A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday in Easter, Year C

Acts 16:9-15
Revelation 21:10-22:5
John 14:23-29
 
“I am going away, and I am coming to you.”
 
      V.         Alleluia!  Christ is risen.
      R.         The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!
 
      What’s happening in my life shapes significantly shapes the way I understand the Bible.  When I read the gospel passage and start wondering what it means to me, naturally the events of the moment, of the here and now, influence my interpretation.
 
      Now some might say, “The gospel only has one correct, true meaning that never changes.  It only means what Jesus originally intended.”  That’s nuts.  The evangelists themselves didn’t interpret Jesus in that way as we’ll see in today’s gospel.  We take Jesus’ words and stories and find ourselves in them, and we find meaning in them for our day, interpret them for our circumstances.
 
      Last week, we lost a dear man.  For about thirty years, Fr. Owens ministered and worshipped in this parish.  At his funeral yesterday, Fr. Dunnan, the preacher, told us about his heroism in World War II, how he won the Silver Star and the Bronze Star, and about his thirty years as a legendary headmaster of St. James’ School.
 
      Like many of you, I experienced Fr. Owen’s support, kindness, generosity, and care.  He inspired me, a model of grace and graciousness, of steadiness and faithfulness and dignity.  Watching him I learned about friendship and family, how he valued them and worked at developing those relationships.
 
      Most of us have lost someone dear to us.  Part of life and love is the experience of sorrow, grief, emptiness, turmoil.  Those feelings are part of a good life, a full life.  Of course, I believe in a future where we are all together, united in God; a future where there is no mourning or pain, but joy and completion and wholeness.  But separation, loss, hurts – no matter how normal.
 
      John’s gospel was written probably in Ephesus, one of the grand cities of the Greek world, probably in the 80s or 90s, and likely going through several revised editions.  It took final form at least fifty years after Jesus died and roughly ten to fifteen years after the other evangelists.  The authors of the gospels wrote them for specific Christian communities and used them to address opportunities and problems in their communities.
 
      John’s gospel was likely being written about the time Christians were being expelled from the synagogue.  Up to that time, Christians would have been part of the synagogue, associated with the Jewish community.  Some Jews considered John’s group of Christians to be abandoning Judaism and monotheism by making a second God out of Jesus.
 
      As with many break ups, there’s much tension, and a strong hostility develops as they separate into two groups, those in the synagogue and the deviants outside the synagogue.  Unlike the other gospels, John’s gospel repeatedly refers to “the Jews,” the synagogue folks, and has sayings that may make us cringe and cry “anti-Semitism.”
 
      Today’s gospel reading comes from the part of John’s gospel known as the “Farewell Discourse,” four chapters of Jesus speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper.  This was in the early ‘30s, and Jesus was getting ready to go to the cross, to separate from his disciples.  In chapter 14, three disciples – Thomas, Philip, and Judas (not Iscariot – remember there were two Judases) – each ask Jesus a question.  The three questions express the concerns of John’s community separating from the synagogue.
 
      See what’s happening: it’s over fifty years after Jesus, and John’s community is using the stories and sayings of Jesus to understand what’s happening to them in their day.  The Bible is supposed to be a resource for us as well.  We use it to make sense of what’s happening here and now, to make meaning out of our lives.
 
      In the verse before today’s passage, Judas asked Jesus, “Why have you made your identity plain to us but not to the world?”  It’s a very sensible question: “Why do we get it and others don’t?  Why do we see that Jesus is the Messiah and others don’t?”  John’s community wondered, “Why are we getting kicked out of the synagogue?  Why do we get it and others don’t?”
 
      Judas (not Iscariot), at the Last Supper, was confused.  It seemed to him that Jesus had deliberately chosen to hide himself, his true identity as Son of God, from the world.  Why didn’t Jesus, since he’s God, make his identity clear?
 
      Jesus answered, “Those who love me will keep my word.”  We heard his word in last week’s gospel, also at the Last Supper, Jesus’ words just a few moments before today’s, “Love one another the same way I have loved you.”  Jesus had just washed his disciples feet, including Judas Iscariot’s, and was about to give his life for them.  “Love as I love.”
 
      Jesus’ answer to Judas (not Iscariot) was: “Don’t worry about why some believe and some don’t believe.  Rather, stay focused on my command, on my word, on loving one another.  What matters most is not understanding but doing, not knowledge but action.”  The priority is living the gospel.  “If you want people to believe, to get it, love one another.”  That is evidence of God.
 
      So in this farewell scene, the first thing Jesus did was to give his disciples focus, to remind them what matters most, and then he spoke to how they were feeling, their sense of loss.  Judas felt sadness, fear, anxiety.  He was about to lose Jesus’ physical presence; he was about to lose his sense of security; he was about to lose his purpose and meaning in life; he was about to lose his hopes and dreams.[i]  He had to wonder, “What am I going to do now without Jesus?”  It’s frightening and desolating.  It seemed as if his relationship with Jesus was coming to an end.
 
      We experience that routinely in life: a loved one dies, a relationship breaks up, a job calls us to start a new life, to make a new home far away.  Jesus was about to die, to go away.  C.S. Lewis wrote,
We think of [death] as love cut short, like a dance stopped in mid-career or a flower with its head unluckily snapped off…  If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation…, then for both lovers, and [and for all who love], bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.…  It is… one of [love’s] phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure.
After separation, the dance continues – no doubt different, and transformed.  Grieving is a process learning how to love in a new way, to figure out the next steps in the dance with the absent person.
 
      That’s what the disciples gradually figured out in the 30s when Jesus died; that’s what John’s community gradually figured out in the 90s when they got kicked out of the synagogue; that’s what we gradually figure out in our day when we experience separation.
 
      Jesus promised Judas that his departure would allow Judas to experience his presence in a new way, that he would have peace, that the Holy Spirit would help keep them close.  Jesus said, “Don’t let your heart be afraid.”  Judas did not yet understand that the disciples were going to have to relearn their relationship with Jesus.  They were going to have new responsibilities, new roles, new ways of experiencing Jesus and representing Jesus.
 
      They were also going to have a new and deeper intimacy with God, to enter the next phase of love: that God was coming to them, to us, and making his home with them, with us.  That’s a big part of why we come to church.  That’s what communion is: to be close to God, close to each other, close to those who are absent.  The Christian journey calls us to re-learn ourselves, who we are, to awaken that we’re not alone, ever.  God has come and makes his home in us, dwells in us, with us, for us.
 
      “I am going away, and I am coming to you.”
 
      V.         Alleluia!  Christ is risen.
      R.         The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!
 
 
Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] Thomas Attig, How We Grieve: Relearning the World, OUP (1996), pp. 170-71.  He also provides the quote from C. S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed.