Rev. Cari Pattison
The Fifth Sunday of Easter - May 10, 2020
Acts 7:55-60
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14
Click here for an audio version of this sermon.
Maybe it’s because I’m from Kansas, where the “Wizard of Oz” is our formative myth -- but I love the idea of a way. A path to follow that leads to answers. A yellow brick road that is bright and shiny and easy to see, and leads to that which we most desire- a brain, a heart, some courage, and ultimately- home.
Perhaps it is this founding mythology that partly informed my decision to hike the Appalachian Trail last year. The idea of backpacking 2200 miles from Georgia to Maine lodged itself deep in my imagination and would not let go until I set foot on Springer Mountain. So with my over-stuffed pack and not-so-broken-in shoes, I set out on a journey, in some sense to find my way in the uncertain land of mid-life.
In today’s Gospel text, Jesus does not point to a new spiritual road or a magical map to heaven. He simply says that he is the way. The way that leads not to all the answers or to everything our hearts desire- but the way that leads to truth, and life.
But first there is trouble. It is trouble, after all, in the form of a tornado that sweeps up Dorothy Gale and lands her in a place she never intended to be. And there will be trouble along that yellow road- trees throwing apples, mischievous flying monkeys, sedating poppies, and of course a wicked witch.
The trouble Jesus speaks of in today’s text refers to the disturbed look on his disciples’ faces. He has just told them that one of them will betray him, another will deny him, and worst of all, he is about to leave them.
We keep hearing and reading the phrase lately, “In these uncertain times…”
I can’t help but think that yesterday, the snow falling on newly blooming lilacs in May, was a visual illustration of the strangeness of these times. We wonder, “What season are we in?”
Jesus and his disciples know uncertain times.
In the midst of foretelling their failures and of his own looming departure, Jesus says these words often heard at funerals:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. There are plenty of dwellings in my Father’s house and I’m getting one ready for you. I’m going to come for you, and you know the way to where I am going.”
Philip raises his hand and asks the question on all of their minds, “Lord, we don’t even know where you’re going, so how on earth can we know the way?”
I recall times on the Appalachian Trail last spring when we accidentally took the wrong way. Lost in thought and conversation we followed my friend’s dog, a wonderful border collie mix named Blue, instead of the white blazes that kept us on the AT. She was such a fearless leader for our trail family that we forgot that she did not in fact know the way. She was driven by her sense of smell, usually toward something dead in the woods.
Another time early on in Georgia we got distracted when we left camp in the morning. Intent on doing our first 15-mile day, we made it a mile and a half down the trail before some fellow hikers crossed our path and asked, “Oh, are you south-bounders?” No, we answered. We’re headed to Maine. “Well you’re headed in the wrong direction!” they said.
It can be hard to know the way.
It is hard to know the way right now.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says.
But there is much to be troubled about.
Already over a quarter of a million people have died of Covid-19 worldwide. Unemployment rates are the highest they’ve been since the Great Depression, domestic violence and mental health problems are increasing by the day, and many of the effects of social distancing pose risk factors for substance abuse and even suicide.
We see pictures of New York City and that first verse of Lamentations rings eerily true: “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks… she has no one to comfort her.”
It is unimaginable to think that so many of those 250,000 deaths were people dying alone in a hospital bed with no family, friends, or priest allowed to be by their side.
In the midst of the political blaming and hand-wringing and looking to experts for guidance, we wait. We wait for a definitive word on antibody tests and vaccines. We wait for permission to re-open and come out of quarantine. We wait to hug those we love. In the meantime we look for ways to keep one another safe and healthy, for constructive ways to give and help.
Still we find ourselves echoing some version of Philip’s question: “Lord, what do we do? Where are you going? How can we know the way?”
Many have cried out this week, “Come, Lord Jesus,” in the face of a the brutal murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery. Ahmaud, doing his regular work-out jog, was a young man shot essentially for “running while black.”
We cry out not only at the horror and injustice of this loss of life, but at the racism stuck in the marrow of this nation’s bones: that the two men now charged with the killing were considered justified and allowed to live free for the past two months- even after authorities saw the video of what happened.
We wonder how many other black lives have been shot down and gone unnoticed? How long, O Lord, will this kind of white prejudice and panic persist?
