The Many Faces of God
Reflections on John 14.1-14
Easter 5A
14 May 2017
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
14.1 [Jesus said,]
“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.”
I want someone with skin on.
Anyone who preaches on a regular basis collects stories,
some factual, some fictional, but all true.
I remember one from my later days in seminary.
One night a father and his young daughter were home
alone. The little girl went to bed while
her father remained nearby reading.
Shortly after she went to bed, a thunderstorm began to rage around their
home. After the first loud boom of
thunder, the little girl called to her father, but he simply said, ‘You’re
safe. God is with you.’ A little later a second and louder boom shook
the house. Again she called for her
father and again he assured her that she was safe and that God was with
her. Then came the third boom of thunder
accompanied by sheets of rain and arrows of lightning. Again the girl called out and again the
father told her she was safe and in God’s keeping. ‘I know that God is with me,’ she replied,
‘but I want someone with skin on.’
Jesus is God with skin on.
What the little girl wanted is what we all want. We want someone with skin on who will assure
us that we are not alone, that we are safe and that the storms of our lives
will pass by without destroying us.
On the night before he was to suffer death, Jesus knows
that his disciples are anxious. He knows
that they are afraid. The short homily
he gives in the opening verses of today’s gospel reading is all well and good,
but it does not satisfy the deep human need to have a physical presence that
reassures us, that accompanies us, that gives us hope.
Philip asks Jesus to show us God, to break through the
clouds that separate humanity from the divine, to give us the tangible proof
that God has not abandoned us, especially in a moment of uncertainty and
perhaps even terror. And Jesus simply
turns, perhaps smiles, perhaps raises an eyebrow and says, ‘Philip, have you
not understood? Have you not seen? When you travel with me, when you believe in
me, when you live as I live, you have seen God, you see God, you will see God.’
The way, the truth and the life
Over the centuries Jesus’ simple statement that he is
‘the way, the truth and the life’ has been used by Christians to justify the
oppression of those who differ from us.
In doing so we have forgotten the challenge that is embedded in these
words.
Jesus is the way.
In Jesus every human being is shown how to become more fully human. But it is a life-long journey filled with
successes and failures, with moments of faithfulness and occasions of betrayal,
with courage and with cowardice. I have
sometimes thought that we should take a phrase from the marriage liturgy and
insert it in the beginning of the baptismal liturgy: ‘[Baptism] is a way of life that all should
reverence, and none should lightly undertake.’ [1]
Jesus is the truth.
In a society where political leaders can shamelessly use terms like
‘alternate facts’ as a euphemism for ‘lies’, ‘collateral damage’ as a euphemism
for ‘the death of unarmed civilians’, and ‘globalism’ as a euphemism for
‘economic imperialism and colonialism’, the truth revealed to us in Jesus of
Nazareth is the rock upon which we take our stand. And Jesus’ truth is that all God’s children
deserve justice, that all who be great must love as God loves and that we are
the stewards of creation not its overlords.
Jesus is the life.
Every human being wants to be fully alive and to become the person that
God intends her or him to become. And
because this is what we all truly desire, we look for life in all the wrong
places: in relationships based on
unexamined needs rather than love, in the possession of more things rather than
having enough, in the search for celebrity than the nurture of character.
All around us are men and women, some who confess the
Christian faith and some who do not, who walk the way of Jesus, who profess the
truth of Jesus and who live the life of Jesus.
The faces of God surround us and we, like Philip, do not recognize them.
We shall do greater things.
Today’s gospel ends with what I think is one of the more
daunting statements about trying to follow Jesus, trying to believe in Jesus
and trying to live the life of Jesus: 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. By choosing to be a member of
the Christian community, Jesus has laid on us the responsibility to be the face
of God, to be ‘God with skin on’ in the here and now of our lives.
When we turn to one another in a short while to exchange
the peace, look carefully at the faces of the people we greet, for theirs are
the many faces of God. When we open our
doors for the Boulevard Sale in a few weeks, our neighbours will gaze
unsuspectingly on the many faces of God working to serve others. When clients come to the Pastoral Resource
Centre, they find themselves face to face with the God who draws near in the
person of Christine and those who work with her. When people who have been alienated from the
Christian community gather in a circle later tonight in Saint Hildegard’s
Sanctuary, Melanie and those who share in the leadership are the faces of the
God who seeks us wherever we may be.
Sunday after Sunday we gather here to look into the
mirror of the Scriptures, the prayers offered, the bread broken and the wine
poured, so that we can see how God’s face is found in our own. We wash away the smudges that obscure God’s
image in us, so that we can go forth from here into the thunder and lightning
of everyday life to show the way, to proclaim the truth, to live the life. Why?
Because we all need someone with skin on to assure us that we are not
alone, that we are safe and that the storms of our lives will pass by without
destroying us.
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