Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
   Acts 17:1-15; Psalm 66:1-11; Acts 17:1-15; John 14:1-14

Today’s Gospel reading, like the beloved 23^rd Psalm, is often identified as a funeral or memorial service reading.  In our secular society, there are many who have only heard it in that context.  And how many of us would prefer the word “mansions” for “dwelling places”?  We usually hear only the first 4 verses of this reading. I know, because I have been humbled and moved by the invitation to read that passage many times at services.

In those 4 verses, we may find comfort.  We may find a sense of peace. I would argue that perhaps comfort and peace are the most important gifts of those familiar words, particularly for those who are grieving.  But, it is also important to contemplate these words when waves of grief and despair are not crashing over us. To hear them in the context of the whole Gospel.  To feel them lift and sustain us. To make them ours. To hear other verses in this reading which challenge who we are and what we believe and our relationships to one another.

The Gospel of John is intentionally arranged so that the first 12 chapters tell the story of Jesus to non-believers, to convince them that Jesus is the Word incarnate. Written after Paul’s letters and the Synoptic Gospels, John’s Gospel can be seen as an apology, a defense of the faith for the believers. The members of the Johannine community had already been ejected from the Temple. Persecution was also a regular part of their lives.

In John’s Gospel, Chapter 13 begins the message to the believers.  It includes the story of the footwashing and the betrayal, all within the setting of what may have been a Passover meal.  After Judas left the gathering, Jesus told his disciples, again, that he would be with them only a little longer. He instructed them to love another as he had loved them. Peter, as always, did not understand, and promised to follow Jesus everywhere. Jesus answered him by talking about a rooster crowing 3 times.

Throughout the Gospel of John, there are discourses, teachings and sayings of Jesus which are beautifully and articulately grouped.  The Last Discourse may begin at the end of chapter 13,  when Jesus talks to his friends, his fellow travelers, to the believers, for  more than 3 long chapters.  A highly competent stenographer would have been required for that speech if it had been delivered in its entirety.  Those gathered words, from many situations and settings during the life of Jesus, contain some of the most well-known sayings.

Picture the gathering that the Evangelist might have envisioned. Tables in a horseshoe with 12 couches for the diners.  A gathering of friends and some servants. Probably a fair amount of smoke in a room lit by candlelight.  A basin for footwashing.  Conversations and arguments which grew in intensity as the wine flowed.  Possibly the smell of roasted lamb and bitter herbs. And then the opening lines of the Last or Farewell Discourse.

With Judas on his way, the events leading to the crucifixion were gathering speed. This discourse was composed and delivered by a man whose life could now be measured in hours, poised between this world and God’s kingdom.  Facing his own death, Jesus offered comfort to his confused friends. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  They have been faithful followers, and they believe in God, as faithful Jews. Jesus tells them, “Believe in God”, which may have been puzzling.  Of course they believe in God.  “Believe also in me”. Believe in Jesus as the Word incarnate.  Believe that the voice of Jesus and the voice of God are the same, that the words of God are embodied in Jesus.

Jesus promised to prepare a place for each of them, so that which might be seen as an end, is a beginning. The cost of discipleship might be high, but Jesus had plans for his friends beyond this life. In the ultimate sense of ‘holy hospitality’, all would be ready. Not only that, but Jesus would escort them. In one of the few references to the “end time” or the second coming in this Gospel, Jesus spoke of departure, but also of return.

Thomas echoed a previous question asked by Peter.  Thomas wants a roadmap when he asks “how can we know the way?”  Jesus as the embodiment of the Word, is the way.  Jesus, through word and deed, through telling the truth about God’s love had repeatedly shown his followers how to be in relationship with God and with each other.  Perhaps it was with sadness that Jesus realized that words were not enough, even for his followers. Many people had come to trust and follow because of the works, because of what they had seen, not what they believed. 

In his words, “I am the way, the truth and the life”, Jesus affirms that he is the one to offer companionship and direction in our journeys. And one purpose of those sometimes aimless wanderings, of the difficult questions?  To allow us to find meaning in our lives. These verses would have us believe that Christ is the sole source of knowledge of God, the sole source of access to God, the sole revealer of the truth of God, and the gate to new life. 

It is the power and the strength of that connection which Jesus commends to his disciples. Jesus, worker of miracles, healer, liberator, teacher, promises that same ministry to the disciples who believe in him.  Not only will the disciples follow in the footsteps of Jesus, but they will do greater work. The works of the followers will eclipse those of the teacher, as Jesus intercedes with God on their behalf. Centuries later, he makes those promises to us.  Yet all this will be accomplished to glorify God, not Jesus, not the disciples, and definitely not us.  Glorify God….

“Do not let your hearts be troubled”.  Many words of great comfort, yet much of this passage, for all its comfortable words, does not have that effect on me. It does leave me troubled.

I wrestle regularly with the interpretation of “I am the way, and the truth and the life”. I do not believe in a selection process for heaven, based on my faith being the only true faith. As an ordained woman, as a deacon, a vocational deacon, there are churches in this country, in dioceses of the Episcopal church, where I am not accepted. One of the leaders of the Vermont Ecumenical Council, a guest at the consecration of the new Roman Catholic Bishop of Vermont, our Bishop Tom Ely was not allowed to receive communion along with all the other non-Roman Catholics, many of them members of the Vermont Ecumenical Council, all of them sitting in the front row. 

This week, at an interfaith meeting of area clergy, I listened to the sensitive presentation for a program for YomHaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance service in May at Middlebury College. The program included readings and prayers from a variety of traditions, and included Jews and Christians representing all who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.  The rabbi spoke movingly about the choices.  A final prayer was offered by a minister, for the whole gathering. In it, the risen Christ was invoked again and again, and the prayer was offered in thanksgiving for the Resurrection.  Personally and individually, I find it very difficult to pray without adding “in the name of Christ our Lord”. As an interfaith chaplain, that is exactly what I am sometimes called to do. At that meeting, we were an interfaith group, yet the prayer was exclusionary, and an involved, contributing member felt like an intruder.

I do not believe that we are called to exclude anyone, to deny relationship with and to God in the name of Jesus. Jesus’ spent countless hours of his ministry being in relationship with a diverse group of people. His ministry was all about relationship: to God; to us; ours to one another. I do not presume to know what heaven looks like. But this I do know:  I believe in a heaven that includes the rabbi and the millions affected by the Holocaust.

One of the ninety-five year old residents at Helen Porter is a fisherman, and knows a lot about access to fishing holes and ponds. He has said over and over again as he has watched programs on the Middle East and the death of the Pope. “You know, there is one God. There are just a lot of different access routes.”  Bless him.  I agree. 

Amen.

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