We echo a version of Thomas’s request:
God, show yourself - show us what to do - and may we never be satisfied as long as your children of color, created in your image, are anything less than fully free.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, Jesus says.
And yet there is much to be troubled about.
Sometimes we as Christian community, need to feel the full weight of the psalmist’s words in the one psalm - 88 - that does not end on a note of hope:
“My soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.”
But the promise of the Gospel here, if I understand it, is that Jesus will not leave us there.
He is going to prepare a place - not just in the heavenly realms - but with him here and now. Jesus says he will bring us to himself. He is here to show us the Father Mother Creator God in the flesh.
In all the works the disciples have seen him do thus far - the water into wine, the Samaritan woman befriended, the officer’s son healed, the crowds of people fed, the blind man given sight, the walking on the water, and the raising of Lazarus - Jesus shows them who God is.
Jane Yarmolinsky writes,
“The whole concept of God taking on human shape, and all the liturgy and ritual around that, had never made any sense to me. That was because, I realized one day, it was so simple. For people with bodies, important things like love have to be embodied. God had to be embodied, or else people with bodies would never in a trillion years understand about love.”And yet now we live in a time when we cannot connect in the same embodied way we used to. One woman on Zoom retreat with us this week said, “I just need a hug.” As Brother Robert said yesterday - the absence of touch and hugs and handshakes - “is so loud.”
And so maybe we need this word more than ever: That Jesus is the way that leads to truth and life. That he never intended this word to be an exclusionary statement about other faiths, but rather a word of intimate encouragement to his closest friends:
“I know your hearts are troubled. I know these are confusing and frightening times. But I will be your way, your truth, and your life.” Follow this road. Stay on this trail.
Six times in this passage Jesus tells us to believe, to trust in what we have experienced of Jesus, and to go and do works like he did. To embody God’s love to the world. To be agents of welcome, healing, feeding, giving, teaching, comfort, and restoration.
In a time like pandemic, writes Richard Rohr, we are reminded of the African concept of Ubuntu - that “I am because we are.” That we cannot begin to address the pain of our world unless we do it with a heart for one another.
Not unlike Dorothy, our world is swept up in a cyclone of confusion and destruction. There is sickness in body and in bigotry. There is struggle in the climate, in the economy, and in our souls.
Jesus says into all this, “I am coming. I will bring you to me. I will be your way.”
Like the road leading to Oz and the trail leading to Maine, I sometimes wish the way were always clearer and smooth and easy to follow.
But Jesus’ way is the one that leads to a cross. We will not be able to traverse the terrain of our time without the One who is well acquainted with suffering. We will not be able to go it alone, and we will not be able to follow his way without sacrifice.
In closing, I share a story that has been on my heart this week. Not as an example that would lead us to take risks that might endanger our health and the health of others, but as an illustration that might prompt us to pray. That God might show us how to creatively love our neighbor in a time like this.
The story is told of two soldiers during World War I:
Joseph and Jim were lifelong friends and served alongside each other in battle. Outnumbered and suffering heavy casualties, the commander ordered a retreat.
When the company got to safe ground, Jim noticed his friend, Joe, was not with them. He went to the commander and asked permission to go back and look for him.
The commander disapproved, saying that under heavy fire of the enemy, Jim would surely be killed. He told him they would recover the bodies when it was safer to do so.
Jim apologized before he disobeyed the order and ran back to the battlefield.
Minutes later he came back carrying Joe’s dead body. As he lay him down, the company saw that Jim himself was badly wounded now.
The commander was furious: “I told you he would have been killed in the firefight. You foolishly endangered yourself, and now I risk losing another man. What a waste!”
But Jim, now fighting for his own life, calmly spoke to the commander,
“Sir, it was not a waste. When I got to Joe he was still alive. I held him up and propped him on my lap, telling him to hold on. As he gasped for breath, his last and only words were these:
‘I knew you would come.’”
* * * *
Jesus, you are the one
who comes for us,
and keeps coming,
no matter the cost.
Grant us wisdom
and courage
for the facing of this hour -
that we might believe
and live the kind of lives
that show your love
to a hurting world.
Come, our way,
our truth,
our life.
Amen.
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