Easter 5
St. Alfred's
May 6 & 7, 2023
Opening
Getting lost
Philip is feeling lost and wants to know the way to go. "Show me", he says, "Show me the way we should go."
We were away for a couple of weeks in April. Our son was getting married up in South Carolina, and we took some time to visit with friends in the Carolinas and in Atlanta.
The last one of those visits was scheduled to be lunch at a restaurant in a suburb of Atlanta. As soon as I drove up I knew that this was a popular place. There was not a parking place in sight. After driving around a couple of times, I dropped Mary Pat off at the door and headed back out to search out a parking space.
After a few minutes she emailed the information posted at the door that there was free public parking across the street. I headed into it. It was below ground parking, so I headed down one level, then another, then I followed the signs for available spaces. I went around and over. I went down one direction and then turned in another, following the signs. This went on for 5 minutes or more before I found a place to park.
It was clear to me that I was a long ways from where I entered. I took a picture and walked up the stairs. When I emerged above ground there was nothing that looked familiar. I had no clue where the restaurant was.
Actually if I hadn't had the GPS on my phone I might still be wandering that neighborhood. As it was, there was no direct route back to where I started, and I thought, "It's not going to be easy finding my way back to the car."
But I went on to have a most delicious meal and conversation with our friends.
Being found
Then it was time to find the car. I told Mary Pat it's going to be a while and that she should wait at the restaurant. I headed out, knowing that I wouldn't be able to retrace the steps I had taken from the car. I decided I was going to sniff out the way, using intuition and little bits and pieces of things I remembered from the original walk.
Although it was a considerable walk, I made my way pretty directly -- by a way different from the original. I felt like I was being divinely directed. I felt like quite beyond my own abilities I had been found.
I imagine that "I can find my way back." That somehow the challenge is my ingenuity and perceptivity. But I'm also aware that being lost is precisely, "I can't do it."
I am the way, the truth, and the life
Searching for the way
I frequently hear conversations where one person is quite certain about Eternal truth, that they know the way -- to something or other -- even the best restaurant.
I realized that when I hear someone declare that they know the way, it's a clear indication to me that they probably don't. Maybe they're on their way to knowing, but to be certain is to have got their prematurely.
I had a personal insight in just the last year -- funny that it takes so long to figure out the simplest things -- I realized that it seems to be part of the human condition that we all seem inclined to think that we're right -- about whatever.
I saw a number of billboards on the way home from Atlanta, saying things like, "Jesus is the only way to eternal life." "Jesus, the only way." Some of them quoted directly from John 14:6 (as we hear from today's gospel reading.)
I don't dispute the claim, but what I have trouble with is the narrowness of the intention. My own experience leaves me thinking that the way, the truth, and the life, as it is identified with Jesus, is the broadest hugest thing there is.
The path of discipleship is a journey -- not a thing.
Again and again I've thought of the story I heard once about a little girl who got lost while wandering in the forest. The father began looking for her and relentlessly pursued her through the night. As dawn appeared he came upon a clearing and saw his daughter huddled beneath a large tree. He called her name and she jumped up, shouting, "Daddy, I found you."
Like that little girl, the way of discipleship that Jesus is clearly calling us to, is something of an adventure story. We get lost -- then found -- again and again and again.
It's a journey. It's a pilgrimage. Back to the Father through Jesus.
Metaphor
When Jesus identifies himself with the "way, the truth, and the life" he is not talking literally. It's not like walking back to my car, Jesus says, "Here I'll show you the way."
There is scarcely any passage in the entire Bible that is more obviously metaphorical than what we have heard today. It is to miss the point if we take it literally.
Jesus says: I am the way, the truth, the life.
In this passage Jesus is not telling the disciples all the ways they are not supposed to go. He is shining a light on their path. Their quest for what is true is a path of finding what is lasting and not ephemeral. It takes a lifetime to discover that.
Who is it who said, "What is truth?" in the Bible? Pontius Pilate, of course. Our call to discipleship is to follow what is true and lasting. To seek the Truth. None of us, however, is in possession of Truth -- except the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In these words Jesus is not telling the disciples what church to go to. He is inviting them on the journey he has traveled before them.
The way to the father
Jesus as the way
The Gospel of John talks about Jesus as being so intimate with the Father they are as one. Jesus knows the Father in an intimate and familiar way. see this on Jesus's identification with the Father.
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” He is seeking the way.
Ever since I heard a sermon on this passage from John, I have been haunted by Philip's words.
Show us the way. The sermon has haunted me, because I was persuaded by the preacher that there are consequences to my having said, "Yes" to being a disciple of Jesus.
One of the consequences is that God has made me in part responsible for God's reputation. People will look to me with something of Philip's question, "Show me the Father." "Show me Jesus, he knows the way."
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:30 (Another one of those deeply metaphorical statements of Jesus.)
Whoa! That's heavy prospect.
But at least one of the ways the burden is made lighter -- is that we are not alone.
Royal priesthood
Royal priesthood
I've often thought about the notion I first heard from Pete Seeger. He said that it's the company you keep on the journey that's most important. It's not just the final destination, or as another singer put it, "It's got to be the getting there that's good."
The wonderful thing about this journey or pilgrimage we are on is the wonder of the folks we get to travel with. The company we keep on the pilgrimage of following Jesus is, as the reader puts it today, a Royal Priesthood.
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. --1 Peter 2:9-10
We are colorful passionate group of pilgrims seeking the way of doing what Jesus did. Why? Because that's how we show the way to the Father for all the people we meet.
There's not some special privilege involved in this "Royal Priesthood." It is love. It is compassion. It is caring for one another. It is not privilege. It is not first in line. The first shall be last, the last shall be first.
It is the way, the truth, and the life.
