You are not alone. There is a home for you.   And in that home a room for you, and for you, and for you, and for you,  a room opened to you by One who receives and embraces you as would an utterly, reliable, dependable, trustworthy father. This room in Love's home belongs to you right now. This room is not reserved for your future. It is not something set aside for us after we die.  Hardly. Your room, secure, made just for you, designed for your need, decorated to your taste, alert to your sensitivities, waits to be occupied by you in mutual trust right now.   

Abandoned? No way!  Love works to secure you in a room at this very moment. The love of God abides now and forever.

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid! You are not alone!"

II

Then John refers to a "Way"—a "Way" we may reach the father's home in face of threats confusing or rebuffing us. John shows Thomas misunderstanding that Way, Thomas, ignorant of the destination. "Lord," Thomas says, "we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

John offers here one of his majestic literary stunts.  It is a set-up.  We see here John's manner of designing a simple misunderstanding, so he can come through with a crystalline Gospel jewel. Here is the set up: "You ask about the way, Thomas?"  And now the jewel: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me."

That testimony, while on the lips of Jesus, comes not from Jesus himself, but from  brooding, prayerful  long-time reflection of John's community on the meaning of Jesus in this world.  "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" represents the conclusion of a faithful church community trying in every way to make the mission, the power, the transforming presence of Jesus Christ visible and vital in this world.

Make no mistake. This assertion, "I am Way, Truth, Life," is not an arrogant, vainglorious, presumptuous affirmation by the historical Jesus. It is not a chauvinistic, high handed, imperious declaration by a haughty and magisterial Christian church.  Far from it.  It comes to us as a reverential, disclosive confession emerging from John's faithful church community after years of reflection on what the event of Jesus means to them.  Jesus is Way.  Jesus is Truth.  Jesus is Life.  They cannot express him any other way. Churches and Church people for generations, while worshipping, studying, praying, serving, churches and church people while doing all this for Christ's sake  finally surrender to John's verdict about Jesus:  "Way. Truth. Life." As we said at Deacons the other evening, these words may not have come literally from the mouth of Jesus,  but they are nonetheless true.

So what do we mean, "Way!"?  How do we follow it?  What our evangelist tells us here is that the Way of God in this world coincides with the road, the path, the course Jesus follows.  The heart of God bares itself through the suffering love of Jesus.  The Way of God, the Way of Christ is not a mind game, not religious speculation, not a mystical philosophy, not a system of doctrine, not a claim on church membership, not a spiritual mindset.  The Way of God—the Way of Christ—is not a therapy, a new age hype, an esoteric religious discipline.  It is not any of the great religions of the world.  The way of Christ is not even the religion we call Christianity with all of our doctrines, cathedrals, denominations, seminaries, and programs. Hardly. The Way of Christ—the way of God—lies in our risky, compassionate pursuit of human community where we live in grace and  service, mutuality and solidarity with one another.  We know that pursuit can be tough.   We know, with so many nations, races and religions pursuing their—our—own way that the Way of Christ —humility, risk, justice—can generate resistance, hostility, and as it did in Jesus' case, death.   Yet, while surrendering to Jesus' Way, we discover through all of the challenges, difficulties, resistances, failures, that absolutely marvelous insight of Catherine of Sienna, "All the way—all the Way—to heaven is heaven." Risking ourselves, risking our church, through works of grace and love bears Christ to our world. . . . No! More! This Way reveals the very heart of God.

III

And Truth.  Truth.  My soul, we are all aware of this terrible Balkan war. There is a lot at stake in it.   But decisive components of the war can be found in the tremendous machinery given to  explaining, interpreting, rationalizing, persuading, reporting, propagandizing, politicking, arguing and  debating it.  What is at stake here is Truth. Truth.  Can we believe the generals,  the commentators, the politicians?  What do they cover up? What do they sugarcoat?  What do they exaggerate?  What do they lie about?  What do they use to humiliate or  subvert their adversaries?  What do they compose to justify the righteousness and innocence of their positions? Truth is at stake.  And as the cliché would have it, the first casualty of any war is Truth. . . .Truth.

Well in Christ Jesus we confront Truth.  We encounter congruence of word and deed, promise and actuality.  In Jesus Christ we confront one who is what he says, is what he does, is where he comes from, is where he is going.  In Jesus Christ, in a church  permeated by Christ, we discover ultimate integrity,  the integrity of promise made and fulfilled.

Look at it this way.  Jesus bears among us what John calls the Father's love—a love we know no less to be harbored by Mothers—so we might call it the Mother's love. And what does Mother's love look like and do? It risks itself for the sake of her children.  It forgives in face of implacable resentment.  It moves among the wounded, toward the most estranged, amid the most grievous of human circumstances.  Mother love  gives itself unstintingly to healing and hope, to unrelenting pursuit of a lost child; it weeps while persistently working for restoration of distorted or broken ties.  The Mother's love does this undaunted by high risks facing it, undismayed by obstacles  seeking to crush it.  In Jesus Christ we know the depth and courage of this Mother love bound in the limits of human life. By its perfect harmony, in its flawless integrity, through our own seeking to express this Mother love amid those places dying for it, against those powers resisting it, unstayed by those elements mocking it, denying it, cynically indifferent to it we reveal Truth, as Jesus revealed Truth to us— the very heart of God our Mother.

IV

And yes, Jesus Christ is life. If anything shines through the Gospel, it is life. Life to the full. Not life promised by Bud Lite, not life you see promised by Coke or Pepsi, Revlon or Tommy Hilfiger. Not life the way Jaguar, Jeep Cherokee, LL Bean, Princess Cruises, or Oprah's income would have it. That kind of life does not last. It is death. The life the Gospel opens to us is life lived in the sure and certain confidence that no matter what befalls, the tenacious Love of God abides within, around, beneath, above us. The life the Gospel offers to us can be found on that Way of Jesus Christ radiating and doing the truth.

You see, finally (and this is the genius of John's Gospel)  the Life offered us is Life lived out as Way— the Way we bear the dangerous love of God to heal the terrible wounds of our neighborhood, city and world.

 It is Life lived out as Truth: the congruence of what we say, what we do, who we are, how we serve, all uniting through our absolute confidence that love is finally more real than death.  It is Life lived out as Christ.  Life lived out as Christ. 

Henry Drummond, teacher, scholar, friend, inspiration to a whole generation  at the beginning of this century, the author of the little masterpiece, "The Greatest Thing in the World", put it like this:

To become like Christ is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the only thing before which every human ambition is folly, all lower achievements vain. Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of their lives can even begin to reach it. (The Christian life, is therefore not passive, but active.) Effortless adoration may be fit for angels, but never for human beings. Not in the contemplative, but in the active lies true hope: not in rapture but in reality lies true life, not in the realm of ideals but among tangible things lies our exposure to—and exercise of—the life transforming love of God.

Of course.  Pursuing ourselves the Way of Christ with its risk of wounds; confidence in the Truth of Christ with its promise of hope against everything saying "No"; surrendering to  Life in Christ—living the way, radiating the Truth—opens to one another, to this city and world what John opens to us in Jesus, the revelation of the very heart—of God our Mother, God our Father.